VTTW Board Index

deal.

This is a very interesting situation... so much smoke from so many different places, but the Hubbs / KNS / Hyams of the world are flatly saying the smoke is BS.... that it could be Shannon but he's nothing more than a candidate who hasn't even spoken to UT. Meanwhile the bloggers are throwing out contract terms and details.

I think this could be sort of a crossroads for "legitimate" media vs. bloggers, at least on the small scale of Knoxville TN and the coverage of the UT Vols. I've given much thought to cancelling my VolQuest and 247 subs for a while now... if they miss on this after being scooped on several smaller stories recently... Jarnell Stokes, the Arnett release debacle, Charlie Baggett's "retirement", the hiring of Ron McKeefery jump to mind... I think I may bail out because the news is coming from other places now.

I was talking to Stogie about this yesterday.  It's fascinating (and maddening).

It will be very interesting to find out. I do believe we have entered into a new era of how information gets to the public in the quickest manner. "Journalists" want the scoop, but they also hate to be wrong, so they may become later and later in getting scoops.

If Shannon is a candidate at all, I can't imagine there hasn't been contact of some sort. The claim of not talking to him may be technically correct depending on how they want to define "talking to". It also depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Also, VolQuest completely missed on the Jay Graham hire, FWIW.

I think it's very fascinating. We're living in such a different age than we were even 5 years ago. 5 years ago most of us did not have Facebook and I don't think Twitter was around yet.

Hubbs basically just admitted on VolQuest that he knows that he might be caught in a question of semantics on whether Shannon and UT have spoken. What he is saying is that Shannon and UT have not spoken directly but he doesn't know about 3rd parties.

Not to repeat myself over and over but this is such an intriguing situation. This all comes about because bloggers or message board posters are not bound by any sort of journalistic ethics. Official journalists are generally not going to run with something unless they know it to be true 100%. Bloggers have no such worry. In today's time, if a blogger hits better than 50% of his or her predictions, they become legitimate, and they have very little to lose by going all in on some informed speculation. But if an official journalist misses once, their credibility takes a hit.

And that's what makes bloggers a viable part of the information cycle. But at the end of the day, traditional journalism will prevail. Individual bloggers will break a big story here or there, and bloggers collectively may break most of the big stories. But, at the end of the day, much of what bloggers write (with the exception of some of the big ones, like Clay Travis or Brooks Melchior) is still totally reliant on what is reported by the traditional sources. Bloggers don't have the resources to provide the consistent and in-depth coverage of a team like the traditional journalism sites.

I canceled my VQ subscription last week, effective Feb 6th.  It is a bitch to cancel.  I stayed on hold for at least 30 minutes.  I was so irritated when she finally came on that I bout bit her head off.  Then she tried every way she could to talk me out of it.  Very frustrating experience.