Did You Learn Anything at College?
June 11, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under College Baseball
Meet the NCAA. They’re a very large and powerful organization evidently in search of some bad PR.
Hey, they’ve found some. Woo-hoo!
Brian Bennett, a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, was ejected from the press box in the fifth inning of the University of Louisville’s game on Sunday for liveblogging the event (hat tips to reader Didi and Baseball America.) Apparently this is within the NCAA’s right, or at least they think it is, which has some frightening implications.
It concerns me that the NCAA feels the need to control the reporting of facts (to say nothing of the thought that they might have the right to do so). Certainly there’s a lot of money at stake, but I’m not sure that suppressing facts is the best way to protect the NCAA’s investment. And I always get a little nervous when large entities try to control the media. Even if it’s innocuous, it gives off a foul odor.
In the end, who does this help? Bennett and the Courier-Journal will get added exposure for their products and services, the NCAA will look like manipulative bullies, and bloggers will continue to report the facts from the press box or the comfort of their own homes. I fail to see how any of this serves the NCAA and its investors, advertisers, customers, etc.
Then again, I haven’t been in college for a very long time…
