Calipari Ups the Ante for Journalists, Not Just Basketball Team
by Chris Campbell / cdcamp3@uky.edu
When John Calipari signed his contract on March 31, 2009 to be the head coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats mens basketball team, he immediately changed expectations. Expectations in the sports section of the school paper, that is.
Kenny Colston, a sports columnist for the Kentucky Kernel at the time of Calipari’s hiring, remembers the stark difference in handling Wildcat fans’ expectations for their daily basketball news once former coach Billy Gillispie’s replacement was inked. “It was a new era,” Colston said. “The gloom was traded in for joy … it was important to signal that.”
The passion of Kentucky basketball fans has been written about for years, but Colston says Calipari took the public’s thirst for constant updates to a higher level in the new millennium. “I'd say I wrote 90 percent of my column on Cal or the basketball team during that first month,” Colston said. “There was a lot of ground to cover.”
The significance of this change in coverage was not lost on Ben Jones, former sports editor for the Kernel. In retrospect, he said the story of Calipari’s hiring was “bigger even than when (UK President) Lee Todd announced he would be retiring shortly.” The Twitter account of the Kernel’s sports section has over 1,200 followers, nearly 400 more than its news account.
“You have to cover it like it's the most important story you'll ever write,” Jones said. “It means that much to readers and the fan base.”
“The Calipari hiring was dynamic because it happened over a period of time,” Jones said, “and more information kept coming out that you had to report on.” In the opening weeks of Calipari’s tenure, the Kernel ran a constant flow of stories such as a history of his coaching stops, a one-on-one interview, an explanation of his dribble-drive offense and a breakdown of his $31.65 million contract.
“There was an expectation of covering all angles of Calipari,” Colston said, “and to do so quickly.”
Recognizing that Calipari is no fool to the fan base’s obsession, Aaron Smith, assistant sports editor for the Kernel, enjoys “how Calipari handles the media and how he sets up what he wants, and needs, to say.”
Not to be outdone by UK fans wanting and expecting immediate access to everything about their basketball coach, the school reporters covering Calipari share the same enthusiasm and take great pride in their coverage.
“Everyone expects this to be the biggest story you'll ever work on while covering UK,” Jones said, “and it really was.”
... and Free Enes.
Showing posts with label Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journal. Show all posts
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Dream Job Article Homework Assignment
Saturday, November 13, 2010
My Concert Catalogue
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| This is from MY OWN CAMERA |
And I enjoy my list, but you gotta cut me some slack. I have the disadvantage of living in Kentucky ... who wants to come to the neutral Civil War state? I'm exaggerating, of course, as I've missed Weezy, Jeezy, Macy Gray, and Mike Posner shows recently between Louisville and Lexington that I can think off the top of my head. And then there's the unfortunate misses such as the fact that Wale should be in there, but he was stupid and performed at the BET Awards last year instead of fulfilling his portion of the Jigga show at Northern Kentucky University. Hopefully UK can keep up its stellar scheduling to add to the Drake and B.o.B shows that I was able to attend across the street from my dorm. But the real hype comes after the second week of November 2010 when I'll really have a significant comedy list as I got tickets for Jeff Dunham and Dane Cook with my girlfriend. So yeah ... that's all.
Musicians
Audio Adrenaline
B.o.B
Big Daddy Kane
Dana Dane
Doug E. Fresh
Drake
Francis and the Lights
J. Cole
Jason Derulo
Jay-Z
k-os
KJ-52
N.E.R.D
P.O.D.
Playboy Tre'
Reliant K
Slick Rick
Tanya Morgan
tobyMac
Trey Songz
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Whodini
Comedians
Sarah Colonna
Dane Cook
Jeff Dunham
Chris Franjola
Zach Galifianakis
Tim Meadows
Robin Williams
Poets
Ken Arkind
Black Ice
Shihan
Panama Soweto
Presidents
Bill Clinton
... and Free Enes.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Journalism & Democracy
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| Comedian Zach Galifianakis interviewing a UK student |
Journalism is the broadcasting of public issues to an audience, informing them to the happenings of their own community and the world around them by the use of articulate writing along with whatever demonstrative aid is required. The necessity of journalism within a democracy begins with its enlightening form of storytelling to the citizens. If this storytelling were compromised in a way where necessary information could be legally censored, the effects would be devastating and difficult to recover from. News of any political or cultural happening cannot effectively be conveyed to the entire body of people without journalism reaching those willing to perceive it. Journalism ensures the opportunity for the public to divulge in anything that should be public knowledge.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is needed for journalism to be expressed and presented at all, guaranteeing its freedom to speak on any pertaining matter even if critical of the very government protecting its right to exist. Without this natural check by the journalists of a democracy, any issue could be skewed by the influence of those in power and presented without anyone to fight that unbalanced message with truths. If this were to become a common occurrence, the governing of the democracy would immediately leave the hands of the people. A disconnect with the citizens at a level of that magnitude would cease to be a democracy in any way at all.
Journalism is sometimes the most accessible teacher a person could have. Without the front pages of newspapers on street corners or the headlines filling our Internet home pages, a deep void would exist in the commonality of our lives as Americans. With the collective newsfeed spread to the public by journalists, everyone has access to the facts at any given moment to any given story. Journalistic writing doesn’t just allow us to know random happenings, it gives us the tools to make decisions and have an educated perspective on the goings-on of our world. A journalist’s duty is to fight to put out the kernels of truth on a daily basis that the public needs to hear, and the First Amendment ensures that no one can get away with cupping the mouth that spews out those truths. We just cross our fingers and hope that our trusted journalists are considerably more well-versed in their arguments than we were as a child trying to one-up our parents.
On Journalism
1. Now tell me again, what is your definition of journalism?
Journalism is the broadcasting of public issues to an audience, informing them to the happenings of their own community and the world around them by the use of articulate writing along with whatever demonstrative aid is required.
2. How many different models of journalism exist today?
There are three models of journalism: advocacy, traditional elite, and public/civic.
On Democracy
3. What is your definition of democracy?
Democracy is a form of government that hinges on the principle that all of its citizens are to be considered equal and have extensive freedoms protected by a governing power that is derived from the people.
4. What is the difference between "election politics" and "public policies"?
Election politics are the issues that candidates push to the forefront of their campaigns to gain the public's support to win their electoral race, whether or not they have any real intention of aggressively implementing their platforms. Public policies are the actual courses of action taken by the state for a particular issue.
5. What was the Lippman v. Dewey debate?
Walter Lippmann, a writer, and John Dewey, an American philosopher, engaged in a debate in the 1920s about the role of journalism in a democracy. Lippman wrote of the grand ideals of an enlightened public making good decisions, comparing the average citizen to a deaf spectator in the back row of a sporting event. Dewey disagreed with the necessity of omnipotence for the process to work, valuing the culture created by communication over the need for an all-encompassing "right answer".
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| Me performing at a spoken word poetry competition |
6. What does the First Amendment say exactly?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
7. Are any of those protections important in your life?
All of these protections are important to me. Because of them I'm allowed to practice my personal faith without fear of persecution, I was able to join a union that fought for my well-being while I worked at UPS, and I'm allowed me to write this very blog on a daily basis without my opinions being censored or rewritten.
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| Spoken word poets Ken Arkind and Panama Soweto |
8. Everybody keeps talking about diversity: Why is diversity in religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition so important to democracy?
Any form of consistent slant from all angles of a news story lends itself to the story being irrelevant. As soon as a powerful "in-group" is able to limit the perspective of a story to exclude anyone, the story ceases to be founded in truth and integrity. Diverse points of view are absolutely necessary in reaffirming the legitimacy of any ideal.
9. How do journalists and the First Amendment ensure that people hear diverse voices in the marketplace of ideas?
Since the world of journalism is free of restricting qualifiers, lesser-represented minorities can become journalists themselves and promote their own voice. Those in power cannot legally muffle the voice of truth, no matter where that voice is coming from or any other superfluous issue of its origin.
10. Can you speak from personal experience about how diversity, protected by the First Amendment or championed by journalists, made a difference in your life?
A former Sunday School teacher of mine, Mickey Sampson, moved to Cambodia to help better the physical and spiritual lives of the poverty-stricken natives of the country. Since Cambodia is under a constitutional monarchy, the people in power have a much stronger say in what is allowed to be expressed through the media than they would in America. Due to Mickey's roots as an American writer, he had a much clearer sense of entitlement to not be afraid of exposing the truth and how to go about doing so in a safe manner. If he had grown up somewhere without laws protecting his foremost freedom of spreading truths, he never would have had the courage to go about changing lives as he did.
... and Free Enes.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
My 2011 Fantasy B-Ball Roster
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| All of my hopes rely on that loose ball |
PG: Chris Paul
SG: Monta Ellis
SF: Brandon Roy
PF: Danilo Gallinari
C: Andrew Bogut
G: John Wall
F: Luol Deng
Util: Kevin Martin
Util: Eric Gordon
Util: Yao Ming
-----------------------
Bench: Jose Calderon
Bench: Anthony Tolliver
Bench: Taj Gibson
Only transactions so far are picking up Tolliver and Gibson by dropping my last two automated picks, Jameer Nelson and Wes Johnson. I had all the multi-faceted point guards I needed already between Paul, Ellis, Wall, and Calderon, so Nelson was superfluous. And I'm stocked on scoring wings too between Roy, Gallinari, Deng, Martin, and Gordon, plus I just don't think Wes Johnson's gonna be that good in general.
The only guys I'm completely sore about not getting are Blake Griffin, Demarcus Cousins, and Russell Westbrook. I had all these guys skyrocketed up my draft board even before all of their impressive debuts. I actually drafted Griffin last year an entire day before he was announced a scratch for the entire season. That blew. My friend Jarod must've bumped them up even more than I did because he got Cousins and Griffin. Oh well.
I'm actually the league manager this season and I kept the same categories and rules we were under last season. It's a weekly head-to-head match-up with 10 categories: points, rebounds, assists, FGs made, FG%, FT%, 3-Pts made, steals, blocks, and turnovers. The only place I see myself legitimately struggling on a weekly basis is in rebounding and blocks. Since pretty much all of my forwards are of the small instead of power variety, I gotta rely on my monster guards to each collect those extra scrap rebounds to build on Bogut and Yao's production in that area. But if I can win the other 8 categories every single week I think I'll be content. Ha.
Last year I was the runaway regular season champion. I think it was something crazy like 23 wins ahead of second place. I never lost in points on the entire season, which made up for the fact that I only won the TO category a single time. But I actually went down in the playoffs in the championship round to my friend Ethan. He beat me 5-4. And there were three categories that were entirely and grossly winnable on my side. I'm pretty sure we tied on assists, I was literally .001 behind him in FT%, and he had 2 rebounds on me. For a basketball junkie/enthusiast/freak like myself, I couldn't have been more pissed off. But I still made some money off it since we agreed before the season to put half the pot on the regular season and half on the playoffs, even though I should've had all of it.
I don't know if it'll be interesting enough for me to throw up a bunch of updates on here, but I'll consider it. I definitely will be on here bragging if John Wall kills, Monta keeps spewing out 46-pointers, and Paul keeps dropping 16-dimers.
... and Free Enes.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
This is a Poem
Life changes. A week ago ... I possibly had swine flu and my laptop was stolen. This week ... I don't have swine flu and my laptop was returned. Oh, and I moved into the Wildcat Lodge (the UK basketball players' dorm) and I might have a girl. Literally nothing better could have happened over the last seven days.
So here's a poem I wrote a week ago at the height of everything going terrible. It was just in case. And I now feel comfortable sharing it. Even though I'm going to blur the names. You can connect the dots yourself if you know me.
This is a poem ... in case I die of swine flu.
God, I loved You the most.
Yeah, I know it's hard to believe and over the years it seems like I wrote more love poems for A____ and B_____ and S____ and A____ and T___ and J____ and T_____ and C_____ and K_____ and A_____ and K______ and L_____ and S____ and A_____ and C____ and, unfortunately, Caroline than I ever did for You,
But that's only because I knew that You .... loved me back.
And I know it seemed like I had more passion for Kobe's fourth ring and Coach Cal's hiring than I did for Your Word,
But that's only because You brought a contentedness over me that allowed me to actually sit still.
And I may have screamed at the top of my lungs louder for a "foul" on a near-daily basis than I ever screamed Your beloved name,
But that speaks nothing to the tingling of my skin and the vibrancy of my soul when I thought of You.
And I may have taken too many pills of my depression medication every once in awhile,
But that's only because I couldn't cope with the fact that there weren't more hours in the day that I could train to be willing to spend those newfound hours doing things that pleased You.
God, I'm sorry for what everyone perceived through me to take priority over You.
I don't know why I stressed so much over my Calculus III and Materials Engineering tests.
I was gonna get a "C-" regardless and I coulda spent over half that time praying.
And if I'd've dedicated less time amassing an iTunes catalogue of over 20,000 songs,
Maybe I could've helped J__ come to grips with the fact that You do exist.
And God, I wish I didn't cuss so much,
Cuz those were just cop out rhyming words for the rapper in me when I gave up in delving into more potentially beautiful linguistics.
I have all these regrets and, moreover, the wish that I'd've found the words to better convey my emotions in any given situation.
And I wish life was the stage of a forever-looping slam tournament so that I could've been more confident of when it was my turn to speak.
But that's the funny thing, God.
You would've let me speak whenever I'd wanted to.
But all that's over.
I'm now standing in front of You at these gates trying to remember where I left all my burdens at.
Oh, yeah ... Jesus is over there and has an extra backpack on today.
But God, If I don't die of swine flu,
I swear to you ...
I will NOT be afraid to read this poem.
... but do take my word for it.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Motives & Thoughts
Alright ... here it is. My first kinda personal post thing on here. Click through if you dare, but be warned that there will be no music attachments ahead. Crazy, right?
Today is my second day back on campus. And even though nothing for real has happened yet, I'm nearly as happy as I've ever been. Now while nothing can prolly ever top my 2006 Cincinnati World Changers experience, life on UK's campus usually comes very close. As soon as I hit this majestic city of Wilcat pride, I'm different. I smile easier. I stress less. I forget the things that shouldn't matter in my life. And that's all I really need, for real.
I saw my dude brandUn DeShay comment me back on something I wrote on his blog about a post he just made. It was about how he just recently realized how his blog that he's been running for a while now slowly turned from kinda diary-based entries to straight business observations. And that struck a chord in me because that's exactly what happened with me as I transitioned from my MySpace blog to this BlogSpot that I run. Everything used to be deeply emotional and questioning of all things existential. It was heavy and it's somewhat painful for me to go back through some of them. Some crap went on the verge of emo-lite. I hate that it was like that, but that's exactly how it was. I couldn't deal with stuff very well and one of my only vents was to drop a load of prose and poetry on the social network of choice back then. But eventually, those entries went from being an every-other-day type thing to a ... once-a-month type thing. And it was far less effective. While I used to seemingly cope with stuff and evolve over the course of multiple posts in a single week, I couldn't match the emotive importance when they became less frequent.
What brandUn mentioned was that maybe we just realized that we didn't matter as much as we thought we did. And I think that hits it on the head. Once it crossed the point where I didn't know if the blogging personally helped me accomplish anything, I let go of it. A lot of the stuff I wrote was downright depressing, and I straight didn't want anyone to read and assume it was a "woe is me" pity party type thing. So I let go. And I let my opinions on music and sports take it's place. Lessumat was conceived. Lauryn Hill had a poem she performed on one of the seasons of Def Poetry that was called "Motives and Thoughts". And her line of closing was simply, "check your motives and thoughts". Well I checked mine. And I decided that my personal motives and thoughts shouldn't be completely released anymore. They should only be slightly ... less suppressed. Just a lil' bit. And that's my life motto now. Nobody's really heavy in my business anymore, I'm much more selective about any emotions that I choose to bare, and I'm kinda to the point of being numb to a bunch of stuff. Not all of that means positive life results, but I'll just say that I'm in a slightly better spot mentally. Everything will take care of itself and I just gotta make myself selectively available to go along for the ride. All of that flooded me today when I woke up at school and had the sounds and sights and smells of the city that I love invading my senses. It only made it even more real (or possibly surreal) when I played ping pong in the Wildcat Lodge and DeMarcus Cousins was screaming and cursing a little ways away over some FPS video game. And Eric Bledsoe was there laughing his butt off every time, so I can only assume he was the one who kept killing him. That's the kinda stuff that brightens my psyche. There's no other situation in eternity where I could be around some of my idles and hear them be so rawly ... normal. I love it. Man. I don't know how I made it the whole summer away from here.
You can't recreate this feeling. It's impossible. So I gotta soak it up while I'm here. And I will.
... but do take my word for it.
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