Oklahoma State coach Gundy blasts Oklahoman columnist

I never said the supporters of Gundy were freaks on the lunatic fringe.

And it's no secret the general public groups us in the scum category with lawyers, auto mechanics and cars salesmen - they'll pile on us whenever they get a chance. Even studies show this trend. Sorry if you somehow think this means I'm disconnected, but the general public doesn't understand how reporters get their facts and write their stories. I get asked questions all the time by my friends about our craft.

 

You're right. Things are just wonderful. Tell that to your friends who have been laid off ... or are about to be. [Going to find a pix of the guy whistling past the graveyard]

 

Ira, you forget that despite circulation declines and ad revenue shrinkage, newspapers remain profitable. We're talking cuts and the like because the bean counters' PROFIT MARGINS are coming down. Sure, some papers in certain economic atmospheres are losing money, but it's a myth to think our stuff isn't being read.

 

Didn't say things were wonderful, Ira, I said we're more read than ever -- of course, I'm countering your point that people no longer wanna read us since they feel we "bully" the likes of Bobby Reid. IGQ is dead on.

We'll agree to disagree on this one, since I respect your opinions.

 

Exactly. And that's exactly the reason why we should spend more time cleaning up our act -- and admitting that columns like this are nonsense -- and less time complaining about jackoff coaches.

I don't care that Gundy's a jerk. I do care when someone in OUR profession does something to hurt OUR credibility. And any way you slice it, this column -- and the attention it has generated -- has done a great deal of harm to our profession.

 

Wicked, fair enough.

 

Well, he is right. We are more well read today than ever. A guy in Sri Lanka could ostensibly read something I wrote about State U. today, whereas 15 years ago that might not have been possible.

The typical web hit count for our NBA writer is about 50,000 unique hits per story. I'd wager more than half of those are people who would have had no access to our NBA coverage 15 years ago.

However, those people are also getting the product for free, and the ad sales to drive said product aren't there yet. That's why the business is struggling, not because people are pissed off at what we're writing.

Hell, half the time, people being pissed off at what you're writing equals MORE readers, not less. They want to read what the hell you've written this time, so they can be pissed off about it and send in an angry email -- again, a dynamic that was impossible 15 years ago.

 

Who is "the general public"?

Phrase drives me crazy since it's essentially meaningless.

The "general public" who reads the New York Times is helluva different than the "general public' who reads sthe Bumfuck Daily News and complains about the "negative" stories. .

 

Well, I care that Gundy's a jerk, too. That's not going to change.

 

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that "meanie" columns are the ONLY reason our business is suffering.

I'm saying the fact that we often dismiss any criticism as ignorance on the part of our readers is a bad idea. Look, when we bought ink by the barrel and we monopolized the business, it didn't kill us to have that attitude. We all know that's no longer the case.

IMHO, the answer is NOT to become more bloggish, which is what this columnist did. It's to be better at what we're supposed to be doing.

 

Thing is, everything in Carlson's column is probably dead-on - that's quite a statement by her and her paper to have the confidence to go ahead and print that column if, as Gundy claims, "three-fourths of it" really was fictional. And it's not a far cry to say Reid's mom is lying when she denies the chicken-feeding incident to Wojo. Sources lie and give their PC quotes all the time, and we print them.

Yeah, Carlson didn't do us a service when she sourced everything as "rumors" and "back stories." But were her column constructed and organized better, would Reid have gone off on her? No way, not the way he did, anyway.

 

And here comes the lawsuit. (Nothing like burying it with a passing mention in the next-to-last graf). :

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=sports&id=5677281