Thursday, November 10, 2011

The JoePacolypse: Takes and Tweets

What a night that was. Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I couldn't pull myself away from the TV as they showed video of the riots. If this is what happens when a football coach gets fired, what's next?

Takes
  •  Bryan Navarro lays out the evolving story in real time, glued to TV and his Twitter feed.
  • Former GUTV colleague Nate Coombs, on Facebook: "This PSU thing is like a horrible game of telephone. Everybody played it in first grade, the teacher would whisper, "I have twenty cookies to bake today" and after a dozen odd seven year old's whisper it to each other, it comes out, "I hate reading books let us play". Except this time, the teacher said "There are boys being raped in your locker room" and all the high level state administrators sitting in a circle turned that message into "there might have been some horseplay".
  • Coaches at Oregon and SOU react to the news of Paterno's firing. Coach Craig Howard has a very candid take.
  • When video emerged showing a news van being tipped by protesters, my friends in the media were shocked. It was a scary moment to see something like that actually happen for something like this.
Immediately after that link appeared, a Web editor in New York took to Twitter and tried to play Journalism Ethics Police, tweeting: "Fellow journalists, it's not our job to judge these Penn State students. Their discontent & gatherings are just another layer to this story."
I'm sorry, but I can't be objective about this. Those students crossed the line by flipping that news van and putting reporters and photogs in danger.
Here's another angle, as students chant "flip it!"

It makes me sick, not to mention scared for the well being of my colleagues. I hope everyone involved gets thrown in jail. They attacked the media and put lives at risk. Don't tell me to be impartial about it.
  • Chris Breece, on Facebook: "...PSU students...unbelievable disgusting ridiculous inexcusable mind boggling etc etc etc.
  Tweets

  • Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan - 10:59 p.m.: "You know why these PSU students are protesting Paterno's firing? None of them have kids. If they had kids, they'd have run him out of town."
  • Chris Leone - 9:56 p.m: "Has Mike McQueary been fired too? No one's said anything about it."
  • Bryan Navarro - 9:44 p.m.: "You say, "We are Penn State." Who is Penn State?"
  • Lindsay Joy, reporter for KTWO in Casper, WY -  9:17 p.m. (moments after seeing picture of flipped news van): "This hits home."
  • Jim Rome - 9:15 p.m.: "Students reportedly standing on top of an overturned news van yelling "We want Joe." They're more out of touch than Joe is."
  • Geoff Ziemer of The Sports Trap - 8:28 p.m.: "OMG, this might get outta control."
  • I credit Julian Olivas for coming up with the hashtag #JoePacolypse
  • And Ashton Kutcher goes completely bonkers, gets skewered on Twitter.

1 comment:

PirateDave said...

I'm sorry, but I can't help but think, well, this is what you get for going all media firestorm on Joe.

Yes, it's outrageous, those kids are out of line, and I am also concerned over the well being of the reporters and crew. No one should be this riled up over a football coach getting fired? But if someone I idolized was getting ragged on regularly, and I had a large number of peers who agreed with me. I can't say I wouldn't get a little dramatic myself. (never to the point of flipping over anything bigger than a trash can)

All I'm saying is, if you as a media representative are going after a popular figure, in an already emotionally charged environment (we did the college thing, we both know it), expect a back lash of equal force.