Texas Student Newspaper Battles Athletic Department Over Coverage of Football Team

Filed under: Texas Football, Big 12A month ago, Texas back-up quarterback John Chiles was a suspect in an "assault-by-conduct" incident in Austin. The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas, reported this information in their blog. According to a recent editorial in The Daily Texan, this set off a firestorm of criticism from at least one official in the UT athletic department."Last month, The Daily Texan reported on its blog that the Austin Police Department suspended an assault with injury investigation in which Longhorns backup quarterback John Chiles was a suspect. When the Texan originally reported that APD confirmed Chiles as a suspect, assistant athletics director John Bianco wrote several threatening e-mails to Daily Texan sports editor and journalism senior Ricky Treon, calling him unprofessional and his reporting "untruthful." Bianco warned that other news agencies (and potential employers) "realize how you do business now," which "will hurt you in the long run." He also said that if the Texan's editors didn't pull the post off the blog, "John Chiles would understandably have an issue with the entire paper" which would be "unfortunate for the Texan's long-term working relationship with him."The editorial goes onto discuss the "rules" of covering big-time college athletics, culminating with the following thoughts: "The bottom line is that press scrutiny is simply not accepted by sports officials or the public fan base. At UT, reporters are not allowed to call athletes, and both athletes and reporters face being reprimanded for unauthorized interviews, no matter what the story is about. More importantly, university officials are under pressure to protect the image of their sports programs, which are at the forefront of bringing in money, identity and recognition to the school."Interestingly, this is not the first time this spring that a Big 12 student newspaper has found itself in trouble with an athletic department because of the paper's coverage of the football team. Earlier Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini temporarily banned The Daily Nebraskan for a piece criticizing his handling of an alleged criminal incident. These situations taken together only seem to solidify the point made by the Daily Texan's editorial piece. Ultimately public institutions are accountable to the public, and I'd certainly contend it's the media's job to help ensure this occurs.via The WizPermalink | Email this | Comments more...