Kim Mulkey, coach of Louisiana State College’s girls’s basketball, has a system for achievement. Her groups have received 4 nationwide titles and counting. One in every of her motivators via the years has been to steer her gamers with a chip on her shoulder — and theirs.
That combativeness labored much less effectively for her as The Washington Submit readied an in-depth profile. Upfront and sight unseen she described it as a “hit piece,” mentioned reporter Kent Babb was “sleazy” and threatened to sue. The piece dropped over the weekend, coinciding with the final phases of the NCAA championship match.
The very first thing to say is that whereas the story had a number of lengthy sections of criticism, on the entire, it was not all that adverse. Babb absolutely credited Mulkey’s success as a coach in addition to her willingness to signal autographs and in any other case interact followers instantly.
Excessive on Mulkey’s listing of beefs was that Babb interviewed her estranged father and estranged sister. Nevertheless, she herself had opened the door to the subject in a 2007 autobiography. Even granted that Mulkey’s sole skilled focus, as she says, is successful basketball video games, the notion that the topic of a significant profile ought to be off limits was at greatest naive. If household estrangement is a part of the story arc, it’s normal for the reporter to dig deeper.
Babb did flip up the warmth on that angle, together with late within the piece an outline of the daddy watching her video games on TV in his very modest house, wishing for a reconciliation however probably not anticipating one.
A second lengthy passage involved Mulkey’s seeming hostility towards homosexual gamers. Her sharp tongue was extra directed at their clothes selections and self-presentation than what they did within the bed room. Nevertheless it’s been a nasty look in girls’s sports activities, the place acceptance of LGBTQ+ gamers has been a very long time coming.
The main living proof was how she handled Brittney Griner, her star participant a decade in the past at Baylor College, and overtly homosexual. When Griner was imprisoned in Russia in 2022, Mulkey conspicuously didn’t be part of the refrain calling for her launch.
Babb did quote Mulkey’s representatives saying she had prayed typically for Griner’s launch.
The sports activities journalism group individually took successful Friday when the Los Angeles Instances revealed a commentary by employees author Ben Bolch evaluating LSU to weekend opponent UCLA. It included a more-than-unfortunate phrase describing Mulkey’s LSU gamers as “soiled debutantes.”
In a Google search, I discovered that the racy City Dictionary doesn’t even outline “soiled debutantes.” The time period is, nonetheless, the title of a sequence of pornographic movies. An embarrassed Los Angeles Instances has reedited Bolch’s piece and apologized that the unique “didn’t meet Instances editorial requirements.”
On my scorecard credit score, Mulkey with a three-pointer in her indignation towards the Los Angeles Instances. Within the larger recreation towards The Washington Submit, she was not a winner.
By Rick Edmonds, media enterprise analyst and sports activities fan
Former President Donald Trump’s social media firm mentioned Monday it misplaced greater than $58 million final yr, sending its inventory down 25% solely days after it went public at a valuation of over $8 billion.
The figures come from new Securities and Alternate Fee filings from the corporate, Trump Media & Expertise Group, which logged that loss whereas making simply $4.1 million in income for a similar interval.
The Washington Submit’s Drew Harwell studies that the corporate’s share worth drop “shaved off 1 / 4 of its market worth in a single day” and lower the worth of Trump’s private possession within the firm by $1 billion.
The brand new filings additionally detailed a variety of threat elements for potential shareholders, together with Trump’s standing as “the topic of quite a few authorized proceedings, the scope and scale of that are unprecedented for a former President of america and present candidate for that workplace.”
An “adversarial end result” in one of many instances towards Trump might negatively have an effect on inventory worth, the submitting states.
USA In the present day columnist Chris Brennan issued a warning for these fascinated by shopping for Fact Social inventory: “Perhaps don’t wager your 401(okay) on this one.”
The general public debut valuation didn’t replicate the struggling enterprise of Trump’s Fact Social, Axios’ Sara Fischer reported final week. Fact Social has a sliver of the customers and revenue of different social networks which have gone public, with primarily a meme inventory market worth “utterly divorced from its monetary actuality,” Fischer wrote.
The Day by day Beast’s senior media reporter Justin Baragona supplied a comparability for the corporate’s $58 million loss: “These numbers are just like The Messenger, which went underneath in lower than a yr.”
By Annie Aguiar, viewers engagement producer
What higher day is there than April 2 — the day after manufacturers you adopted on Fb a decade in the past put up cringe jokes to remind you that they nonetheless exist — to rejoice info? Worldwide Truth-Checking Day, based by the Worldwide Truth-Checking Community at Poynter, is an annual celebration and rallying cry for extra reality in public well being, journalism, and on a regular basis life.
Rejoice this yr by:
- Studying a sequence of pressing columns from fact-checkers all over the world (together with this needed commentary on why fact-checking is just not censorship from IFCN director Angie Drobnic Holan)
- Watching our annual State of the Truth-Checkers Report immediately at 9 a.m. Jap time
- Taking part in a free coaching session concerning the construction and investigative potential of the messaging app Telegram with investigative journalist Jane Lytvynenko on Thursday, April 4 at 9:30 a.m. Jap.
Reside lengthy and foster truths. Might the info be with you.
By Ren LaForme, managing editor
In case your newsroom is already publishing utilizing generative synthetic intelligence help, otherwise you’re utilizing it for coding or business-side duties, I want to hear about your tasks. Final week, Poynter revealed an AI ethics coverage starter package for newsrooms fascinated by utilizing AI, however we all know there are some good individuals on the market who’re already utilizing these instruments. I’d love to talk with you to be taught what you’re engaged on, and the way you’ve constructed it.
In the event you’re excited about chatting with me and sharing your tasks, fill out this way. Responses is not going to be included in any publication with out permission.
By Tony Elkins, Poynter school
- Sports activities Illustrated’s will-they-or-won’t-they shutter saga is at the moment a reasonably robust “they received’t,” because of sports activities media firm Minute Media. Genuine Manufacturers Group, which owns the storied sports activities publication, licensed the model to Minute Media in February after a tumultuous run by one other firm, Enviornment Group, appeared to result in SI’s imminent closure. Now, Genuine is suing Manoj Bhargava, who controls Enviornment, for “$48.75 million in missed funds, in addition to damages for infringing on Sports activities Illustrated’s copyrights and logos.” The New York Instances’ Benjamin Mullin has extra in “Sports activities Illustrated’s Proprietor Sues Vitality Drink Mogul After Chaos at Journal.”
- In February, Vice Information, as soon as a snarling darling of the startup information area, went kaput. Vice closed its information division, laid off employees and ceased publishing on its web site. Who’s accountable? The Verge’s Elizabeth Lopatto writes that she “talked to greater than 20 individuals, together with buyers, collectors, and former Vice executives and workers in any respect ranges of the corporate — and their solely actual level of disagreement was whether or not (co-founder and former CEO Shane) Smith or his successor, Nancy Dubuc, deserved extra of the blame for the corporate’s collapse.” Learn extra in “Clear Vice: Vice was as soon as promised to grow to be the brash younger voice of reports. However wild bills, shady offers, and greed turned it into ‘a f*****g clown present.’”
- Excellent news for many who prefer to leverage generative synthetic intelligence to unfold misinformation; troubling information for fact-checkers and journalists: Axios’ Ina Fried with “You’ll not have to log in to make use of ChatGPT.”
- The Asheville Citizen-Instances spent 85 years in the identical constructing — till March 31. In a column, Asheville Watchdog’s John Boyle, a former longtime Citizen-Instances staffer, explains why the constructing was extra than simply “brick, concrete, wooden, metal, and glass” in “A bittersweet farewell to the previous Citizen Instances constructing, from journalists who spent a lot of their lives there.”
- For the Kansas Reflector, Sherman Smith with “Kansas newspaper that was raided by Marion police sues officers for assault on free press.”
- Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and longtime Sacramento Bee staffer Denny J. Walsh has died. He was 88. Sam Stanton wrote an obit for the Bee.
- Vainness Truthful’s Adrian Carrasquillo with “How Univision and the White Home Reconciled After ‘Softball’ Trump Interview.”
- For Axios, Sara Fischer and Barak Ravid with “Netanyahu alerts he’ll shutter native Al Jazeera bureau underneath new regulation.” The Nationwide Press Membership additionally issued an announcement.
- Semafor’s Max Tani with “Apple muscle groups in on subscription podcasts.”
Have suggestions or a tip? E mail Poynter senior media author Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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