The National Collegiate Athletic Association is being more aggressive in highlighting what it considers inaccurate or unfair reporting, often calling out journalists by name on its website and on Twitter.
A report in the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the increasingly personal nature of the NCAA’s attempts to push back against reporting:
As digital sources of information have exploded—and the lines among reporter, analyst, columnist, and provocateur have blurred—the NCAA has taken a harder stance against some writers. Lately those exchanges have gotten personal, with NCAA representatives referring to some journalists as “lame,” “dumb,” “pseudo-journos,” and “bad ones.”
One recent target of NCAA ire is New York Times columnist Joe Nocera. He wrote a major feature for the New York Times Magazine and also penned a series of columns about the NCAA.
As previously reported on Poynter, the NCAA has accused him of inaccuracies and a conflict of interest, charges that Nocera denies. (Disclosure: As the author of that Poynter report, I was contacted by The Chronicle’s reporter for an interview about the NCAA; I declined the interview, citing the fact that I have limited experience writing about the organization.)
Bob Williams, the NCAA’s head of communications, told The Chronicle his staff has a duty to correct errors in order to stop them from propagating, and that NCAA personnel have behaved appropriately.
“I don’t believe I’ve read anything that would be considered not appropriate, at least coming from our end,” he said. “I’ve read a lot that others have posted that I would consider inappropriate about us.”
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