(04-11-2017 04:51 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote: Their job is to promote the university. It's public relations, not journalism. There's a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the two, in spite of what Joe Avento has spent his career doing for Coach Warren and the better part of the Murry Bartow era. Best thing I can tell you is to email Lise Cutshaw at the university and ask her the difference. Either Lise or Tammy Hayes will provide a great explanation for you.
Yet again, I'm an idealist. I believe in truth above virtually all else. Above a job; above 'loyalty'; above country; above all mortal things. It's just the best policy. If one takes a job in which one has to decide between promulgating truth, or emphasizing the spin, one must choose whether that job (and thus a piece of one's soul) is 'worth' "selling out" for the goals of one's boss, over truth. Everybody has points in their lives when they have to make those decisions/judgements.
Remember when Mike White withheld the fact that Eddie D. went to State College to interview for the Penn St. job? DeChellis put him in a bad situation, but he chose loyalty over truth (although by keeping silent he was trying to walk some hypothetical middle ground, as I see it). Do we want more of that? Do we want more obfuscation, after going what we went thru with mullins and bartow?
Who draws the line where truth ends and spin begins?
As I wrote earlier, one doesn't have to overly spin in order to "promote the university". That's not in itself a bad goal. THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. But when promotion carries more weight than truth, and a proper representation thereof, then the priorities are screwed up. That's just a fact. I'd bet 80+% of university PR-types are journalism graduates. Or at least have significant journalism training. They know, or at least most of them do, what journalism is.
Point being, I understand the difference. That doesn't mean that Mike White or Kevin Brown or whoever has a license to twist the truth beyond what a non-sold-out journalist would recognize. If the university *demands* they do what they've been doing, then they've already made that decision to do that instead of be true journalists. I understand that. But that doesn't mean it's right. In fact, if that's all "media relations" people do, then those positions shouldn't exist. They would be doing a *dis*service instead of a service to the university.
Just because the occupation "spammer" exists doesn't make someone "employed" in that occupation legitimate. Same for "career criminal". And although those are obviously extreme examples, the point is valid - just because one has a job title doesn't mean it's one to be proud of, or one that *should* exist.
I'm not trying to "win" - but I *am* trying to get you all to see that spin at all costs is a bad thing; that it *hurts* the university in the long run rather than helps it. Credibility is a valuable trait/commodity. Some of the fluff that comes out of that office is way short on that.
And to Rod......yes, "INFORMATION'
is what we want. **ALL** of it - or at least more of it - AND....we want it to be "informative" - word that comes from the root "information", or "inform".
We don't want to know (only) that ETSU beat the 12th and 13th teams in a golf field; it'd be kinda nice to learn who finished second, and by how much. Surely you all aren't defending what they did with that story, are you?
[I just looked on their web site, and they have a new(ish) guy, Mitchell Miegel, writing copy for the tennis teams. He's a graduate assistant. And not surprisingly, he also writes the women's golf stuff, along with a few others. So I think we have now confirmed that likely he doesn't know a whit about tennis - or maybe not even golf. His supervisor (I assume White) should, however, be more observant, or at the least be a better proofreader. I truly had wondered earlier if indeed this was what could going on; I just didn't know they broke out who wrote what. It certainly explains not knowing the difference between "match", "game", "set", and "point". Sadly.]