In case anyone hadn't decided on the KC Star yet

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

Is too much to ask that the Chiefs beat reporter care more about the NFL than social justice issues? Oh, and also would be helpful if the beat reporter knew a little about football. The current situation is absurd. The idea that people would pay money to get Brooke Pryor's insights on the Chiefs is a joke.

Right?

I think she should be fired for violating basic rules on vetting, etc...

But even if you don't fire her, this is akin to having Ray Charles as your movie critic. What the **** is Brooke Pryor doing on the Chiefs beat? She doesn't want to be there. Chiefs fans don't want her to be there. She's not a good source for football insight and doesn't particularly care if she is or not.

Why are we continuing to try to ram a square peg into a round hole here? If Rosen's too much of a feckless twat to fire her, fine - reassign her ass. Put someone on the Chiefs beat that loves football and wants to talk about the Chiefs, for ****s sake.

[FringeNC]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Right?

I think she should be fired for violating basic rules on vetting, etc...

But even if you don't fire her, this is akin to having Ray Charles as your movie critic. What the **** is Brooke Pryor doing on the Chiefs beat? She doesn't want to be there. Chiefs fans don't want her to be there. She's not a good source for football insight and doesn't particularly care if she is or not.

Why are we continuing to try to ram a square peg into a round hole here? If Rosen's too much of a feckless twat to fire her, fine - reassign her ass. Put someone on the Chiefs beat that loves football and wants to talk about the Chiefs, for ****s sake.

Credentialism is a big problem in this country. So many guys on this board could do a really well as the Chiefs beat reporter, but they don't have a journalism degree. What does Brooke's journalism degree do for us? How is it adding value to what we read? Certainly doesn't seem to be a quality assurance device.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

Is too much to ask that the Chiefs beat reporter care more about the NFL than social justice issues? Oh, and also would be helpful if the beat reporter knew a little about football. The current situation is absurd. The idea that people would pay money to get Brooke Pryor's insights on the Chiefs is a joke.

Elizabeth Merrill was hardly a football expert. There's a role for journalists who want to tell stories about our team. So it ain't about that. What Pryor is doing isn't even journalism. It's clickbait. There's no depth to her writing and there's no nuance to it.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Right?

I think she should be fired for violating basic rules on vetting, etc...

But even if you don't fire her, this is akin to having Ray Charles as your movie critic. What the **** is Brooke Pryor doing on the Chiefs beat? She doesn't want to be there. Chiefs fans don't want her to be there. She's not a good source for football insight and doesn't particularly care if she is or not.

Why are we continuing to try to ram a square peg into a round hole here? If Rosen's too much of a feckless twat to fire her, fine - reassign her ass. Put someone on the Chiefs beat that loves football and wants to talk about the Chiefs, for ****s sake.

Originally Posted by FringeNC

Is too much to ask that the Chiefs beat reporter care more about the NFL than social justice issues? Oh, and also would be helpful if the beat reporter knew a little about football. The current situation is absurd. The idea that people would pay money to get Brooke Pryor's insights on the Chiefs is a joke.

This is my big question mark. I recall hearing people grumble about her even before all of this. It seems like being a writer assigned to the Chiefs would be a plum job that would draw qualified candidates who love football. Missouri even has a well-regarded journalism school in Columbia that (I presume) pumps out a lot of Missouri-oriented graduates.

I recognize that newspapers are struggling financially and this job likely doesn't pay well, so they're probably hiring inexperienced people. I get that. But it still seems like a great job for an entry-level person, and I haven't seen anyone post anything from her that's really football specific.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, too. What is her job supposed to be? If she was hired to write puff pieces about the celebrities playing football, then I withdraw my complaints. But I get the impression that she's supposed to be reporting football news. What's the bottom line?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

This is my big question mark. I recall hearing people grumble about here even before all of this. It seems like being a writer assigned to the Chiefs would be a plum job that would draw qualified candidates who love football. Missouri even has a well-regarded journalism school in Columbia that (I presume) pumps out a lot of Missouri-oriented graduates.

I recognize that newspapers are struggling financially and this job likely doesn't pay well, so they're probably hiring inexperience people. I get that.
But it still seems like a great job for an entry-level person, and I haven't seen anyone post anything from her that's really football specific.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, too. What is her job supposed to be? If she was hired to write puff pieces about the celebrities playing football, then I withdraw my complaints. But I get the impression that she's supposed to be reporting football news. What's the bottom line?

I got that impression as well when teicher was our news guy with totally uninformed opinions who somehow made it to the national stage. He was replaced by some guy who's delivering the same kind of news. In the age of Twitter, totally irrelevant. A far cry from someone like terez or Babb who could deliver that same story with actual substance behind it.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I recognize that newspapers are struggling financially and this job likely doesn't pay well, so they're probably hiring inexperience people. I get that.
But it still seems like a great job for an entry-level person, and I haven't seen anyone post anything from her that's really football specific.

No. The career arc of a sports journalist is why I felt no guilt in giving up on the path six years ago.

If you're not at a premier journo program like Mizzou or Syracuse, you're going to slog your way through writing for your school paper and freelancing or unpaid interning with a local paper. Post graduation you'll be lucky to get a staff role anywhere and you'll probably get stuck in a very small town covering middle school sports as your starting point to maybe monkey bar swing gradually into increasingly bigger markets.

It took the guy I personally know (and who was gracious enough to throw me work and advice) 15 years to make it to the point where he's covering professional sports wherein he spent the better part of a decade in two small to mid-size metro areas in the capacity of an editor/reporter focusing solely on high school prep sports.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

No. The career arc of a sports journalist is why I felt no guilt in giving up on the path six years ago.

If you're not at a premier journo program like Mizzou or Syracuse, you're going to slog your way through writing for your school paper and freelancing or unpaid interning with a local paper. Post graduation you'll be lucky to get a staff role anywhere and you'll probably get stuck in a very small town covering middle school sports as your starting point to maybe monkey bar swing gradually into increasingly bigger markets.

It took the guy I personally know (and who was gracious enough to throw me work and advice) 15 years to make it to the point where he's covering professional sports wherein he spent the better part of a decade in two small to mid-size metro areas in the capacity of an editor/reporter focusing solely on high school prep sports.

This made me wonder about Brooke's career path, so I looked her up on linkedin. Does anyone want to guess what her first job was?


Wait for it...


Wait for it...


It's worth scrolling...keep going....


Here's the entry for her first journalism job: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookepryor/


Freelance liveblogger
Company Name Inside Lacrosse
Dates Employed Mar 2012 – May 2012
Employment Duration 3 mos

I covered both men’s and women’s lacrosse games for Inside Lacrosse. I liveblogged a running play-by-play and wrote game recaps afterwards for games featuring UNC-CH and Duke.


Yes, her first journalism job was covering Duke lacrosse.


Now, unlike the KC Star, I'm actually going to investigate this further with a neutral mindset. The false allegations and the big blowup were in the 2006 to 2008 time frame, before she was there. And she was only there for three months. The aftermath according to wikipedia continued all the way into 2014, though.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

Is too much to ask that the Chiefs beat reporter care more about the NFL than social justice issues?

You have to consider that almost everyone working in influential positions in the media has far-left political views, and people with those views will see their position as carrying a responsibility to advance 'justice'. They don't feel this is an issue where they are biased or being political, they feel it's a right vs wrong thing and it's their duty to take and advance positions.

[Mecca]

If you gauge this story anywhere but here basically it's about an 85-15 mark that he shouldn't ever play again and deserves a prison sentence.

He's never going to change those peoples perceptions either but the NFL wants them to buy tickets, it's why I made that comment the other day that we should be ready to embrace being the bad guy because that's what we're about to be.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Mecca

If you gauge this story anywhere but here basically it's about an 85-15 mark that he shouldn't ever play again and deserves a prison sentence.

He's never going to change those peoples perceptions either but the NFL wants them to buy tickets, it's why I made that comment the other day that we should be ready to embrace being the bad guy because that's what we're about to be.

**** 'em.

**** 'em all...

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

**** 'em.

**** 'em all...

That's how I feel about it, I know people who don't though. That think "the view of our team is sad and I don't want to win if it means people think this of us"

Kinda sad really.

[TEX]

That's exactly how I thought any follow up from the Star, regarding the release of full 11-minute tape, would read. Small-time agenda driven "journalism" at its best.

[T-post Tom]

Truly an "opinion" piece. A one-sided opinion that completely disregards known facts that contradict that opinion.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by T-post Tom

Truly an "opinion" piece. A one-sided opinion that completely disregards known facts that contradict that opinion.

That's my biggest issue and why this is a Rosen issue. It's fine to have a negative opinion on tyreek. But there has been enough seeds planted for real journalists to investigate tyreeks side of both stories.

Not even a hint of that. Nobody talking to tyreeks roommate (Carrington Harrison did). His anger management counselors. No one looking into the credibility of the accusers family. The papers job is to present both sides and let the reader draw their own conclusion. If the editorial board still wanted to say they think tyreek is guilty after a fair presentation of both sides, fine. But the way this is handled is a complete hit job from the top down.

[FringeNC]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

That's my biggest issue and why this is a Rosen issue. It's fine to have a negative opinion on tyreek. But there has been enough seeds planted for real journalists to investigate tyreeks side of both stories.

Not even a hint of that. Nobody talking to tyreeks roommate (Carrington Harrison did). His anger management counselors. No one looking into the credibility of the accusers family. The papers job is to present both sides and let the reader draw their own conclusion. If the editorial board still wanted to say they think tyreek is guilty after a fair presentation of both sides, fine. But the way this is handled is a complete hit job from the top down.

What got me is the total dismissal of Tyreek's claim of innocence in 2014. Actually, it's worse than that: the writer somehow claims it makes him more of a monster. I understand it's an op/ed -- one written to signal to the coastal elites that not everyone in KC is a domestic abuse apologist -- but it was hardly a reasoned, sober analysis. In fact, it was cringe-worthy. The woman who wrote that is just an unhappy, awful person.