It looks like the Red and Black’s Zach Dillard will have to wait on that Pulitzer he was hoping for with his Caleb King exposé.
Easily my favorite part:
… The response from the SEC compliance office came at an opportune time for the Bulldogs.
If the Athletic Association had not heard a ruling by Saturday’s game in Jacksonville, Fla., coaches would have had to make a decision whether to play or sit King — much like the Bulldogs were forced to do with A.J. Green earlier this season.
No doubt Richt was losing a lot of sleep over that.
Get The Picture 
So the controversy that was invented in the mind of a third-rate (even for a college paper) reporter and which was picked up by absolutely NO OTHER journalistic outlet turned out to be much ado about nothing? I’m shocked… SHOCKED!!
Seriously, Zach Dillard, consider another career. Your writing sucks, and the fact that you actually carried this fake thing that you invented this far is just laughable.
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Sadly, I bet he’s disappointed that the decision came down this week, as that meant he couldn’t write a column or two about Richt’s “dilemma”.
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I have a journalism degree from UGA, so I get that reporters (even ones actually in college) can’t ignore bad stories about the teams from their alma mater. But it’s quite another thing to just try to invent bad news about your school’s teams, and I can’t imagine this jackass has very many friends outside the offices of the Red and Black. This jagoff is just trying to put together “controversial” or “edgy” columns to get a job after college, and the fact that he’s trying to throw Caleb King under the bus to do it is sad.
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Basically I can sum up all my feelings on this clown by saying somebody at the Grady College needs to teach him the difference between breaking a story and making one up.
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I thought faking a story for the Red and Black would be at least some sort of violation that could get you suspended or tossed out of school or prosecuted in the Student Court. What this kid is doing is way worse that forgetting to show up to court to pay a fine.
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What a jerk, he’ll fit right in at a major news rag.
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Same thought I had .. the ajc is probably creating a new staff position for this clown when he graduates.
Jim
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First I’ve heard of this… lol.
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Dear Mr. Blutarsky,
In regards to my writing ability, I don’t appreciate your sarcastic tone one bit, sir. The King story was a very important expose’ that could only be handled by a man of great journalistic integrity such as myself. I would be doing the public a great disservice by just sweeping a story of such magnitude under the rug. Our job here at The Red and Black is to report the news, and we intend to do so. The fact that I walked in on Caleb railing my fiance’ one night had absolutely nothing to do with the article being published – well, maybe a little… At any rate, we will continue our pursuit of excellence in journalism here at the R&B in spite of your attacks on our work.
Sincerely,
Zach Dillard
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Classic…
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honestly forgot about this whole issue. what a loser.
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Cue the friggin teletype sound effects.
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+ 12 point font
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Can’t blame the young man for trying to make a splash in the industry, I suppose. I hear Paul Finebaum is hiring…
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Former R&Ber here. I keep asking my wife, who dated me in college, if the paper would’ve sh*t out something this ridiculous when I was there. She keeps saying no, but I’m guessing yeah, we probably would’ve.
I’m digging the freakout on Emerson’s blog over this. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING SETH
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When were you there? I might could tell you.
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Also, a *brief* for the closure of this story? After you’ve been hyping it for weeks, and insinuating that King was about to get tossed from the team? Weak sauce.
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“RB Caleb King cleared of any NCAA violation: Loan no issue with league.”
Neither is bad officiating.
Zach Dillard didn’t invent anything. He reported on a public records police report.
Click to access calebking.pdf
Either the alleged victim invented the story on page three of the report by making a false police report (and if so, she invented allegations much more specific than she needed to imagine) or she did not invent the story and simply elected not to press any criminal charge – as indicated in the report – or file a small claims collection complaint. Or maybe any loan was repaid.
Why blame Zach? After all, he was only practicing journalism. And doing a good job of it.
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Have to disagree with you here. He speculated on whether an incident about which he had no direct knowledge, other than what he read in a police report, constituted an NCAA violation. He spoke with neither party, saw no evidence of how the transaction actually transpired and didn’t even take steps to nail down the nature of the two’s relationship, or her relationship to the University.
That’s not good journalism in my book.
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My goodness, we are certainly hard on college kids….writing about other college kids…in a college newspaper.
Maybe the kid is majoring in Right Wing Reporting and is trying to get a job at Fox News.
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No…I’m sure he’s working on getting his acceptance to the Jayson Blair Desk at the NY Times. Only news fit to print and all…
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Not that I care, but the Jayson Blair Chair of Excellence is for reporters who make up stories….which he did not do.
He just made a big deal over not much.
His coach should be fired.
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Man Fox News really sticks in you left leaning guy’s craws. It is no more to the right than virtually every other major news outlet has been to the left for decades. We have always gotten warped news, at least now we get it from both sides. Right wingers are also much better at taking a joke because all of the left leaning comedians have been hitting us for years, but lefties can’t take a joke, don’t make fun of Obama’s ears, God forbid.
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I always love comments like this, because they miss the bigger picture.
It’s not that Fox reports from the right, it’s that it’s run by a Republican political operative, Roger Ailes. There isn’t another major news organization on the left or right like that.
Fox is more of a propaganda channel than a news network. Which is fine, just be honest about it.
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It’s funny what hits people’s raw nerve. Do CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast networks get a pass from you Senator because they maintain a veneer of objectivity that is unavailable to Fox because Ailes runs it?
I don’t want to start anything angry here. I just want to know what floats your boat.
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I try not to get my news from the broadcast networks. I find it’s better for my sanity that way.
But to answer your question, I don’t think any news organization should be given a pass for deliberately slanting the news unless it’s being open and straightforward about having an agenda.
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Senator:
You should keep your Fox comments between your psychiatrist or your publicist—take your pick.
🙂
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Since I don’t have either, that’s a problem. 😉
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Fox News is well beyond a propaganda channel. It is an electronic disinformation outlet that has no peer.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910200007
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010270006
That’s not fine. It’s a threat to truth, freedom and democracy everywhere.
America should have fought Rupert in Australia rather than having to fight him here.
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Media Matters? Really? Well, I guess THAT settles it.
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It does.
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Indeed, freedom is not free.
We must keep vigil and make sure billionaire foreigners don’t influence our political system.
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You know that Soros is an American citizen, right?
As for billionaires influencing our political system, that train done left the station a long time ago.
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
Damn that Constitution thingy.
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NO SOUP FOR YOU!
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We are veering off from the Dawgs (wait for it…I’ll tie these together in a moment) but some of these statements really can’t go unchallenged. Scorpio was defending the kid, and discloses his journalism and R&B bias below, so good for him. He makes a lot of great contributions here, but he also was the one to bring in an unwarranted and nonsensical partisan political *snark*.
But Senator, FOX news and the FOX channel / slate of programming are two different things and no one is failing to be honest about it…except you and others who try to deny the mainstream liberal bias that has existed for decades. And DIF uses an openly liberal group to try to make his point…? If Roger Ailes and who?…Bill O’Reilly? (not a journalist)… bother you, how do you think many feel about George Soros and Dan Rather…Katie Couric….Brian Williams…et al?
This debate could get out of hand on this blog, so now I’ll try to tie it back to Dawgs football. I mentioned “veering off” above….Hey, anybody remember the Veer offense Vince has us run in the ’70’s? Used to whip the gators ass with it! Please comment and talk amongst yourselves, and pass the cocktail peanuts….
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As I said before, I don’t watch Fox, so Ailes doesn’t bother me. I’m just amused at the way people characterize Fox.
And as for “no one failing to be honest about it”, isn’t this the network whose catch phrase is “fair and balanced”? Riiight.
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Senator, you just proved my point. You just couldn’t let that go could you? I conceded that Fox was slanted to the right, it is but the other news outlets are and always have been slanted to the left. The leftists can’t stand that another view on things now gets cranked out for public consumption. Before Fox came around news stories which were inconvenient to the left wing narrative (like the Justice Department Black Panther thing) were just suppressed, now because of Fox and the rest of the new media they get out and that’s the most unfair thing evah. You and I think a lot a like about football and sports media punditry. You are quick to see through a lot of things in the world in sports, it is a marvel to me that our thoughts could be so divergent on politics as I have gathered that they are from 2.5 years of reading your blog. Oh well, I’m glad we’ve got sports, the true uniter not divider and post-partisan diversion.
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Again, I’m not looking at this as a left/right thing. I was never particularly comfortable with the Begalas, Carvilles and Buchanans of the world bleeding into the world of journalism (none of those on Fox, by the way).
But even there, Fox takes things to a different level: what news organization allows political analysts on its payroll to endorse and campaign for candidates, as Fox does with Palin and Huckaby? That ain’t right. And it’s not good journalism, either.
Ailes is a sharp guy and Fox is a brilliantly executed concept. But I stand by my characterization.
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The 24 hour news cycle virtually guaranteed that your opinion guys would bleed into world of journalism, there is just too much time to fill up. But let’s not forget that CNN, the network that started it all was founded and operated for years by Ted Turner, the guy who famously married Hanoi Jane and is as far too the left as say Hugo Chavez. I’m just saying.
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I probably got this off track with a loaded question to the Senator. He didn’t start arguing but others did. It boils down to: nobody is free from biases, and much of what passes for analysis is really rationalization to suit our feelings. I’m just as guilty as anyone.
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Well said, HS. I just think we would all be better served if these news outlets were far more transparent about their biases.
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This is a fascinating discussion, but I believe you all are missing a major point.
I am taking a page from Neal Boortz and challenging any of you to find evidence of bias in any of Fox’s NEWS reporting. O’Reilly, Hannity, Huckabee, Greta, etc DON’T count. They are OPINION people. I’m talking about shows like Special Report with Bret Baier.
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Implicit in your challenge would seem to be the assertion that Fox is more neutral in its reporting than other news sources. Color me skeptical on that.
Also, this.
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(Al Gore style sighhhhhh….) 😉
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Bias, by news media outlets are usually reflected by WHAT they choose to report not how they choose to report it. CNN/MSNBC/The NY Times/NPR/ETC. choose to report most prominently stories that fit the left wing narrative, Fox does the same with stories that fit the right wing narrative. The factual news reporting on all is usually fair.
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What a joke. He surmised that she might be an official representative of the University because she was a former bus driver there. That’s about as ridiculous an inference as one can draw, and yet that didn’t stop him from publishing suggestive nonsense in the Red and Black. And the question you have to ask is WHY he is publishing something that speculative and utterly lacking in foundation. Is he trying to actually get to the truth or instead make a name for himself? The former is the job of a journalist. The latter deserves the scorn that comes with it.
Nothing about that incident seriously pointed to a NCAA violation. There is a reason the AJC — not exactly a bastion of UGA love these days (see Schulz, Jeff) didn’t run with this story — because it isn’t one. A good reporter may see smoke and investigate to see if there is fire. He shouldn’t report that there is smoke.
Dillard should find a new career and more importantly, grow up. And fast.
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My favorite part of that “criminal record” is the arresting officer pulled over Caleb King’s brother in the “Chick-fa-Lay” parking lot. Classic.
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I don’t know about you but I’m always looking for some chicks fa lay.
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I just love how he takes it as far as insinuating that the coaches would have had to hold Caleb out this Saturday. Unbelievable just how far this clown ran with this.
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Seriously. If you had any doubt about the kid’s “integrity,” that line about how convenient it was should put an end to it. I don’t think anyone ever gave a second thought to holding CK out here, but that didn’t stop Dillard — burned once already for gross speculation — from speculating again that Georgia coaches faced a dilemma even though there is no evidence that they believed this allegation to be a serious one.
Of course, moron that Dillard is, I’m sure he would say that the fact that they sent the inquiry to the SEC office “proves” that it was non-frivolous. That’s why he’ll be lucky to write for a third-rate paper in a cow town, because once the story makes it into the media, even if it never should have, the University is going to make sure to get official clearance on it to address any speculation created by the story itself even if the speculation was unfairly created. You can’t leave it hanging out there. But that doesn’t in any way suggest that this was a story worth pursuing. Indeed, the fact that nothing came of it should lead Dillard to examine his predicate assumptions that led him to think this was serious. I doubt that will happen, however, because if he engaged in that level of introspection and analysis, the story would have never been written in the first instance.
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Dillard’s douche
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Folks, its a freaking college newspaper, who gives a fat rat’s ass what they write about?
And yes, I did work there before the war.
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Spanish American or World War I?
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Hey….it was Vietnam and I resent the implication.
I could type and everything.
You know, I hate to bring this up, but what if the dumb kid’s story alerted the Athletic Department to a potential problem, which they solved.
I am not in any way defending this dumb kid, but after all, he is just that, it is his coaching that is suspect.
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Proly the same coaching that produced Bradley and Schultz, who also get a lot of attention here.
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These young whippersnappers have it easy! Why when I worked for the Red & Black, we had to walk 3 miles outdoors, in all kinds of weather, just to get to the ink barrel! And it was uphill both ways!
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Biggest problem we had was a place to tie up the horses.
If you put them in the faculty corral you’d get arrested by the campus cops.
But we did find the manure helpful when writing.
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I think adults — that’s who you are, right? — should lay off the kid just a bit. College newspapers are for trial and error and learning how to work in the industry and I’m sure he learned some valuable lessons from all this.
Sometimes you go out on a limb and the limb breaks. Move on.
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+1 Mr. Ching…..exactly the point I was trying to make higher up in the “discussion.”
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Yea that makes sense right up to the point the a$$hole makes somebody else’s life miserable. He is at best a tabloid idiot and at worst an Athens-Banner Herald reporter.
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The Red and Black’s not some book report for Journalism 101, it’s an independent newspaper operated as a business. It seceded from the University back in the 70’s or 80’s so that it could operate outside the editorial control of the Grady College or University administrators. In so doing, they took on more responsibility to the truth than your average college paper. Also, Caleb King’s not a hypothetical set of facts presented by an actor for a journalism class project, he’s a real live human being, and his life is affected by shoddy work from college journalists just the same as it would be if the shoddy work was done by professional journalists. I haven’t noticed your paper using the “they’re just college students” explanation to excuse a lot of behavior on the part of the football team, so I don’t think that a student journalist covering that team should get different treatment.
The Senator points out above about this guy did no discernable legwork to determine what kind of relationship existed between these two people, asking neither the woman, nor King who is frequently available to speak with media. Nor did he back off his speculation that this loan may constitute an NCAA violation after members of UGA’s compliance staff told them that they doubted it would in his initial piece. He basically just wrote “hey, I think this may be an NCAA violation, and wouldn’t that be bad!” No other reporters picked up on the story, but he didn’t take that as an indication that he may be off course. He pressed on. And every drop of “reporting” he did on the story is in print, and was circulated for free to Caleb King’s UGA peers in print, and the world at large via the internet. So yeah, the fact that the guy is getting called a few names here is probably not unjust.
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What about the alleged threats to post nude pictures and a video on the internet to keep from repaying a loan?
Are those false allegations? Were the allegations part of the NCAA and SEC inquiries? Did the complainant file a false police report? Was there a denial from anyone of those allegations? Should Caleb go into finance? Should Caleb go onto Fox News and refudiate the allegations that now lie fallow?
Focus on the issue of a loan that may have originated from a former employee with no focus on the circumstances under which the loan was allegedly not repaid misses the point. Those circumstances, if true, are directly contrary to Mark’s goals and aspirations of making his players the wonderful and responsible young men that he wants them to be.
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Since you pour a little reason into the mix, I guess I have to agree…even if the reporter is an inexperienced kid. I may be wrong, but I think the AJC poked at this early on.
At the end of the day, both the reporter and Caleb will be fine.
The reporter will go to work for the AJC (he will fit in perfectly).
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Grady J-school grad and occasional R&B contributor, here. I have no issue with the fact he wrote an article about this and raised the issue. The problem is the tone he used, assumptions he presented as fact and the addition of “quotes” around “friend”. Such usage is akin to saying a “so called” friend. It’s a loaded editorial comment, not a factual statement.
What he needed was a good editor!
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Like I said earlier, his coach should be fired.
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“I did want to let you know that our compliance office, in conjunction with the SEC, has reviewed the issue [with King] and determined that no violation occurred,” said associate athletic director Claude Felton in an e-mail to a select group of beat writers covering Georgia football.
I enjoyed that part. A “select” group, meaning all of them?
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Our own Oliver Stone. How quaint.
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