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Interesting Give and Take in the Comments Section of an Article in the Miami University Student Newspaper.

The article itself couldn’t be more ordinary and banal; yet another American university football player has beaten the shit out of one of his fellow students. Yawn.

This player, on being kicked out of a bar, “deliberately shoved a ladder, knocking off [a fellow student who is an employee of the bar], who fell headfirst onto the pavement.” The student’s a senior; he had almost managed to get out of Miami U without getting his brains knocked out by a sports hero. (As you know, UD has proposed that big-sports universities should issue protective helmets to all of their students for just this sort of eventuality.)

What makes this article interesting is that in an earlier draft the writer seems to have spent a good deal of time recounting all the schools that wanted to recruit the bruiser, and sharing his stats on the field. Commenters gave the reporter hell about this.

Not sure how being told which colleges recruited him is relevant in an article on alleged felonious assault.

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You had 4 people overseeing this article and not one of you thought, “huh, maybe we shouldn’t glorify a soon-to-be felon with 4 paragraphs of his athletic achievements”???

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This article is horrific and indicitive of a mindset focusing on sports stats of a felon vs. empathy for his victim. What about the victim who had brain swelling and bleeding? This is his second arrest for assault and the Miami coach couldn’t even mention care or concern during his press conference? This is sickening.

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And how is the man who fell from the ladder and landed on his head?????

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Glorifying felonious assault article with a pitch about a guy’s stats and recruiting history is why this paper is a joke around campus.

But of course the larger local booster press writes these things up precisely in that way: Five paragraphs describing the power and skill of the player, and how it’s going to be missed if he’s suspended, and then one final paragraph updating the victim’s condition. Why should student publications be any different?

Margaret Soltan, November 11, 2016 1:38PM
Posted in: sport

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