Twitter Fight After the Kentucky at Auburn Game Between Matt Jones and Kyle Tucker

But it might be borderline for ASOB….

But I’ve met Parrish once, and I know which one I would side with in a basketball argument, which one I would rather hang out with and which one I would guess is right when it comes to just about anything.

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over a month or so ago, and is the reason I have not read a single post on KSR since. Nothing drastic, I just haven’t been back. Too much ego for my taste.

I will admit that the one thing I do miss about it is that KSR seemed to be on top of things, or even break some news, so I do miss that. But other than that, it is not like there is a shortage of UK basketball news out in internet land.

The thing I am wondering is how long the founders of that site can keep up this pace. They are already in their 30’s, catering to kids in their early 20’s. That can’t go on forever, can it?

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but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was all Kyle’s fault. Matt nips and nips and nips, and while the best response is to ignore him, sometimes human emotion gets the best of people. Kyle is really new to the beat, and while Matt’s shit is old hat to the other writers, it’s all pretty new to Kyle. I would imagine, though, that in the future he will stick to a nolo contendere strategy.

In a media career, success is determined by the audience he reaches and the dollars his sponsors are willing to pay.

I have no problem with this statement. But it is not a complete definition, as there are some who would also add an additional element that considers the actual quality of the work in a definition of “success”. Not to say that KSR cannot, or has not, offered both at times.

Matt Jones, on the other hand, gets it. Jones, as the self-appointed “Voice of the Kentucky Fan,” is a passionate defender of Kentucky’s fans, teams, coaches and programs against any and all comers. For him the interests of Kentucky fans come first. Love him or hate him, you know where his loyalties lie.

No dobut. That is a good thing.

I guess where I lost interest is the part where, despite the writing in humorous styles and whatnot, the founder actually comes across as taking himself very, very seriously. He is definitely not one of those “takes as good as he gives” types. That just takes away from the whole fun of it, to me. I guess I am not seeing the <wink, wink> in the process. Is it there?

It does make sense that all of this would do well (hits and advertisers) with a fanbase, though. (And not just UK’s. The formula could work well with many fanbases out there.)

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I “get” that fans want to hear only really positive stuff about their teams, and that’s the way it should be. And I agree that sports journalism shouldn’t take itself as seriously as it does. These are games, and objectivity in sports isn’t nearly as important in sports as in other elements of news. And I think fan bloggers like Matt are the future of the industry.

But that gets back to my point. Matt doesn’t know technically how to write, report, create a story, etc. And judging by his skills dealing with other media members, he is probably very bad at cultivating long-term relationships with sources. I have no idea if people outside the media like him, but imagine if he treated, say, Tom Crean the way he treats Kyle Tucker or Jerry Tipton or Eric Crawford or any of the other writers. Crean would never talk to him again, and he would become a much less effective reporter when the Indiana game came around because of it. (This is just one example of one guy. After covering the beat for many year, he would build certain relationships with all of his sources, and I can only imagine most of them would not be good.)

I have absolutely no problem with Matt being a fan blogger and embodying the fan. I think that’s great, and Matt’s “success” at building his blog attests to how well he’s stoked that fire among fans. My criticisms of him lay completely on his disdain for the media and ever getting better at being a journalist. It’s not just getting lots of followers and web hits. You have to do a good job too, or you’re letting your fan base down without them even knowing it. The experience of being a UK fan would be worse if we only had Matt Jones to listen to, because we’d only hear one VERY BIASED opinion and every news story would be framed around that opinion. That’s why even sports journalists need to exercise objectivity.

Oh, and my other point was that Matt is a total douchebag to all the other writers, which is just rude and childish. No, you don’t have to be friends with them, but be a human being for Christ’s sake.

I’m entertaining

You say it, own it. Don’t delete it. I say stupid things all the time on twitter, but I don’t delete them.

his “reporting”. My whole point in all of the postings on this thread is a simple one…beat writers need to watch what they say on social media outlets because it becomes a part of their body of work. You can’t make repeated snide remarks about a subject on Twitter and then claim objectivity on the same subject in your straight reporting – it doesn’t pass the smell test. Every beat writer thinks they should be doing features and many are using Twitter and blog posts to display their rapier wits. IMO Mr. Tucker was displaying just such a disposition with his Tweets. He was out of line and I would put this week’s check at risk in betting that he was told something along those lines by his bosses.

radio show yesterday and Jones actually asked Ryan Lemond and Tony Vanetti if he was out of line. Predictably, they both said basically the same thing – don’t call out members of our little media family because we are all supposed to be in this together. That’s a bogus argument. No one is above being called down when they step out of line. The fact that this has gone on for decades is the reason we have people like Jerry Tipton. Nonsense like the Patrick Patterson shiny new truck story and the dust-up over Milchael Kidd-Gilchrist earlier this season wouldn’t happen if these guys were held accountable.