AJC on Smith,Blackwood and Dykes

carober18 said:
I'm fine w/ Ken's response. I think he has some okay points and he clearly cares about whether folks believe he is unbiased. But, I wonder if the AJC reports when UGA players leave under similar circumstances. I understand they might report regarding a Greg-Smith-like exit, but I seriously doubt they would report when student-athletes like Dykes and Blackwood leave.
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If they don't, then that's a pretty bad job of coverage, isn't it? Obviously it's something that fans of the programs would be interested in, as it's on the front page of our forum.

GMLane said:
It's not Ken that's the problem. It's the editorial writers (Moore), and the layout editors (UGA wins, its front page with picture; Tech, not a guarantee), and the headline writers.
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To be fair, Moore isn't biased against Tech(he was just about the only person in the world defending Hewitt recently.) He's just an idiot in general.
 
As a long time Atlantan, I see that Ken is reaping the rewards of the AUC UGAy bias that has been going on since Lewis Grizzard was writing his crap.

It was horrible in the Hershel Walker years. It got bad again under St Mark.

I can never remember once in my lifetime (43 years) where the coverage went GT's way and UGAy got the short end of the stick. Basketball is the exception.
 
I wonder if he browses this board.
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If he does, and he's still so all-mighty curious why Tech fans get pissed off at the AJC, maybe he'll spend fifty cents on the Macon Telegraph and get some pointers on what a real newspaper looks like, a newspaper that exists to give us news, rather than incite and enrage the public.
 
beej67 said:
If he does, and he's still so all-mighty curious why Tech fans get pissed off at the AJC, maybe he'll spend fifty cents on the Macon Telegraph and get some pointers on what a real newspaper looks like, a newspaper that exists to give us news, rather than incite and enrage the public.
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I read the Macon paper regularly and they do a fairly good job of reporting on GT. They had us on the front page without ugay once last year and usually had both of us on the front page (or the front sports page). They usually have 1-2 pages devoted to each team.
 
gth816f,
i may be wrong but i do not think, in general, fans are interested in whether players that rarely played are leaving for predominantly academic reasons. I don't want to undermind what those guys accomplished, but, in my view, Blackwood and Dykes are leaving because they will have finished their degree (congrats to them). I think the reason it's on this forum is more because of the article's title than the substance. I am not sure, but I doubt there is a lot of similar coverage, especially titled "X, Y, and Z leave program", for teams that run traditional offenses. I feel that this article was an attempt at stirring the pot regarding the possibility that players may leave if they feel they do not fit into Johnson's system. Just my 2 cents.
 
Not that it matters all that much, but are we sure that Bryce is graduating at the end of the semester?

He is a second year, and at most would have had 5 semesters at Tech after this one. Is it even possible to graduate that fast?
 
gmlane said:
Not that it matters all that much, but are we sure that Bryce is graduating at the end of the semester?

He is a second year, and at most would have had 5 semesters at Tech after this one. Is it even possible to graduate that fast?
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Let me clarify further....as I botched one of my replies up top.

I was told that all three are doing well in school and scheduled to graduate on time.

Jack Blackwood and Greg Smith will both graduate this May. We have seen this elsewhere as Jake was quoted on it and Greg's brother Garrison said that Greg was graduating from GT in May.

I messed up on Bryce...he will not be graduating this May but is on track to graduate. It is actually quite typical for walk-on's, even preferred, to leave the team but stay in school after a couple of years. More walk-on's do this than ones that play for 4-5 years.
 
Yeah and I look like an ass defending this board LOL.

It's my fault I should have read the article and posts better. Anyhoo, I still got it off my chest. I will reply to him with an apology about Bryce but I will probably hammer him on something else just because I think they are all dumb a$$e$.

I depend on this board giving me correct information all the time. This is the only mistake y'all can have for March.
 
refrigeratormover said:
Yeah and I look like an ass defending this board LOL.

It's my fault I should have read the article and posts better. Anyhoo, I still got it off my chest. I will reply to him with an apology about Bryce but I will probably hammer him on something else just because I think they are all dumb a$$e$.

I depend on this board giving me correct information all the time. This is the only mistake y'all can have for March.
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I have quoted exactly and only those two things from the article in the very first post! (Bryce remaining in school and Jake graduating.) See I was already looking out for you!

Thanks for writing to the AJC btw, and you do represent us, so it's not just your ramblings.
 
I haven't had any problem with Sugiura's writing. I think he's done a good job to date. As a Michigan grad and former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, he probably didn't realize that all y'all find it important to write about anything more than sports in the Sports sections. Funny that you're the ones calling him a Zima drinker. It sounds like not too many of you have been drinking your whiskey clear lately.
 
cyptomcat said:
I have quoted exactly and only those two things from the article in the very first post! (Bryce remaining in school and Jake graduating.) See I was already looking out for you!

Thanks for writing to the AJC btw, and you do represent us, so it's not just your ramblings.
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The AJC did miss on Greg Smith graduating...and Bryce Dykes on track.

When the heck does a walk-on that stops playing football make a headline? I do agree that the article was alarmist for no real reason.
 
hiveredtech said:
The AJC did miss on Greg Smith graduating...and Bryce Dykes on track.

When the heck does a walk-on that stops playing football make a headline? I do agree that the article was alarmist for no real reason.
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It's right in the article(and quoted in the OP) that Bryce Dykes is remaining in school.
 
Like everyone else, I don't like seeing the headline '3 Jackets leaving the team' but the fact is that it's the truth.

The article even mentions that Greg Smith's playing time declined over the year. The fact that he is graduating is not the main issue, because he still has a year of eligibility which he will use somewhere else. So yeah, it's a usual transfer, he doesn't fit our scheme and will go somewhere that he fits.
 
cyptomcat said:
Like everyone else, I don't like seeing the headline '3 Jackets leaving the team' but the fact is that it's the truth..
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...and what about the 10 other walk-on's that leave the team each year? There were others that left besides Dykes.
 
hiveredtech said:
...and what about the 10 other walk-on's that leave the team each year? There were others that left besides Dykes.
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I agree with you about the walk-on part. It was not that important to be reported in AJC.

Greg Smith was that important unfortunately and AJC had no problem lumping in the 2 extra walk-ons and generating a big deal. In my opinion, AJC should have a positive bias on GT and UGA, and just not mix in the 2 walk-ons with the headline.
 
cyptomcat said:
I agree with you about the walk-on part. It was not that important to be reported in AJC.

Greg Smith was that important unfortunately and AJC had no problem lumping in the 2 extra walk-ons and generating a big deal. In my opinion, AJC should have a positive bias on GT and UGA, and just not mix in the 2 walk-ons with the headline.
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So they should have just not reported that a player who played in every one of our games last year decided to leave the team? And Dykes was a quarterback that lots of fans knew the name of...if they hadn't reported it and people were wondering why he wasn't on the roster next season, you guys would have been hammering the AJC for not covering it. Probably saying that they don't give Tech the attention to detail that they give U[sic]GA.

There is no negative bias in the article, nor is there any positive bias. It's a factual article about something that in-depth fans of the team would be interested in, again as evidenced by the fact that it was posted here without any intent of railing on the AJC or anything.

Also, I think the only people who are making a "big deal" of this are the people on this forum, with their AJC anti-tech conspiracies, seeing tones in the article that just aren't there. And me I guess, with my anti-AJC anti-tech conspiracies soapbox.
 
So ok, here is what I would have done with my Tech bias:
Headline: Greg Smith is transfering.
Main Article: explain everything, especially that he wasn't playing.
Last Paragraph: also 2 walk-ons are leaving the team.

The only reason for my bias is that prospective recruits probably see these articles, mostly the ones in Georgia, and I would rather not paint a picture as if the team is in turmoil.
 
BuzzLaw said:
Ken's a sensitive fella. Probably drinks Zima with St. Mark.
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Journalists are always sensitive about the issue of bias. The fact is they are mostly honestly unaware of it. This article is basically a non-story, worth mentioning as a side note. Instead, it is made into a news story which, if only glanced at, suggests a defection from the team. It is easy for a journalist to defend the content of the article, when the real bias is in the choice to make it an article at all. That may be because they need a story to fill in the paper and that's all they have. I don't think it is a coincidence, though, that the choices of what to make into a story tend to leave readers with "unintended" impressions. This is just college football, but the same thing happens with political stories. That's why the newspapers have lost credibility and are going out of business.
 
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