Oklahoma student newspaper does basic reporting, gets media session canceled

[tapintoamerica]

The coach didn't hide anything. Not announcing who your starting QB is doesn't equate to "hiding" something. Football practices are often closed.

Exactly. Riley is no more hiding something than the basketball coach who conducts practice in an exclusively purposed, keycard-accessible practice gym is hiding. Every coach has the right to privacy. The difference is that outdoor activities are harder to exclude entirely from public view.

 

[tapintoamerica]

Wow. That may be the most brilliant post in Twitter history.

 

[WriteThinking]

This is pretty good. Apparently it wasn't Lincoln Riley's decision, for example, to cut off the beat media.

Guerin Emig: Let's try to learn something from the OU Daily's quarterbacks story, and how OU retaliated

Probably the one question it doesn't answer - is why none of the other news media outlets did what the OU Daily did, going into some public building and tracking QB snaps to a closed football practice. But the answer, of course, is what I've already written. Because it'll burn bridges.

Or, what I wrote: that they just didn't think of it.

I'm sure OU coaches and officials are thinking the student reporters/editors are young, inexperienced, immature and unprofessional.

What about OU people? Well, let's see. They're older, more experienced, and being much more immature, and very unprofessional, especially after the fact.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

I dont know, seems plausible that the building the students climbed to the top of would only be accessible to a student. Dorms and even academic buildings often need an on campus swipe card to open the front door. This seems like a unique thing a student can take advantage of that a Rivals writer or newspaper beat guy cannot

 

[swingline]

What don't you get? I said you can do it once. They did.

And I'll concede if you don't care what any of these coaches or players think of you, and you don't care about access, then you can do all kinds of things, I suppose. Go ask any news org if that's what they want. "Yeah, go burn those bridges with binoculars and spend the next several months/years getting crapped on in pursuit of the larger truths."

Of course it's access journalism. What is it people think is practiced at every level of the business? Almost all Reporters, by their nature, are empathetic people who, if they err, do so on the side of working with and protecting sources. They often too readily see it from the coach's or mayor's or politician's perspective, because reporting needs the oxygen of sourcing.

you lose that oxygen…I'm not saying you can't do it the other way, because you can. But it's lonelier, and harder, and you get several years into these roles, and what you really want is to be "privy."

Growing up in the country, a privy was an outhouse.

 

[ChrisLong]

The coach didn't hide anything. Not announcing who your starting QB is doesn't equate to "hiding" something. Football practices are often closed.

C'mon, you're just digging a bigger hole for yourself. I know they close practices. Why? To hide stuff. People always find out. It goes back to John Thompson and Hoya Paranoia at Georgetown. What a bunch of shirt.

 

[Alma]

Or, what I wrote: that they just didn't think of it.

I'm sure OU coaches and officials are thinking the student reporters/editors are young, inexperienced, immature and unprofessional.

What about OU people? Well, let's see. They're older, more experienced, and being much more immature, and very unprofessional, especially after the fact.

Fair. I'm done with it. The kids did great, the story was advanced, the pros got beat. No harm and no foul, just a win for journalism.

 

[Azrael]

Afterschool activities director upset with student coverage of afterschool activity.

This country really needs a mental health intervention.

 

[Human_Paraquat]

Is there any college football reporter in the country -- whose program holds closed practices -- that does not know the vantage point from which they could see practice?

During the pandemic, if you did not attempt to see into practice to gauge what was happening and whether teams were following league/school protocols, were you really covering your beat?

The only argument I would listen to here is that the OU student reporters could have used the information in a way that did not blow their cover.

 

[SixToe]

Good on the OU kids. Shouldn't have explained how they did it, though.

 

[MeanGreenATO]

Rece Davis just gave the cub reporters a shoutout on GameDay

 

[Hermes]

As a prep writer waiting for a practice of a school I didn't normally cover to end. I made sure to tell the coaches who I was when I arrived.

"You didn't have to do that."

"Well, I didn't want you to think your opponent was sending spies."

"Son, we run the Wing-T. We only got three forkin' plays."