University of Alabama beat writer: The Birmingham News

Are you kidding?

I didn't know a story had to be about fastballs and first downs to be considered a sports story.

Of course it's a sports story. First of all, a SPORTSWRITER from the NYT broke it. Second, it would never have been written if it didn't involve the Auburn football team.

 

One more thing about Ron Ingram. Lot's of people in this business help other people. I can name writers who have made calls and even driven high school kids to meet with a college coach to help said kid get a scholarship. Helping people is a pretty common thing in this biz among the writers I've meet. Including helping iwth layout ideas, story tips, ect. It is a good thing to be known for helping others, but it still doesn't help his writing. Ask anyone who covers preps at large dailys in Alabama, it's Ron's contacts that get the job done, not his writing.

 

This is your definition of a sports story? A sports writer wrote it?

Sorry, but it wasn't. It was an academic story in which a handful of athletes had minimal involvement. Damn, just because the writer and the whistleblowing prof chose to focus primarily on the 18 football players who took these 400 courses over the course of four years instead of the 400-plus other students doesn't mean it's a sport story. It means it was written in a way that would attract the most attention.

 

Not to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, because I don't have a horse in this race, but spinning is 100 percent correct in asserting that this story would never have seen the light of day in any paper outside of maybe Auburn/Opelika if the football players weren't involved.

Carry on.

 

The only person who would spew such nonsense is an Auburn beat writer rationalizing an ass-beating.

 

Are you guys joking? It's a sports story because it involves athletes. This isn't new in our business... If Joe College gets arrested for a DUI, it's not news. If Joe Heisman QB gets arrested, it IS a story. It's ONLY a story because it involves athletes. Who cares what Joe College is doing in his Sociology classes... He's not the one on ESPN, on magazine covers, he's not receiving a free education, then being held up as an example for 7 year old kids.

 

If a paper has enough resources, this could be both a sports story and an academic story... a perfect time for collaboration between the beat guy and the higher-ed reporter.

To respond to the last comment, I haven't followed this story closely, but I don't believe there was any ass-beating of Auburn beat writers involved. Thamel did some great reporting and deserves a lot of credit. However, the story started when the whistle-blowing professor decided to spill his guts to the NYT. I don't want to say it fell in Thamel's lap, because I don't want to sound like I'm diminishing the outstanding reporting involved. But clearly, there's an advantage to being with the NYT. The whistle-blowing prof didn't offer the story to the local media... he went to the big boys.

 

Well, that can't be, because my post might be considered aggressive, and we know, given your authorative word, that there are no aggressive beat reporters covering Auburn or Alabama.

You've got a guy teaching easy classes -- a shitload of them. That's the story.

That fewer than 10 percent of the 400-plus students who took those classes were football players is a small piece of that story. The athletes did the same work as the average students and received, on average, worse grades in the classes than the average students. There were no rules violations. The classes weren't set up for athletes.

It's not a sports story.

Try it another way: The school I cover is having housing issues. Somebody in the admissions office screwed up and over-booked the rooms. Somewhere around 200 students -- five of them athletes -- are without dorm rooms. Is that a damned sports story? If it's a sports story when athletes make up 20 percent of a group of students who benefit from a university screw up, shouldn't it be one when they get screwed, too?

 

Good Lord, I can't believe I have to spell this out for you on a site where the readers/contributors are supposed to be smarter than your average State U. cock-sucking fan boy.

Is it plausible that the admissions office screw-up was done on purpose to help athletes? Of course not.

Is it plausible that someone at Auburn has set up a system specifically so that half the guys on football scholarship can pass an easy course? You better believe it.

 

You've got no damned idea what's involved with this story, do you? You're just on here ranting and raving like a dipshit, trying to prove some idiotic point about the Auburn and Alabama beat writers not being aggressive.

Just stop.

Nobody on that beat "missed" this story. I'd entertain an argument that some of the state's higher-ed reporters got beat, but not the sports guys.

 

wow, 19 pages on this.

do you still really have to live in alabama to take this fucking gig? yeah? fuck it. wouldn't want it if that were the case anyway.

 

Damn. Now THIS is entertainment.. don't know why the hell I've been up for three hours watching the Yankees-Red Sox replay when I coulda been reading this thread. Y'all have entrance music? WWE style? Might add some flavor to it if I played the music while reading the next few posts.. all I'm saying. Just trying to enhance the experience.