Capstone Report

Auburn’s Izvestia, also known as Phillip Marshall, is outraged that some “fan” posed as a “reporter” and tried to influence the recruiting of a high school student. Welcome to the club! The “recruiting” sites have long been nothing more than fans of the respective schools they cover. The comedy in Marshall’s piece is worth reading. [...]

Circulation decline and ad revenue decline are the news for newspapers. Here is the latest from the AP: “Newspaper publishers’ ad revenue totaled $27.6 billion in 2009, down from $37.8 billion in 2008, according to the Newspaper Association of America. It’s the industry’s lowest ad volume since 1986, when sales totaled $27 billion, unadjusted for [...]

AP: “Our business will continue as usual and the company will work to emerge from the restructuring process as quickly as possible,” CEO Farid Suleman said in a statement. Citadel has retained turnaround specialist Alvarez & Marsal North America LLC as its restructuring adviser. (read the entire report embedded in this post) Powered by Mochila

Cecil Hurt knows his football, but no offense, the show is far more watchable now with the addition of Rachel Baribeau—even if she did graduate from Auburn. You can see some nice photographs of Baribeau at SEC Media Days on her website.

Editor & Publisher reports the Associated Press and Gannett, owner of the Montgomery Advertiser and other papers in the SEC footprint including the Nashville paper and the Louisville Courier-Journal, have ordered their reporters not to sign the new SEC credential policy. One of the arguments against the SEC’s credential policy is prior restraint. According to [...]

In a conversation with ESPN’s Chris Low, Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban explains why the coach had a rocky relationship with the media. He was shy. According to Low’s Q&A: “I had problems getting up in front of people and giving speeches when I was young. My wife is just the opposite. She probably [...]

The Erin Andrews story has entered a new phase. The media has decided to follow her. Here is audio and a story on a 911 call from the ESPN sideline reporter. One of the most interesting lines of the 911 audio: “I did nothing wrong, and I am being treated like (expletive) Britney Spears, and [...]

Stewart Mandel said it best via twitter, “SEC Media Days hits a new low — a writer asked Tim Tebow whether he’s a virgin. Unreal.” The SEC has itself to blame for allowing its premiere event to sink to that level. Maybe some of those 900 or so credentialed “media” members at the event should [...]

Want to get the latest information on recruiting? We don’t either. Want to help smear your rival and hurt their recruiting? We sure do! And you can help us since this all looks fine if we cloak ourselves in the First Amendment and call ourselves “journalists” like those guys at Rivals, Scout, ESPN, etc. For [...]

Chadd Scott was on the Paul Finebaum Radio Network Wednesday. Don’t know him? Don’t worry about it. I’m sure 99.9 percent of the public doesn’t either. And those are the lucky ones. Scott is famous because he hates Nick Saban. His latest anti-Saban diatribe unfolded on the Finebaum Show; it made Charles from Reeltown look [...]

If the SEC and the NCAA want to cleanup the slime of recruiting, the organizations should focus less on oversigning and more on the recruiting sites and how they function as propaganda machines for the schools they cover. The focus today will rightly be on whether Auburn cheated or not during a staged pep rally [...]

ESPN’s new contract with the SEC means conference football games on several of the networks channels including ESPNU. Until today, ESPNU was not available on Comcast, and required a premium sports package on DirecTV. That has all changed as ESPNU will now be available in DirecTV’s Choice package, and will be available “on a majority [...]

Is there a bigger dolt than Mark Weidmer of the Chattanooga Times Free Press? I hope not. His Wednesday column is one of the most confusing things I’ve ever read. He argues against the specter of socialism raised by the Knight Commission, then praises “spreading the wealth around.” The mind boggles. Weidmer writes, “Much as [...]