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Full Version: MEDIA WATCH- April 5
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I'd like to begin by writing about The East Tennessean, which in the latest issue has made the revival of ETSU football an emphasis.

I would also like to address that many of the pro-football crowd has called the ET "unethical" for printing letters and editorials against the revival of the sport.

The East Tennessean is not unethical when they do that, and recent letters and editorials have made me believe the paper is actually doing its best to be objective. I have seen both pro and con editorials and their articles show both sides.

The articles might not be tremendously well written, but consider they are just students starting out.

I feel the East Tennessean has done the best job of any media outlet regarding football's possible return.

This is different than tricitiessports.com- which yesterday just re-ran a press release from ETSU stating "ETSU Students See Positives of New Football Program."

It was a propaganda piece put out by an athletic administration that wants to bring back the sport. That's fine. It works on etsubucs.com

However, it doesn't work on a site like tricitiessports.com, even though they did reference where it was from.

It is one thing to reprint a press release from, say, a road game. Game stories are, well, game stories- and we're going to see more and more press releases as game stories in the future from media outlets of all sorts.

I know ETSU isn't that happy with the standard press release re-run from tricitiessports.com.

Why couldn't they have just built off the piece? If Ron Bliss was in Knoxville, he could have easily done so by asking a few baseball players their thoughts- and I think we would like to know what their thoughts are on a move that could potentially put them in a weaker baseball conference.

I'm all for football's return, but I'm also for good journalism.
By the way, the JCPress also ran the press release as a blurb.

Look, I want football to come back, but I have a tough time with this.

To me, it's like a Presidential Candidate releasing a statement that says "Johnson City Backs This Candidate!" and then quoting several supporters- and then the newspaper just reprinting it lock, stock, and barrell.

That's fine on the candidate's website.

But as a journalist I just have a problem with it. As a proponent of bringing back football I have a problem with it because it could potentially be so biased that it works against the cause.
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