Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Alison the Pole-Vaulter Controversy: Media Commentary

As for the role of withleather.com in posting the pictures…look, it’s too easy to bash the messenger in this situation. I’m being hypocritical if I don’t also point out that I find the site ridiculously funny sometimes, such as this post about murderous San Antonio Spurs players. And as withleather.com commenter Hale shrewdly pointed out, why is the Washington Post including yet another picture of Alison, taken especially for this article, if they are really so concerned about the young lady? I completely agree. So acting as if withleather is solely responsible is ridiculous; plenty of smaller sites and forums were already starting to talk about her. If not WL, then some other site that gets their kicks by intersecting sex and sports, such as SportsbyBrooks, would have posted about it.

I am annoyed, though, by Matt’s quote in the Washington Post that “…Every week, there's somebody who takes offense to something, but that's part of being a comedy writer. If nobody is complaining, it probably wasn't funny. You are hoping for some kind of feedback." Look, all of us bloggers like feedback. But I want to believe that I can get feedback from my readers without provoking them to nasty e-mails and comments. Naïve of me, I know. If that quote describes what Matt truly believes, he’s eventually going to offend a good portion of his readers.

I’m more upset at the deadspin.com post about this. Just read this and the comments, now that you’ve read pieces of the article above. Really, Will, Alison’s father is “screaming out his lungs about it” when his daughter had to bring it to his attention, and there’s ONE quote from him in the article? And do you really think that Alison’s father would call the Washington Post, a paper some 3000 miles away, and ask to be interviewed, instead of the other way around? Highly unlikely to me; if so, why not the LA Times? Doesn't sound right. Maybe next time, instead of mostly cutting and pasting text from, say, Ufford’s e-mail about the situation, Deadspin writers could read the article the post is about. I see that Will finally admitted that the dad really wasn't screaming, but I'm still disappointed that deadspin.com apparently was that sloppy with the story. (Realizes that this section may push back date of first Deadspin or withleather.com link to blog from 07/01/2011 to 07/01/2015, shrugs).

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