12-13-2009 LOCAL MEDIA EMBARRASSED BY KU COACHING STORY This has been a brutal weekend for Kansas City media outlets, nearly all of which "broke" the story over the weekend that Jim Harbaugh was going to become the next head football coach at the University of Kansas. The actual chances of Harbaugh leaving sunny California for Lawrence, KS were between slim and none, but that didn't stop the "breaking stories" of his imminent arrival at KU. On the positive side, it seems as if the Kansas City Star played it safe and only printed what it was told by officials at KU. The strategy paid off in that KC's leading newspaper did not get the story wrong. But before Star reporters begin patting themselves on the back, it should be noted that the paper ran the wrong photo of Coach Turner Gill in a major story earlier in the week (and ran such a hidden correction Sherlock Holmes would have been able to find it.) On the TV side KMBC probably looked the silliest since virtually no viewers actually ever believed that pleasant Karen Kornacki could ever break a major sports story. Putting her on the story was like assigning Betty Crocker to a mob story. On the radio side, upstart KCSP-610 seemed to be hell-bent on breaking the story that it boldly made its Harbaugh prediction without sufficient proof. The station loves to break national stories (see Larry Johnson interview) but this time embarrassed itself as ESPN was giving it credit for breaking the wrong story. Web radio station http://www.sportsradiokc.com/ also called it wrong. Once Turner Gill was named head coach the media fell back into line. KC Star columnist Jason Whitlock let readers know that he is black (which must have come as quite a surprise to them), but that he is not sold on Gill as the head coach (he was not sold on Mark Mangino because he said Mangino was fat). Oh, and someone has already started a site to Fire Turner Gill (LINK). Only at KU can a Web site begin the termination process before a coach has started. Things are now back to normal.
12-14-2009 FIRETURNERGILL SITE "I enjoy your website very much and am in agreement that journalists in KC & elsewhere are getting sloppier & more unreliable by the day. Your article on the KU coaching search pointed out how sloppy and lazy the local broadcasters were in reporting the story. Certainly they were. "However, now you have attributed the fireturnergill website to KU, or it's fans, when you did absolutely no checking on the ownership of the website. Thus exhibiting the same traits you so justifiably criticize in your journalism. The attached scan shows the basic info about the ownership of this site. Doesn't look to me like KU or anyone close to Lawrence is responsible for it. ---Best wishes & keep up the good work, Bob in Lenexa
12-14-2009 DEAD ON... "You're dead-on with your assessment of how many in the local media embarrassed themselves by "reporting/guessing" on a story that had zero legs. For those who wanted the story FIRST - your sources turned out to be inaccurate and unfounded while many of you wet your pants in the "breaking-news" process. "Someone should be fired! Of course - most of them don't have real jobs! "Jim Harbaugh used all the Kansas talk for a better deal - much like what Mario Lemieux did several years ago to Kansas City and the Sprint Center. "The chances of Harbaugh coming to KU were as slim as Tiger judging next year's Miss America pageant." --JIM
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