University of Alabama beat writer: The Birmingham News

Well, it's not a job in Knoxville [/callingouttigervols]

 

I hope this thread isn't petering out. It has been most entertaining. Let's keep it going. I haven't seen Greg Wallace's name mentioned yet. What? The job is filled? Who cares! Post more anyway.

 

Unbelievable. A group of jackasses ripping on Rubin and Ron Ingram. WTF? I'll bet that not a soul in here who has ever met either of these two can say anything bad about the experience. Yeah, Ingram's a little corny and he's not gonna awe you with his brilliant prose, but dammit, the guy's a helluva HS writer and knows everything about every-damn-body. And Rubin's just a generally nice guy.

As I said, unbelievable.

Oh, and to whoever said that most of the "major" stories broken on the Auburn and Alabama beats are broken by out-of-state media -- my ass. I'd like to see the list of "major" stories on either beat not broken by in-state guys.

 

Ron Ingram knows his sh*t, but I have in the past heard some grousing about the way he runs the various All-Star sessions. Nothing serious, mind you, just the usual grumbles.

 

Well, the man does love a good conversation.

 

Ron "Dick Vitale" Ingram"?

 

off the top of my head ...

Gene Jelks -- AJC
Eric Ramsey -- 60 Minutes
Petrino Jetgate -- Louisville Courier Journal
Albert Means -- Commercial Appeal
Mike Price -- Auburn message board
Fran to A&M -- Houston Chronicle
and just recently, Auburn's academic question marks -- New York Times

And in the case of Alabama's probation penalties in the early 1990s, the News was so wrong they were writing it would be a slap on the wrist on the morning of the sanctions.

 

Maybe the others are correct. But you CANNOT cite a message board as breaking a story.

 

If we're citing message boards, then the latest NY Times Auburn stuff should be on there as well.

In all fairness, you should also consider a paper's web site in discussions like this. AL.com, the site shared by H'Ville, B'Ham and Mobile, is crappy and can't be updated on the fly. Some of these "scoops" were actually in the Alabama papers the next day, just not posted online by the hour like the out-of-state media.

Tuscaloosa is the only paper in the state that seems to understands how to use the internet, and they get the jump on a lot of Bama coverage because of it.

 

I wonder what Bomar thinks of that. There was a message board that let the cat out of the bag in January.

 

Not many would dispute that message board rumors occasionally have some validity. However, in the instance of Bomar?

The post to which you refer -- on a Texas A&M fan board, not an Oklahoma fan board -- was on the board all of a few minutes last January before the board moderators removed it. It was not reposted until after the news broke earlier this month.

I would wager that very, very few people saw the post at the time it was originally posted. (In other words, the cat wasn't out of the bag last January for long enough for many people to have seen it.)

Regardless, Moland's point holds: You don't cite a message board. How many completely baseless rumors have you pursued from a message board? I long ago lost count. Every so often, one of them is true -- or has a grain of truth -- so you have to pursue them.

Had that January post remained on the Texas A&M board for more than a few minutes, it's quite likely a reporter might have seen it and investigated. But the basis for any resulting story would have been the reporter's investigation -- not the post on the message board.

 

The Auburn/Petrino/Jetgate story, IIRC, was a collaboration between Pat Forde, Eric Crawford and Jay G. Tate of Montgomery..... they shared resources on each end, as Gannett papers, and worked together. Did a damn good job too.