Kentucky-Notre Dame gamer from AP ... um, what?

I give him major props for correctly spelling judgment and Gillispie and having the name of the NIT correct -- things I've seen incorrect on this board.

 

Actually, it's sharp thinking by Mr. Coyne.

It required a snappy realization - on deadline - that the very (insane) idea of any big-time college basketball coach citing a higher power calls for swift satire.

 

Quite correct, hence my mention of it going through the desk three times before that version hit the wires.

Posed a record? Really?

Have an affect?

I mean, I realize the AP is cutting as much as many papers. I get that. I guess I'm not even really blaming them. Just kind of a "sad state of journalism" when the AP is sending out shoddy stories like that. And the thing is, that's not a rarity. I generally fix 2-3 things in every AP story I do, and that's not style stuff.

 

I'm thinking somebody on the desk wasn't quite in step with your assessment, because a 3rd write-through moved on the wire at 1:41, and the final paragraph had some work done:

 

It's not a news writer's job --- especially one that works for the f'n AP --- to inject sarcasm into their stories, especially when doing it by basically mocking someone's religious beliefs.

That said, I don't think he was being sarcastic. I think he F'd up. He somehow got confused. That's what I choose to believe anyway, because then we can just say it was an honest (albeit clueless) mistake.

The other explanation - that it was his 'dry sense of humor' shining through - makes him look MUCH MUCH worse, in my opinion.

 

The readers don't. So, fail. I'd give him points for trying, but if you have to know the writer's sense of humor to get it, it's not suited for this type of story.

What would have made a decent line in a column or in B.S.ing around press row doesn't work as the end of an AP gamer.

 

Not a column. That is all.

 

Even if it was some sort of dry sense of humor, the "joke" wasn't funny and the "joke" doesn't belong in a gamer.

Pretty obvious that the guy screwed up. That's fine. We all screw up sometimes.

And you're right, AP writers must deal with crazy deadlines.

 

The World Wide leader ran the AP story, injected it with "sources told ESPN" material regarding Gillispie's future, and left the everything else as was.

So AP's weren't the only copy editors asleep at the wheel. Hey, stuff happens. But when I imagined the Gillispie-reporter exchange, I couldnt' help but think of the '98 British Open, when winner Mark O'Meara remarked that Birkdale played to a three-club wind at times.

"Which clubs? asked a young reporter from, believe it or not, S.I.

 

A Tom Coyne-bashing thread? Seriously?

OK, so the guy covered probably a murder trial in Gary in the morning, then had to zip over to Fort Wayne in the afternoon for some local mess or another, then had to get to South Bend for a crappy NIT game at night, but not before running his kid over to hockey practice, and then had the gall not to get what Gillespie meant?

Wow, what an idiot, huh?

Cut the guy a break. He's good people who does good work.

 

readers don't know that

 

Well even so, I guess I'm not so cut throat that I think it deserves a thread about what a moron the guy is.