Coaches wife confronts columnist in press box

Very well known, but mostly in the sense of "coach bellotti's ex-wife who apparently cheated on him, thus necessitating a divorce." I went to UO, I covered the team for a season for the student paper (the same year as the divorce) and I couldn't have told you her name without looking it up. It was always "Bellotti's wife."

 

Also, Canzano is a columnist. He has more leeway than a reporter, and this is a blog item and not a print story. Now, should columnists or reporters blogs be held to the same standards as the print product ...?

 

I love how she says, "You've dragged our family through so much hurt and pain..."

Does she honestly not know the hurt and pain was caused by her son's actions, not the fact that it was reported?

He doesn't get 2 DUIs, there's no story.

 

And her actions just exasperate the situation.

 

would be fun to sit there and totally ignore these people

 

Not to mention exacerbate.

 

You know what I meant.

 

This all comes down to perception and fairness. Now the last time we discussed Canzano, it was in relation to how it looks to the public with him taking a highly paid gig with a radio station owned by Paul Allen. And Canzano basically told us: Don't care how it looks, I know I can't be bought. And some us responded with: Damn right it matters how it looks.

Looks bad for someone involved in an incident to have control over how that incident is reported to the public. By the looks of it, an unedited account. If The Oregonian had seen fit to publish a news story written by someone who wasn't involved in the incident, then fine, let Canzano have his say, although I'd still think it was small of him. But the appearance is that he wants the only say, judging by the number of retorts he directs to those readers who dare question him.

Don't know Canzano. Maybe he's a great guy who can't be bought and who can be a wise and impartial judge of all things, including incidents that involve him, unlike the rest of journalism's mere mortals who generally would be forced to recuse themselves from their newspaper's coverage of something involving them. But it sure doesn't appear that way to me. And by the looks of things, it doesn't appear that way to readers, either.

And I doubt those readers see a whole lot of difference between an Oregonian item and an Oregonian blog post. It is still written by the sports columnist of the state's largest paper, with the full weight of that institution behind him.

Colleen Bellotti could be the most evil witch in the world for all I know. And I'd still think this is an example awful, biased journalism and an arrogant abuse of clout.

 

No harm intended. Just having a little fun.

And, yes, I know what you meant.

 

This is pretty much what blogs are for, isn't it? To clue readers in on the behind-the-scenes kind of stuff that for one reason or another isn't quite right for the paper? I have no problem with Canzano or anyone else telling people about something that happened to him in the press box. It's his blog and he's free to give his version of events. This isn't a newspaper story, blogs are told from the blogger's point of view. If he didn't include this incident on the blog, there would be no point in him having one.

 

Frank, what happened if Colleen Bellotti blogged on this, and Canzano linked from his blog?

Or what if she had blogged first and beaten him to the punch?

 

Yeah, but joe, that's our definition of a blog. If the majority of the public equates a blog entry with a news story -- and I see no good reason why we wouldn't expect them to -- then the purpose is defeated. It's on the newspaper Web site, with the implicit blessing of the newspaper brass.