For the record, Charlie Weis is a sore loser.
The University of Kansas head football coach couldn't hold his cool last week after his school's student newspaper, The University Daily Kansan, published a cover illustration running the headline "Road Kill Ahead," indicative of what awaited the team as it faced its in-state rivals, the Kansas State Wildcats.
The mature thing for Weis to do? Tweet about it, apparently.
Weis, using his Twitter handle @CoachWeisKansas, wrote, "Team slammed by our own school newspaper," Weis wrote. "Amazing! No problem with opponents [sic] paper or local media. You deserve what you get! But, not home!"
Someone needs to take Charlie Weis aside and show him there is nothing in the codes and ethics of journalism that say a student newspaper has to be the cheer squad for its school. Perhaps he didn't know what he was getting into. The University Daily Kansan is a multi-award-winning student newspaper and has, for the last two years, been named the "Best Newspaper in the Nation" by College Newspaper Business & Advertising Managers.
They're not playing games.
What Weis doesn't understand is student journalists shouldn't have to jump through hoops for their home team or for any figure at the school for that matter.
Athletics goes along with every other facet of the school. If something negative occurs or valid criticism needs to be made, we cover it. At the same time, if we have criticism to publish, we make a decision each and every time: is it worth it? For every 100 stories we could publish about how badly the Bulls are performing, 99 are not worth compromising our objectivity.
We're lucky at The Spectrum in that regard. Despite Coach Jeff Quinn's struggles, he is a man who knows how to handle the media and treat press with respect no matter how angry he is. We don't necessarily have the best product on the field at the moment, but we can't complain about how the coaches field and react to our criticism.
Weis' childish mannerisms further escalated the situation. Kansas' director of football communication allegedly advised Daily Kansan sports writer Blake Schuster to avoid asking questions to Weis during the next press conference and warned him to "be prepared for a possible change in tone" that could be directed towards him.
Gentle suggestion or not, telling your student newspaper not to ask questions because your coach isn't amused by negative press cuts off a 24/7 news source. The students who write for the paper and the students who play on the football team often cross paths - in classes, at home, at parties. Student journalism is the only press that has that opportunity.
And because of that (and whether the readers see it or not), student journalism is gutsy. A 24-hour news source that's constantly around the people we're writing about? Risky, but that's our job.
The only thing asked in return is to remember the good comes with the bad. A full-page game preview on the front page can quickly be followed up with a column bashing the team. You can't disrespect your paper because of the negative but then expect it to put in good press for you. Don't think we want to be negative - most of us are fans who want to see our teams do well and be able to write about them doing well - but that doesn't mean we're going to compromise journalism ethics to do so.
Charlie Weis and his Jayhawks have a 1-5 record. He's taking out his frustration from his failures - past and present - on Daily Kansan writers, forgetting that part of that $2.5 million salary is owed to all the media attention he has received throughout the course of his career. He's just one of many public figures who has and will continue to complain about bias and then complain about facts that put him in a bad light.
But good press or bad press, no newspaper should ever have to apologize for the facts.
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
