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Sue Favor/Hoopism - thoughts?

 
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PRballer



Joined: 18 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: 05/13/20 4:36 pm    ::: Sue Favor/Hoopism - thoughts? Reply Reply with quote

I struggle here.

While a long time advocate and follower of the women's game - since 1982, who has built a nice blog and following on Twitter - the strangeness continues. She will verbally attack (and I've heard block) a follower who has different opinions and goes out of her way to bash football, NCAAB and NBA. She also posts a lot about how great California is compared to everywhere else and then rants that she runs a clean "journalism" site.

Sometimes she's a journalist when convenient for her - if you're the WNBA, how do you deal with some that lacks professionalism? What kind of access do you give them? She will tweet about how horrible recruiting is and then post articles/link to sites on recruiting or verbal commits. She has an agenda against UConn (and I'm no Uconn fan). It goes on and on.

This is the latest, and not probably not the best example of her head scratching tweets, but here is an example of her "ignorance" she likes to show on men's sports...in this instance, she has no idea who Ernie Johnson is. (You just look mis-informed and more odd)

https://twitter.com/hoopism/status/1260647392409350145?s=20

I find Hoopfeed (run by a Bay Area writer, Cheryl Coward) to be more of an example of a digital journalist who has retained journalistic integrity.

IS SUE GOOD FOR THE WOMEN's GAME? Curious what others think. She's just one of my go-to's on Twitter - and maybe it's time to move on.


pilight



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PostPosted: 05/13/20 6:05 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round and the WBB world is no exception. It's good to have a variety of different outlooks and approaches to coverage of the sport. If she ruffles some feathers, so be it. She doesn't take it as well as she dishes it out, but that's true of quite a few journalists.



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PRballer



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PostPosted: 05/13/20 8:12 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round and the WBB world is no exception. It's good to have a variety of different outlooks and approaches to coverage of the sport. If she ruffles some feathers, so be it. She doesn't take it as well as she dishes it out, but that's true of quite a few journalists.


I appreciate that POV from you - it just sometimes truly ruffles these feathers and I'd rather come to ya'll then go "public" on Twitter.

And get blocked.


calbearman76



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PostPosted: 05/13/20 9:58 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I think that there should be two tests of how seriously you should take journalists. The first test is how much readership. Obviously if someone has a well read platform it makes sense that generally they should be given more access and support. The second test should be accuracy. People may have different opinions and that should almost always be accepted, but someone who doesn't strive to be accurate is a big problem. Ideally you want people who like women's basketball to spread the word, but even if they are not big fans a long as they take the time to write about it accurately they deserve to be heard. And i believe those rules apply whether you are supplying information to them or getting information from them. Indeed the second is even more important if you are getting their information.


Stormeo



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 12:54 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Generally speaking, I think it's easier for one to single someone out and be singled out in this women's basketball mini-industry due to the lack of women's basketball reporters and commentators. It appears to me that virtually everyone sort of has to be both roles, which can make things messy at times. I recall when Rachel Galligan from Winsidr saying Odyssey Sims was "unlikely" to play in the season without saying anything else & the Lynx/Reeve getting all pissy over it. Galligan did not out Sims' pregnancy; plenty of stars have taken a season off for one reason or another. Rolling Eyes Ya can't want more coverage but then complain when it's given!

Lol but I digress. Embarassed As it pertains to Favor's unpredictable and unnecessary hostility about any given thing? (and her face)
...Well, I have nothing nice to say so I will take the high road and not say anything. Mr. Green


ClayK



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 9:44 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

So I had one encounter with Sue, who I have never met -- and it was odd.

I called her for some reason (back in the day when you actually called people) and I said "Hello, this is Clay Kallam."

Long pause ... no greeting, no nothing. Then, drawled out,

"Claay Kaalllamm ..."

And the conversation went downhill from there.

Just odd ...



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PRballer



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 10:35 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Stormeo wrote:
Generally speaking, I think it's easier for one to single someone out and be singled out in this women's basketball mini-industry due to the lack of women's basketball reporters and commentators. It appears to me that virtually everyone sort of has to be both roles, which can make things messy at times. I recall when Rachel Galligan from Winsidr saying Odyssey Sims was "unlikely" to play in the season without saying anything else & the Lynx/Reeve getting all pissy over it. Galligan did not out Sims' pregnancy; plenty of stars have taken a season off for one reason or another. Rolling Eyes Ya can't want more coverage but then complain when it's given!

Lol but I digress. Embarassed As it pertains to Favor's unpredictable and unnecessary hostility about any given thing? (and her face)
...Well, I have nothing nice to say so I will take the high road and not say anything. Mr. Green


Stormeo, not to derail but I really respect Galligan and enjoy her analysis and commentary. I thought she got unnecessary flack for that Sims "break", including a holier-than-thou tweet from Lobo and it wasn't quite fair. She didn't disclose the pregnancy.


myrtle



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 11:24 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

PRballer wrote:
Stormeo wrote:
Generally speaking, I think it's easier for one to single someone out and be singled out in this women's basketball mini-industry due to the lack of women's basketball reporters and commentators. It appears to me that virtually everyone sort of has to be both roles, which can make things messy at times. I recall when Rachel Galligan from Winsidr saying Odyssey Sims was "unlikely" to play in the season without saying anything else & the Lynx/Reeve getting all pissy over it. Galligan did not out Sims' pregnancy; plenty of stars have taken a season off for one reason or another. Rolling Eyes Ya can't want more coverage but then complain when it's given!

Lol but I digress. Embarassed As it pertains to Favor's unpredictable and unnecessary hostility about any given thing? (and her face)
...Well, I have nothing nice to say so I will take the high road and not say anything. Mr. Green


Stormeo, not to derail but I really respect Galligan and enjoy her analysis and commentary. I thought she got unnecessary flack for that Sims "break", including a holier-than-thou tweet from Lobo and it wasn't quite fair. She didn't disclose the pregnancy.


This is really a difference highlight between the W and the NBA. If an NBA player sneezes on his Aunt Ruby (ok, you know what I mean) it would be frontline news. But for some reason in the W anything/everything off the court should be hush hush...



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myrtle



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 11:28 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Anyway, these days journalism seems to be more about entertainment than 'news' anyway. I mean that starts with the big guys. I can't believe all the articles in reuters, cnn, etc...that say very little but have sensational headlines. So it's not surprising that it carries into sports. I think as long as you simply see it as opinion, not fact, then it's ok. I just wish more writers would add that IMO or 'this is an opinion piece' when it clearly is...



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miller40



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 3:39 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

myrtle wrote:
PRballer wrote:
Stormeo wrote:
Generally speaking, I think it's easier for one to single someone out and be singled out in this women's basketball mini-industry due to the lack of women's basketball reporters and commentators. It appears to me that virtually everyone sort of has to be both roles, which can make things messy at times. I recall when Rachel Galligan from Winsidr saying Odyssey Sims was "unlikely" to play in the season without saying anything else & the Lynx/Reeve getting all pissy over it. Galligan did not out Sims' pregnancy; plenty of stars have taken a season off for one reason or another. Rolling Eyes Ya can't want more coverage but then complain when it's given!

Lol but I digress. Embarassed As it pertains to Favor's unpredictable and unnecessary hostility about any given thing? (and her face)
...Well, I have nothing nice to say so I will take the high road and not say anything. Mr. Green


Stormeo, not to derail but I really respect Galligan and enjoy her analysis and commentary. I thought she got unnecessary flack for that Sims "break", including a holier-than-thou tweet from Lobo and it wasn't quite fair. She didn't disclose the pregnancy.


This is really a difference highlight between the W and the NBA. If an NBA player sneezes on his Aunt Ruby (ok, you know what I mean) it would be frontline news. But for some reason in the W anything/everything off the court should be hush hush...


WNBA “journalism” seems to be more about maintaining access and cultivating friendships than actual reporting. Probably why there are so many retread puff pieces.


ClayK



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 6:04 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

miller40 wrote:
myrtle wrote:
PRballer wrote:
Stormeo wrote:
Generally speaking, I think it's easier for one to single someone out and be singled out in this women's basketball mini-industry due to the lack of women's basketball reporters and commentators. It appears to me that virtually everyone sort of has to be both roles, which can make things messy at times. I recall when Rachel Galligan from Winsidr saying Odyssey Sims was "unlikely" to play in the season without saying anything else & the Lynx/Reeve getting all pissy over it. Galligan did not out Sims' pregnancy; plenty of stars have taken a season off for one reason or another. Rolling Eyes Ya can't want more coverage but then complain when it's given!

Lol but I digress. Embarassed As it pertains to Favor's unpredictable and unnecessary hostility about any given thing? (and her face)
...Well, I have nothing nice to say so I will take the high road and not say anything. Mr. Green


Stormeo, not to derail but I really respect Galligan and enjoy her analysis and commentary. I thought she got unnecessary flack for that Sims "break", including a holier-than-thou tweet from Lobo and it wasn't quite fair. She didn't disclose the pregnancy.


This is really a difference highlight between the W and the NBA. If an NBA player sneezes on his Aunt Ruby (ok, you know what I mean) it would be frontline news. But for some reason in the W anything/everything off the court should be hush hush...


WNBA “journalism” seems to be more about maintaining access and cultivating friendships than actual reporting. Probably why there are so many retread puff pieces.


When I covered the league, that's how I felt. It seemed like there weren't many others who were willing to criticize the league about anything. It was like you were expected to support the cause, not do journalism.



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Stormeo



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 7:00 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

ClayK wrote:
When I covered the league, that's how I felt. It seemed like there weren't many others who were willing to criticize the league about anything. It was like you were expected to support the cause, not do journalism.


And that's exactly the vibe it has given off, to me. Media/Journalism coverage on literally anything else - certainly including the men's sports world and basically any of the individual sports within them - is sensationalized in either direction, but more so negative than positive. Coverage in women's basketball is a different universe altogether.

I often wonder why this is. Here is how I perceive it: On one side, you have mainstream non-sports/sports-adjacent media that, whenever they do cover the "W.N.B.A.", seems to be nearly only about the W's lack of growth/attendance numbers or its marketing ineptitude - in other words, the business end and nothing more. At the same time, large misogynistic swaths of society that hate on women's basketball exist - which include several 12 year-olds on twitter that can't cleanly put even a single word together (but where they don't have a brain, they have an impressionable big-enough platform unfortunately). On the other side, you have the reporter-commentator hybrids inside the women's basketball/sports industry that exist as a tight-knit community (by default, due to its small size), navigating their own imperfect roles in and around each other. All the while, they seem to have to fight off - and naturally overcompensate for - the negativity the opposite side brings. They feel a need to paint a rosy picture for the players/the fans/themselves? because A) women's basketball needs and deserves anything close to consistent coverage, but also B) they're already fighting off the other side and probably feel like they'd make things worse if they added in their own two cents on what's not working, no matter how constructive those cents could be.

So, to me, the whole landscape’s equilibrium as it pertains to the industry-media dynamic is thrown off due to certain areas on both sides. Many of us here know of and can identify these imperfections. That’s why women’s basketball & sports should just be covered like men's sports. News/Commentary centered around normal League & Team events. Reporters/Sources exposing turmoils centered around the League & Teams (and potential cover-ups of said turmoils). News/Commentary about players on-the-court-related. News/Commentary about players off-the-court-related. The People and The Business, intertwined - and up close & personal. If ya mix in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to a concoction and constantly add to them, the concoction only gets bigger no matter what characteristic it takes on. And isn't the ultimate goal here to get bigger?

Something I'm tired of that could go a long way if it ever gets communally axed is this implied 'not being allowed to say or report stuff because it might hurt someone's feelings' crap. That is where journalism really suffers, and because of the industry & the media’s symbiotic nature, the industry as a whole isn't able to grow into something bigger than what it is. (So thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I suppose lmao)




Last edited by Stormeo on 05/15/20 12:36 am; edited 6 times in total
pilight



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 7:05 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

There's more critical coverage by people who now the game than there used to be.



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 8:54 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
There's more critical coverage by people who now the game than there used to be.

Just what I was going to say. You may think it's bad now - it used to be way worse. The reason I started writing about the league was because there was no one saying "X can't shoot and that really hurts her team" or even "Y runs the pick-and-roll a lot for her team". Everything was "X has a really cute puppy!" or "Y was so good back when she played for WhoCares State". Even the limited stuff that actually looked at the basketball was rarely willing to be critical of the play - certainly not in the way equivalent writers were for the men's game or in other sports.

There's still plenty of toadying from people who want to stay on the good sides of coaches and players to maintain their access and be part of the 'in crowd', but you see loads of that in the bigger sports as well. There is much more coverage of this league as a sport than there used to be - and just much more in general, which allows you to pick and choose what you bother to read or pay attention to.



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tfan



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PostPosted: 05/14/20 11:37 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I don’t think twitter posts should be considered as “journalism”. Maybe just read her website.

I personally didn’t find anything you listed as being a significant faux pas. Of the things you listed, what bothered you the most?


LynxFan32



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PostPosted: 05/15/20 2:28 am    ::: Re: Sue Favor/Hoopism - thoughts? Reply Reply with quote

PRballer wrote:
I struggle here.

While a long time advocate and follower of the women's game - since 1982, who has built a nice blog and following on Twitter - the strangeness continues. She will verbally attack (and I've heard block) a follower who has different opinions and goes out of her way to bash football, NCAAB and NBA. She also posts a lot about how great California is compared to everywhere else and then rants that she runs a clean "journalism" site.

Sometimes she's a journalist when convenient for her - if you're the WNBA, how do you deal with some that lacks professionalism? What kind of access do you give them? She will tweet about how horrible recruiting is and then post articles/link to sites on recruiting or verbal commits. She has an agenda against UConn (and I'm no Uconn fan). It goes on and on.

This is the latest, and not probably not the best example of her head scratching tweets, but here is an example of her "ignorance" she likes to show on men's sports...in this instance, she has no idea who Ernie Johnson is. (You just look mis-informed and more odd)

https://twitter.com/hoopism/status/1260647392409350145?s=20

I find Hoopfeed (run by a Bay Area writer, Cheryl Coward) to be more of an example of a digital journalist who has retained journalistic integrity.

IS SUE GOOD FOR THE WOMEN's GAME? Curious what others think. She's just one of my go-to's on Twitter - and maybe it's time to move on.


She blocked me because she was trying to be tough and smart with her tweets to me so I gave it back to her and she got mad lol



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PRballer



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PostPosted: 05/15/20 9:44 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

tfan wrote:
I don’t think twitter posts should be considered as “journalism”. Maybe just read her website.

I personally didn’t find anything you listed as being a significant faux pas. Of the things you listed, what bothered you the most?


Tfan, valid points - and you're totally right. The website is actually pretty good. I just use Twitter regularly so see the tweets and articles on women's basketball. And she covers a lot of ground and her readership and followers are growing. To answer your question, of what I actually listed above, what probably bothers me the most is the tone/manner in which she responds to her followers or anyone who disagrees or challenges here. It's absurd.

But those aren't my biggest gripes - though the Twitter rants/jabs are irksome and increasing lately - the list has been growing! Probably the biggest challenge for me was around when Geno and Sylvia Hatchell hit 1,000 wins at their respective schools, Sue decided to go on a Twitter rant on how Geno couldn't have done it without his 30+ year assistant (Chris Dailey) by his side. She implied that somehow Hatchell's 1,000 wins were more impressive because she did it on her own, without the help of an assistant like Geno had. The challenging irony in that is Hatchell had the exact same thing - Andrew Calder was her top assistant for her entire 30+ year stint in Chapel Hill, too. Things like that. And I called her out directly on Twitter (as did others) and she never bothered to address it, correct it or take responsibility for it. Ok, no big deal. Another time she posted attendance figures about Pac-12 programs and made conflated remarks about programs' draw and school support - but the numbers she posted were from the wrong year. So it wouldn't support her thesis. I definitely shared this feedback on the college thread when they happened. Listen, we are all entitled to make mistakes and as a start-up media site, she doesn't have a fact checker but the Geno/Sylvia comparison was the end of it for me - utterly ridiculous and just the pinnacle of a long line of anti-UConn content. The end of me taking her seriously as a journalist. So perhaps I've been more cautious since then.

She's also taken veiled swipes at other women's basketball bloggers - essentially going after Hoopfeed/Cheryl Coward, who IMO, runs a larger and more successful site. She also gets holier-than-thou on recruiting i.e. "this is why I will NEVER post articles about high school recruits, rankings are so dumb blah blah..." ....and then she literally posts articles about recruiting. What is it then, Sue?

As Clay stated, she's also just plain weird to deal with (in full transparency, I haven't dealt with her directly). She also has this "best coast" thing going on and touting how LA is doing so well in COVID-19 (vs. who? NY? Really?). Not a contest, Sue.

Rant over, but maybe that paints the picture - but gives you a sense of how it fires me up a bit - and yet, you're right. I can choose to simply ignore or follow others. On one hand, the articles she tweets are interesting and that's what draws me in. The website and writing are strong and maybe I just need to get over myself, but that's why I came here, to vent a tiny bit and see if folks had any similar experiences or shared feelings on it. No big thing either way and appreciate the perspectives.

I do appreciate the discussion by folks like Pilight and especially Clay who has covered women's basketball for years - it's okay to gauge the media who cover the game and note the trends around it. Clay, I would say in the past, you've definitely not held back when things need to be critically analyzed - and that's a great thing. We miss Full Court Press!

I am a huge Voepel fan and even she's faced (around here at least) backlash on how she covers the sport - some say eternal cheerleader and purveyor of the puff piece - but she has been critical of McCallie, Marian Washington's tenure at Kansas and of course she broke the Deb Patterson/K-State drama in the KC Star and ESPN. So she's been somewhat balanced and has held onto the balance of journalism - reporting news vs. providing commentary. Hayes also writes lovely features, but rarely covers the negative, too.

Podcasts like Winsidr have done a good job at providing critical analysis of players, coaches, etc. so hopefully the needle is moving more in the direction of balanced, thoughtful journalism. And not afraid to piss a few people off.

So that's that!


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PostPosted: 05/15/20 10:08 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Thanks for the shoutout to Full Court Press. I've tried to get the URL back with no luck -- but even if I did, there's no team for me to cover any more. I had hoped there would be one in SF, even though it would probably take me longer to get to the Chase Center than to Sacramento from the East Bay, but no luck there either.

Ah well ...

And by the way, there's nothing like being a coach to make players' flaws apparent -- both on your team and on others.



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PostPosted: 05/15/20 12:34 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote




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