The Bobcat Nation

The Missoulain wrote a "humorus" story last week and are now taing quite a bit of flack over it. Any comments!

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/1 ... 304_02.txt

Here's the link to the original article:

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004 ... news01.txt

It's definitely bush league stuff... I'm not quite sure who was asleep at the wheel, or what the writer was thinking, but it was definitely in poor taste.

You find a bunch of idiots and write them up. Could happen in San Fran, Billings, New York or Miami. Who cares. People are to easly offended. I'd be a little pissed to if the guy did it to Billings. I alsoknow some people would have the same stupid responces. It's no different than Catprides little Helena story about the gas station guy. People tell those stories to make themselves feel better.

This one has been analyzed to death over on the AGS boards. Personally, I think his original concept of the article was a great one. To show that while Chatanooga is technically a I-AA town(with University of Tenn.-Chatanooga there) the people in the town are not I-AA people or fans. Had he stuck with this concept and shown that, rather than getting off track on the "idiot" concept(I'll admit I laughed at the directionally challenged stuff, but really it added nothing to the point of his article) it would have been a good article and this would have never come up. I just think once he started getting some dumb quotes he thought he could turn his article into a Jay Leno skit and get a few laughs.

People are too sensitive, but the Missoulain should have known better.

Okay, I take back part of my statement in that it appears some people may not have gotten the idea even if he had stuck to the original topic. This is from a letter to the editor concerning the article in question:

I suppose the general thrust of the article Mr. Devlin intended to write was that many in Chattanooga do not follow Division I-AA football and that is true. Our local team, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, for whom Finley Stadium was built, has had a somewhat less-than-stellar last couple of decades. However, most of the Tennessee fans associate themselves with a team that plays about 120 miles up the road in the town called Knoxville. Quite possibly, even in Missoula, you have heard of the Volunteers. The Vols play in Neyland Stadium, and on game day the population of that stadium is around 105,000 to 107,000. To put this into perspective for Mr. Devlin, according to my references, that is roughly equal to the combined population of Montana’s second and third largest cities, Missoula and Great Falls. Put another way, Neyland Stadium hosts the equivalent of roughly 12 percent of the population of your entire state every time the Vols play at home. Yes, Mr. Devlin, in Tennessee football is king, just not Division I-AA.

Full letter, with objection to the other parts of the article can be found at http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/ar ... E5ovYxltdA

So assuming my guess that he intended the article to show that while Chatty has a I-AA team there, it is no better host for fan appreciation than any large non I-AA city, then apparently even that idea would not have gotten through and would have riled people up.

jagur1 wrote:You find a bunch of idiots and write them up. Could happen in San Fran, Billings, New York or Miami. Who cares. People are to easly offended. I'd be a little pissed to if the guy did it to Billings. I alsoknow some people would have the same stupid responces. It's no different than Catprides little Helena story about the gas station guy. People tell those stories to make themselves feel better.

You could do that in any town -- I totally agree. You probably could find a small part of the sanitation workers or other city workers (to be consistent with his article) doing their jobs on any given morning in any town that aren't very good at geography. But for a journalist to essentially go out of his way to try to make a city look stupid by selectively quoting trivia-challenged residents of that city is not a sign of professionalism.

Similarly, if Cat Prides story would have been done by a journalist, it would also have been grossly unprofessional. The standards of journalistic professionalism are usually (with a couple pathetic, but memorable, exceptions) much higher for a newspaper than sports bulletin boards.

I agree with kmax's stance -- if he would have just kept on the theme of pointing out that few people in Chatty cared about the game, that would have made a pretty interesting article. Once he crossed over and started essentially mocking the city and showing it as a bunch of ignorant morons, then it went awry. I also like the Jay Leno skit analogy. I guess the only real difference is that it is funny when you do it in your own town, but when you do it to someone else's town, then people will get pissed. ("He can't do that to our pledges... only WE can do that to our pledges.")

mslacat wrote:People are too sensitive, but the Missoulain should have known better.

Keep in mind that PRAVDA, I mean the Missoulian, also printed a quote by Rial Cummings who stated that "Kerry Mullan's right arm made contact with (JMU QB) Rascati's facemask..."

I think WE all know better...

Can you imagine Cummings covering other events?

"Mike Tyson's teeth made contact with Evander Holyfield's ear..."

"Ron Artest objected to the actions of several Piston fans..."

"O.J. Simpson's knife made contact with his ex-wife's throat..."

"The U.S. military bumped into Saddam Hussein's army on their way to Baghdad..."

"Oswald's bullet made contact with President Kennedy's skull..."

"Japanese bombs made contact with several U.S. warships..."

"Bill Clinton's p#*&! made contact with Monica Lewinsky's lips..."



Buying the Missoulian is like hiring a cheap hooker: You get fu#$ed for only 50 cents a day!!

Rial Cummings, just can not win. A majority of Griz fans can not stand him because over the years he has written quite a few articles critical Griz coaches and players. He is not loyal enough. Those of us who read the Griz game NC results how "loyal" that article was for the Griz. Ahhhhh the joy of being a home town reporter and still try to keep some sort or journalistic credibility. If you try to walk the fence to much you lose either way.

I've followed Cummings for years and AT BEST, I can say he is a Griz apologist. His "attacks" on or criticisms of the Griz are WEAK. It's almost as if he feels like he's OBLIGATED to "go after them" every once in awhile, just to maintain some shred of credibility.

I know it's not an easy situation to be in but that particular quote was LUDICROUS!

As a journalist, I don't think he'd have been out of line by stating that Mullan punched Rascati in the head. I doubt much of Grizville would've gotten all up in arms over that; but to phrase it the way he did, you'd think he was Scott Gurnsey's illegitimate father!

Speaking of my old pal Gurns, did anyone happen to LISTEN to the NC game on local radio? I'm just curious how that pathetic little weasel took the loss; he's generally so GRACIOUS when the Griz lose...

I always thought Cummings was pretty good, not a total homer like too many sports writers.

The article about Chattanooga is probably more enlightening about what a big deal the 1-AA championship is outside of Missoula than anything. 1-AA football is fun for the devotees, but decidedly obscure, nation-wide.