The Rest of College Football

[whodean]

There is no way this will be changed legislatively. I

It has already changed, the SEC's 25 limit has only been in place for 1 class.

[hack]

Speaking as a former journalist, IMO it's easy to believe. There's not a ton of talent left in the profession; we've all been pushed off into other things. The coverage sucks because nobody wants to pay what it takes to do better.

[entropy]

What is hard to believe is that there is such little media coverage of WHY the SEC has such an advantage. It would seem to me that the B1G would want to protect its franchise value to cable providers. I don't follow college football as much as some on this site, but I am more than just a "New Years Day" fan. I've never heard about the disparity in the one year vs. four year scholarships. Why isn't there more publicity?

Cowherd was bragging about Sabin a couple of days ago, saying he graduated 75% of his athletes. How can you calculate a graduation rate when you are giving one year scholarships, and then cutting?

because most journalist are entertainers... not investigators. They don't get paid to think, but rather generate site hits or listeners. Saying stupid stuff gets you more value than logical thinking.

He also told a neb fan that in 1995, UNL had 125 walkons... so they were oversigning walkons. yea... apples to apples.

ESPN, imo, is not interested in anything more than protecting their investments. They don't won't people thinking the SEC is cheating or that they have unfair advantages. that hurts the idea of fair competition. Further, it seems to me, while the BIG and PAC have been flirting with FOX, the SEC has invited ESPN over for dinner... jmo on that.

[hack]

That really hurts to hear, and 10 years ago I would have argued with you, but today it's basically probably true. And in large part not because they are like that, but because of what media ownership wants.

I hate to start a comment with ``kids today...'', but the young journos I meet are doing something different than I did. I'm 39. And it's so true that saying stupid stuff gets you the hits that drive ad revenue. I've heard some stories that make me think ethics has plummeted in the last 10 years or so.

[entropy]

hack.. just my perception. it could be wrong. But I really don't think people are paid to give you answers or insight, but rather entertain. there are exceptions of people who really do both, but most just entertain.

[hack]

No, I'm saying you're right. It's not the career I signed up for anymore, which is why I left. But I think that plenty of people have their hearts in the right place and work very hard and apply very able brains for not a lot of money. They're just doing it in a sick system that makes the whole worth less than its parts. Not all, but plenty of people.

[Hannibal]

I think that journalism, for the most part, is what it always has been. Slimy shitbags like Michael Rosenberg have probably always been there. It's just that now there is a massive variety of competing information sources to expose these problems. Before the days of mgoblog, a discussion about what constitutes a "Countable Activity" would not have taken place. The shitty Freep report would have just been taken as gospel. I first started noticing what useless idiots some color commentators were back when I was in middle school in the 1980s.

The concept of an impartial, noble, selfless media full of elite experts that we should trust and listen to is a myth created largely by the media itself, and made possibly by decades of monopoly. What's gone is the era where everything that the media said was a self-validating truth. Although I will say that one exception is that ESPN has tanked considerably since the 80s and 90s. They did genuinely used to be really good.

[hack]

Couldn't disagree more. What you're saying is a message that some people have spent billions and billions of dollars spreading, and it has paid off for them. There's a little bit of truth in what they are saying, in that objectivity is a hard goal to achieve, and 80% success doesn't seem like a success to suspicious outsiders who absorb that anti-media propaganda and may have one or two instances of actual experience with it to point to. It was a noble goal and it was pursued rather successfully for a while.

In truth, like any other profession there are sinners and saints within. But when you have something in which the mission is both profit and a social good, you're going to get an outsized share of do-gooders and believers. And when you have them around, basic economics dictates you're going to pay them less because they are there for some intangible reasons and not just a paycheck. And when you pay people less than they are worth, it catches up with you eventually. The going rate for magazine writing has been $1 a word since the early 1990s. Not kept up with inflation at all. So ultimately if you're not going to pay properly, many are going to be off to do something else, leaving you with more attention seekers and agenda holders in the mix.

All this is OK -- creative destruction, and whatnot. Once the core product is missed, and I know sports fans already miss beat writers, the economic value of good reporting will rise again and come to us in a different format more suited to our times than newspapers.

[Hannibal]

Couldn't disagree more. What you're saying is a message that some people have spent billions and billions of dollars spreading, and it has paid off for them. There's a little bit of truth in what they are saying, in that objectivity is a hard goal to achieve, and 80% success doesn't seem like a success to suspicious outsiders who absorb that anti-media propaganda and may have one or two instances of actual experience with it to point to. It was a noble goal and it was pursued rather successfully for a while.

It was a noble goal, but not a truly attainable one. Journalists are human, just like everyone else, and they have opinions and desires, just like everyone else. They also have and have always had business needs. It was naive for people to ever believe that the institution of journalism could be beyond reproach.

And 80% is, indeed, a poor success rate. For the institution of journalism, I think that 95% is a poor success rate, because you're talking about the people whose word is supposed to be final. Especially when the failures can be so largely impactful. And especially when the failures seem to be on the subjects that matter the most. Namely -- major world events and public policies. History textbooks are based largely off of media accounts of events. Do you consider Walter Duranty's Pulizter Prize as part of the failed 20%? You're not talking about a little fact check error. You're talking about a massive, willfull misrepresentation that was accepted by the entire establishment. A false narrative that becomes truth. That's an institutional problem. One that I can't see any evidence as having been corrected.

Note that although I chose a political example, this applies to sports and other areas too. "Father JoePa is a nice old man who does the right thing" was another false narrative spread by the media. The JoePa incident has caused me to seriously reconsider what I think I know about a lot of famous coaches. I suspect that the coaching profession has had a lot of sociopathic assholes who have been built up into noble, grandfatherly types by the sports media.

I suspected that I knew as much about football as half of the "experts" on television when I was 12 years old, and now, thanks to sites like mgoblog and Smart Football, my opinions in that area have been largely validated (game theory stuff where I suspected for years that the conventional coaching wisdom was wrong).

I'll admit, I don't have a lot of data to support what I am saying, but that is because sources that could produce that data did not exist until recently. This is just my intuition, formed by watching sports and current events with a critical eye since the mid-80s or so. And also having had some personal and professional experience in areas where I know that the media has been instrumental in spreading false narratives. This is my own experience -- I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think that it is that uncommon.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There is serious and responsible journalism. It's hard to find in an era where writing for a living is mostly about getting in early on a story whether you are right or wrong about the facts, entertainment and quick stunning one liners. Nonetheless there is some good stuff out there. You just have to look for it ....... and not on Fox, MSNBC or CNN or any of the networks, although ill give the some credit to them for good reporting.

The best TV news sources? Guys like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher ........ Seriously. I can actually chuckle at their delivery of the latest stories. Maher does have an agenda but the other two ...... pretty good stuff.

I can still read the NYT but there are better news websites ....... BBC.

[Hannibal]

The best TV news sources? Guys like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher ........ Seriously. I can actually chuckle at their delivery of the latest stories. Maher does have an agenda but the other two ...... pretty good stuff.

They all have agendas.

But people listen to them with a filter. They don't pass themselves off as being information sources. That's why those guys don't really bother me.

[entropy]

agree.. I don't share their views, but I know they're not trying to be news, but entertainment.

[Tony G]

But they do tend to at least surface and explore issues.
Speaking of which, I'm going to see Lewis Black tonight. This should be cool!

[hack]

And also having had some personal and professional experience in areas where I know that the media has been instrumental in spreading false narratives. This is my own experience -- I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think that it is that uncommon.

Sure. In think lots do, and I wonder whether it's an agenda or incompetence. Judith Miller and WMD in 2003 is a great example.

I also think that journalism is an example of something people criticize because it publishes its own failures. Today's Walter Duranty, frankly, gets outed and fired and goes on Oprah the week his book comes out. Newspapers publish correctoins when the need arises and publicly denouce people like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. If every profession let everyone know when someone fucked up and publicized every little error in the quest to correct them, we'd know a lot more about the failures of retail chains and law firms and (shudder) banks and everyone else. So in a sense journalism has hung itself on its own rope in terms of public opinion.

Nor would I trust the BBC inherently. It's just at this point a different agenda, but frankly I'm not counting broadcast media in this discussion. The only serious journalism is print journalism, with very few exceptions in broadcast media.

[Wild Hoss]

It has already changed, the SEC's 25 limit has only been in place for 1 class.

Class size isn't the main issue; its the cut-throat, semi-pro, meat-market mentality that makes oversigning possible in the first place. That cannot be legislated. Some of the symptoms can, but not the core problem.