Broadside Article on the six suspensions...

[GS]

headlines say they got cleared, but the article doesnt explain ...

http://www.broadsideonline.com/sports/s ... nded.shtml (http://www.broadsideonline.com/sports/stories/2003-2004/101603/sixsuspended.shtml)

[gmusig03]

Wow, looks like a great job of investigative reporting by the broadside. Maybe I'm just slow but I dont understand what the conclusion of this article is, the headline says "names cleared" which leads me to believe the players are innocent and are off suspension but it doesnt say that in the article?

[dukaholic]

I think it meant : the names are cleared from any speculation that they may be the people in the police blotter - of which there was no evidence anyway and the B-side assumed that since these people committed some crime and the people in the police log were anonymous, that they were them.

Of course that was just speculation and now they're saying it wasn't true ;)

So basically, there was no news :D

[gobo]

Best line of the whole story:

"Broadside will continue to pursue this story as it develops."

Develops into what? Seems to me it is a done deal. Players were bad. Players get suspended. Noboday wants to talk about it.

Fine. Unless this is some sort of rape or murder case, end of story. I imagine this is more under age drinking. If you want to make a huge story out of underage drinking on a college campus by athletes...well...better get a bigger paper because I guarantee it goes on every weekend at every school around the country. Ok, except maybe Liberty and BYU....but I'm not even sure about BYU!

gobo




[/quote]

[The old PF]

The B-side is becoming a waste of ink. Keep running AP newswire stories and drop it.

[cornell-law-patriot]

Amen to that PF. It was always very difficult to get them to cover ANYTHING of importance on campus (of course unless it was negative and gave them the opportunity to complain about something). Even if you did get them to run something, you practically had to do everything but write the story for them. If you didn't give them every bit of infor on a silver platter or trust in their own journalistic abilities to write a proper story they without fail messed things up. Broadside... never searching for the good story, but waiting for the story (good or bad, correct or incorrect, who cares) to come to them.

[Sportin Oaks]

You know, you guys are totally right. All Broadside ever did was complain. I mean, that huge men and women's basketball pull out on the teams and the previews... talk about negative press. And the stories on our Pulitzer Prize winning profs... who'd remember those? And the special war in Iraq edition... that didn't serve any purpose. The spreads we did in sports when seniors were leaving... what kind of memories do they provide? O'Leary lying on his resume... but who cares if university endorses lies when they have such a stringent honor code? Oh, and lest everyone forget, the Ole Miss win which was featured on the very front with a huge picture of the team celebrating... that's not really worthy of remembering though. The capture of the snipers... I'm sure that came as bad news to everyone. Some club football team games and their getting some new equipment for their facility... but all Broadside ever did was ignore their existence, right?.......

Does everyone see a theme developing here. You guys are in the same boat you're putting B-side in. All you ever do is complain and nag... and not just about B-side - it's everything.

Some of you need to grow up and stop exaggerating in your posts

[benchmob]

sounds like whip cream on top of dog crap to me....why don't you go cry on your giant pillow!

[Sportin Oaks]

who's crying?... face it, it's facts...

[benchmob]

did you learn the facts of life by watching "THE Facts Of Life"? Thanks SCOOPIE!

[Sportin Oaks]

Yup, everything I need to know, I learned from Tootie... :)

[patriot lawdog]

Having actually written a few stories for the Broadside back in the day, I can see both points of view. I never really became a writer for the Broadside because it felt to me like it was more of a clique than really a college newspaper. It never seemed like they were encouraging new people to join. I had a strong interest, but I never really felt like anyone wanted me to be there. It was like they were doing me a favor by letting me write the articles. Not to be arrogant, but I don't think it was my writing skills considering I made through 3 years of law school just fine.

On the other hand, I think Broadside suffers from the same lack of apathy as every other event or organization. The favorite thing to do on the Mason campus was to bitch and whine and do nothing about it. Broadside is no different. I definitely met some people who were dedicated to writing good stories on GMU focused topics. It's easy to criticize someone's writing when you're only consists of running numbers all day or designing computer programs. It's easy for me to criticize an accountant for screwing up when I have no idea what it takes for them to do their job. Being a future lawyer (hopefully) and having written for newspapers might qualify to criticize and it might not, but I certainly feel like I have more of an understanding for what it takes to find and write a good story. Some (if not all) of us on this board are guilty of just bitching to be heard, and should not criticize for bad writing when the only critique we have is that we don't like the story itself. However, shoddy writing and organization (i.e. grammatical errors, wrong info, speculation, running AP stories) should always be called out

[benchmob]

those aren't the facts...you're contradicting yourself!

[benchmob]

i agree w/you, but the difference between law/journalism is semantics vs diction. the broadside is a vehicle that should inform their audience w/a clear factual direction....9th best newspaper? i beg to differ, but to each his or her own unless its personal which this seems to be.

[GMU/Towson fan]

As the current Sports Editor for the Towerlight I think I have some ground to stand on when I make statements about what goes into student newspapers. It is a very hard task to meet the needs of an entire campus, and I will be the first to tell you that we are far from error free. However, I have really questioned the Broadside's judgement on several stories in the past couple months.

Like I have said before, it is the school newspapers job to promote the school not diminish it (For the most part). There are isolated cases that call for the opposite, but those are not very often. And even in those cases it is important to not make a bigger deal out of something than it really is.

Honestly, do you know how easy it would be for me to take constant shots at our sports programs. George Mason is among the conference's elite almost across the board, while Towson is among the worst few in almost every sport (excluding volleyball). I mean I am covering our mens soccer team right now and they are 1-9-3 on the season. It would take little effort to sit down and just criticize the hell out of them, but instead I have tried to look for bright spots. Of course I still reported those losses as they happened but I made sure to not demoralize the team anymore than they already had been.

It all comes back to the article on the suspensions. You have the responsibilty to cover the news. And then you have the question of how far is to far. The extraneous details dug up here and that are apparently still being sought after, just shine more negative spotlight on an event that should be old news by now; I know it is for the players and coaches.

GMU has a lot to be proud of in terms of athletics, so I dont understand the Broadside's constant need to focus on the negatives. :?

[alligator]

Lawdog: Maybe you should have offered your services as an Editor. It seems like every Broadside article is chock full of grammatical errors and little to no fact checking.

As for MM, I didn't go this year. But judging from what I read/heard and my experiences from prior years, it doesn't look like this year's MM was an better/worse than before. You go there, you collect free GMU trinkets, watch a few dunks and go home. I don't know what the author of the Broadside Editorial was expecting.

[Sportin Oaks]

i completely agree with you patriot lawdog... grammar, spelling, etc. should be addressed... it's a completely different thing to criticize by saying nothing substantial because someone doesn't have the experience to back it up. like every organization, company, club or whatever, there are good eggs and bad eggs... there's no escaping that. all i'm saying is people sound ignorant when they over exaggerate and say "Broadside NEVER did this," or "is always negative" or "is always wrong." ... because all those claims are bull... it's easy to criticize an editor until you're sitting in that chair responsible for more than just writing, reading and correct spelling...

[Sportin Oaks]

i don't know what the current policies at B-side are right now because i'm not working there anymore. What i do know, however, is that when i was editor there, we didn't focus completely on the negatives and try to take everyone down like some are saying. If that were the case, the newspaper could have been chock full of stories for the next 10 years... I'm sure GMU/Towson fan will agree... in that position, you hear more than you expect. Broadside picks its battles, and in it's history (to the best of my knowledge), has never been sued based on an inaccurate or false story.

as for the grammar and spelling mistakes... i'll admit, that was a big problem at the paper for years... you can pony it up to students doing all the copy editing all you want, but in the end, i'll agree, stuff like that should have been caught. But, as for fact checking, it wasn't as constant a problem as you're making it sound alligator... and if it was, then i never heard wind of the errors... and i ran the place for a year... :?

[GS]

if b-side doesnt look for negatives, then why did the editor, of all people, create a negative perception of what most thought was a successful event. To me, there is no reason for it. Its like, if you want, you can find something wrong with everything in life, but why? this only fuels apathy. Thanks John Marcario for being negative.

[Sportin Oaks]

I don't know what his motivation was... but i'm sure something fueled it. For instance, the supposed high number of people who voiced their similar opinions to him... From what I've heard, there are quite a few people who thought Midnight Madness was sorely lacking... heck, my brother goes there now and he said the same thing... practically verbatum.... so there has to be some elements of truth to it... regardless of how blunt and direct it is....

[Pablo]

As a GMU fan, I'm less concerned about inept or negative reporting by the school newspaper and more concerned about the number of cases involving the women's basketball program in recent years that have resulted in suspensions or dismissals from the team. Is the number of cases considered acceptable, or is there an underlying problem that needs to be addressed by the AD?

[benchmob]

now i know why gmu is considered a suit case school.

[smuvness]

Come on now, lets call a spade a spade. You honestly can't really get upset about...the Broadside. Its a free, student newspaper. Good for picking up messes, time filler before classes, pirate hats, occasional basic campus news, and opportunities for young aspiring journalists to learn how to be real journalists. Kinda like playing grownup. There's plenty of room for errors. I'd rather complain about how REAL local papers have more articles about other schools and not ours. (Been like that for years.)

[benchmob]

kind of like the skins missing the playoffs...how come your psyche is affected by a group of guys w/no relation to you that toss and run a football around...calling a spade a spade? shut it!

[smuvness]

I have an icon depicting a local pro football team. I enjoy watching pro football. Playoffs, no playoffs. Say it together, its entertaaaiiiinment. And when the sun goes down tonite, they'll still be subpar 3-4..., and the broadside will still be...at times subpar and sometimes not...the broadside. :wink:

[benchmob]

thanks for reinforcing my thoughts. you would have no interest if you lacked emotion. thus, everybody on this board is using to express their opinion. keep acting like you keep it real...go skins!

[Sportin Oaks]

amen, smuvness... finally another voice of reason. Broadside is a learning environment that it's participants take very seriously. Take the paper for what it is; a student newspaper that takes more time to piece together than people truly understand and a place to gain experience dealing with professional coaches and athletes. Even The Post isn't immune to reporting errors and spelling mistakes and they make a living at it. If they were perfect they wouldn't have "corrections" every day.

[benchmob]

i understand your passion devoted to broadside. however to the contrary, you've stood up on your soapbox pledging your allegiance to this newspaper and now your repenting and saying its okay to make mistakes. ignorance is total bliss and your newspaper should learn from this instead of saying its okay to make fallacal statements about students, employees, etc.. its all about reputation if you didn't already know.

whats the difference between an ametuer b.s. artist and a professional one?

[Sportin Oaks]

you show me where, in any of the posts i made, where i said it was "okay" to:


make fallacal statements about students, employees, etc..

or:


to make mistakes.

Your comment about making false statements is completely absurd. it's just another example of how people over-exaggerate on here. Thank you for proving my point.

And about mistakes, let me save you the trouble of looking up what i said:


i'll admit, that was a big problem at the paper for years... you can pony it up to students doing all the copy editing all you want, but in the end, i'll agree, stuff like that should have been caught.

geez, where'd you learn to read between the lines? You're not remotely good at trying to twist peoples statements... or let me guess, you weren't really trying, right?

P.S. It's not my newspaper anymore... for the hundredth time, I don't work there anymore.

[benchmob]

you're a compassionate educator, but you need to clarify what your saying b/c the reader is missing your point.

[Sportin Oaks]

My point translated for bench mob:

You exaggerate. Your comments proved my point that exaggeration is plentiful on these boards. With that, I thanked you. You wrote that I said it was okay for Broadside to "make mistakes," and "make fallacal statements about students, employees, etc." This comment is absurd. I never said that. Instead, I said, "I'll admit, that was a big problem at the paper for years... you can pony it up to students doing all the copy editing all you want, but in the end, i'll agree, stuff like that should have been caught." Where you got that I said it was okay for the paper to "make fallacal statements about students, employees, etc." is beyond me. Finally, I ended by saying you tried to twist my words around on me and you didn't do a very good job. You just wound up proving my point.

[gmusig03]

Dont both of you have jobs and work to do? Why dont you get back to work and just agree to disagree, about what Im not sure, nor do I care, probably just like the rest of the people who read these posts.

[Sportin Oaks]

today's been an unusually slow day at work, actually... :) that's why i got to check this every so often...

[titan coach]

I can bet you that if I pick up the Washington Post I will find a number of errors, I am also willing to add to that wager that the Post does not have a 100% approval rating (with all the conservatism in Washington it's hard to imagine why).

I found my expierence at Broadside to be quite the contrary. They were very welcoming to me and help make my time at Mason great. Sure they made mistakes in the past. Yes they make mistakes now. Who doesn't? It is a human thing. If you do not like what is reported then go in and do something about it. Write a letter to the editor or go in and apply for a job and put yourself in position to make a change.

Or you could just use it to cover up the beer spills from Saturday night when you are hung over on Sunday morning while there is a quiet group of dedicated students at the Broadside office trying to put together one of the better college newspapers in the country. Until that changes it remains a fact.

Bottom Line: If you don't like what is being reported nothing says you can't do something about it. I refer you to my signature at the bottom of this post.