Ira Boudway, in Bloomberg Business Week:
Ad Age reported this week that the NCAA has sent out a request for proposals for a new agency to help spread the good word about college sports. The request includes a sideways acknowledgement of the bad press that has dogged the NCAA over the past two years: “Market research and media analytics show that misperceptions persist and opportunities exist to inform public opinion, increase confidence in the association, and boost awareness and advocacy for the positive values of intercollegiate athletics.”
To quote George Orwell, “such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”
He goes on to list some of the zillions of events and people in big-time university sports whose pictures you don’t want your phraseology evoking.
And not that a basement-dweller like the NCAA can get any lower, but note the insult of using university money for burnishing the NCAA.
University Diaries will cover the ad campaign. Should be a hoot.