All Hunter had to do was start the press conference with a statement saying that A) from a corporate/business standpoint, he refers everyone to the code of conduct that was updated in 2023, B) as an officer of the company, he can’t comment on pending litigation, and C) from a personal standpoint, the situation involves his father-in-law and the grandfather of his minor children, so he would appreciate if the reporters respected their privacy at this difficult time. Even if you don’t think much of Hunter himself, the fact that Endeavor/TKO doesn’t have any PR staff on hand that thought to craft a simple statement for him along those lines is crazy to me.
nailed it. our "business" is dying as a whole, but this certainly isn't "all one thing" (i.e., one story over and over, whether it's Trump or McMahon, as much as many would like to serve up this sort of food): "Thurston is right that the McMahon scandal is absolutely a critical story. People should ask about it. But there might also be journalists there covering the Royal Rumble event generally, writing about a specific topic or athlete, or simply taking a more light-hearted approach to wrestling coverage. For people who work for larger outlets, there may even be someone else addressing the McMahon lawsuit, leaving the journalist at the presser free to hit other topics. They are under no obligation to sacrifice their own stories in order to ask about something unrelated to their angle of attack just to appease an online mob.
No one in the media is responsible to anyone but their employer and their audience. The McMahon story is a legitimate and important one. But so is a piece on Cody’s reaction to winning the event for a second time and what it means to see his family in the front row cheering him on.
If you don’t get that, maybe it’s best to leave the media criticism to people with a more holistic understanding of the job?"
I mean, someone has to, but many of us have to do other things in exchange for $$$.
Nope, never. Those few brave souls who ask me about my writing often ask me why I’m writing about Y instead of X. The answer is simple: $$$. Somebody who does a nonstop “we must bring down McMahon” beat is hopefully making loads of money from it, but I doubt it. Lots of “work” being “done” for free.
This isn't the take I expected (maybe I wasn't expecting anything in particular) but the reminder that any given journalist has priorities that may not line up with our own, and that that isn't a failure on anyone's part, is welcome. I try not to be the asshole complaining that nobody asked figurehead X about issue Y, but it's not because I spend a lot of time thinking about anyone's motivation for doing so (or not doing so).
I actually think Hausman did cody a disservice about asking him about Vince. The wrestler portion of those “press conferences” are in kayfabe, and until they’re not, asking Cody Rhodes a question meant for Cody Runnels isn’t really fair, especially to comment on something he wasn’t physically present for (although his answer somehow was light years better than Paul’s).
I’ll disagree about the Hunter portion of the press conference though, if only on the basis that the questions he gets asked are absolute shit. “Is this the best roster in the company’s history?” Is he going to say the smackdown six era had a better roster? “Are you guys excited about the Netflix deal” there’s a whole press release about how excited they are about the Netflix deal, maybe a keener question is “do you guys worry that asking your audience to subscribe to 3 paid services now to consume your content might limit your reach” “how hard is it to book a rumble” he’s not going to say it’s super hard, and that’s why they both sucked. The quality of the questions are usually just complete dogshit, and that’s before you ultimately get to the actual point that the biggest story in the history of pro wrestling is happening at the moment, that might necessitate a complete housecleaning of executives in that company
I didn't say the questions asked are necessarily good questions. I said there may be media members working on a story that isn't about Vince McMahon's scandal.
That’s fair, I would be curious to see where that stuff ends up though, if it’s just in a write up of the presser on sportskeeda or on somebody’s blog, or whether those questions work their way into some kind of formal story. If your editor wants something, you gotta give them what they want, even if it’s the equivalent of “how good were the fans tonight” for the local paper, which is the UFC equivalent of “Dana when are you planning on coming back to X city”
I know, I just don’t know on its face those questions from those outlets leading into a longer form piece, but I’m also not necessarily hunting around for stuff like that from random sites.
The most read stories about any event are generally coverage of the event itself. The audience, I suppose, is people who didn't get a chance to watch and just want to know what happened.
All Hunter had to do was start the press conference with a statement saying that A) from a corporate/business standpoint, he refers everyone to the code of conduct that was updated in 2023, B) as an officer of the company, he can’t comment on pending litigation, and C) from a personal standpoint, the situation involves his father-in-law and the grandfather of his minor children, so he would appreciate if the reporters respected their privacy at this difficult time. Even if you don’t think much of Hunter himself, the fact that Endeavor/TKO doesn’t have any PR staff on hand that thought to craft a simple statement for him along those lines is crazy to me.
Should have hired you!
nailed it. our "business" is dying as a whole, but this certainly isn't "all one thing" (i.e., one story over and over, whether it's Trump or McMahon, as much as many would like to serve up this sort of food): "Thurston is right that the McMahon scandal is absolutely a critical story. People should ask about it. But there might also be journalists there covering the Royal Rumble event generally, writing about a specific topic or athlete, or simply taking a more light-hearted approach to wrestling coverage. For people who work for larger outlets, there may even be someone else addressing the McMahon lawsuit, leaving the journalist at the presser free to hit other topics. They are under no obligation to sacrifice their own stories in order to ask about something unrelated to their angle of attack just to appease an online mob.
No one in the media is responsible to anyone but their employer and their audience. The McMahon story is a legitimate and important one. But so is a piece on Cody’s reaction to winning the event for a second time and what it means to see his family in the front row cheering him on.
If you don’t get that, maybe it’s best to leave the media criticism to people with a more holistic understanding of the job?"
I mean, someone has to, but many of us have to do other things in exchange for $$$.
The idea that people write about specific things for money never occurs to people who spend all day every day criticizing media.
Nope, never. Those few brave souls who ask me about my writing often ask me why I’m writing about Y instead of X. The answer is simple: $$$. Somebody who does a nonstop “we must bring down McMahon” beat is hopefully making loads of money from it, but I doubt it. Lots of “work” being “done” for free.
This isn't the take I expected (maybe I wasn't expecting anything in particular) but the reminder that any given journalist has priorities that may not line up with our own, and that that isn't a failure on anyone's part, is welcome. I try not to be the asshole complaining that nobody asked figurehead X about issue Y, but it's not because I spend a lot of time thinking about anyone's motivation for doing so (or not doing so).
Just my experience as someone who actually did this kind of work.
I actually think Hausman did cody a disservice about asking him about Vince. The wrestler portion of those “press conferences” are in kayfabe, and until they’re not, asking Cody Rhodes a question meant for Cody Runnels isn’t really fair, especially to comment on something he wasn’t physically present for (although his answer somehow was light years better than Paul’s).
I’ll disagree about the Hunter portion of the press conference though, if only on the basis that the questions he gets asked are absolute shit. “Is this the best roster in the company’s history?” Is he going to say the smackdown six era had a better roster? “Are you guys excited about the Netflix deal” there’s a whole press release about how excited they are about the Netflix deal, maybe a keener question is “do you guys worry that asking your audience to subscribe to 3 paid services now to consume your content might limit your reach” “how hard is it to book a rumble” he’s not going to say it’s super hard, and that’s why they both sucked. The quality of the questions are usually just complete dogshit, and that’s before you ultimately get to the actual point that the biggest story in the history of pro wrestling is happening at the moment, that might necessitate a complete housecleaning of executives in that company
I didn't say the questions asked are necessarily good questions. I said there may be media members working on a story that isn't about Vince McMahon's scandal.
That’s fair, I would be curious to see where that stuff ends up though, if it’s just in a write up of the presser on sportskeeda or on somebody’s blog, or whether those questions work their way into some kind of formal story. If your editor wants something, you gotta give them what they want, even if it’s the equivalent of “how good were the fans tonight” for the local paper, which is the UFC equivalent of “Dana when are you planning on coming back to X city”
I gave an example of the kind of story you might write that wouldn't involve questions about the McMahon story in the piece.
I know, I just don’t know on its face those questions from those outlets leading into a longer form piece, but I’m also not necessarily hunting around for stuff like that from random sites.
The most read stories about any event are generally coverage of the event itself. The audience, I suppose, is people who didn't get a chance to watch and just want to know what happened.