Jerry Tipton covers Kentucky basketball for the Lexington Herald-Leader, which means there are few journalists in the country whose work is more closely scrutinized by its readers.And many of those readers think Tipton goes out of his way to make Kentucky basketball look bad. Here's what the Kentucky hoops blog A Sea of Blue said recently, which is representative of what I've heard a lot of Kentucky fans say about Tipton's reporting:
Jerry Tipton, as always, takes the negative view. I swear, sometimes he amazes me -- it looks as though he believes any article he writes that is the least bit complimentary to Kentucky or one of its players is some kind of puff piece. I respect Jerry's apparent effort to avoid looking like a homer, but sometimes, I think you can take that just a little too far.That kind of criticism of Tipton has been around for a long time, but it reached a fever pitch when Tipton interviewed the parents of two Kentucky recruits and, in the eyes of some, tried to make coach Billy Gillispie look bad during the interviews.
So many readers were so angry that the editor of the paper, Linda Austin, felt the need to respond.
After noting that "It is important to understand that Jerry does not work for the University of Kentucky, nor is he a recruiter for the university" (something I would hope every reader already knows), Austin wrote:
Jerry's questions to the parents stuck to what occurs on the basketball court, and what happens when young men are recruited to play high-profile sports. Again, these questions are entirely appropriate, as were the stories published after those interviews.
I tend to agree with Austin that Tipton's coverage of Kentucky basketball is fair. The Herald-Leader has a long history of tough coverage of the Kentucky program, including winning the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1986 for exposing cash payoffs to players, and the paper should be commended for it.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. You really should have considered this article I posted more recently, rather than the one you used.
But in either case, it's still all the same. I do have quibbles with his coverage, but the train wreck of the last few days had less to do with that than allegations he is asking recruits questions that tend to paint Kentucky in a bad light. It may not be journalistic malpractice, but it certainly aught to anger fans.
In any case, Tipton is controversial because, as one of my co-bloggers JL Blue suggested, he sees himself as an investigative reporter and not just a sportswriter. Most UK fans understandably don't really like that, but the Herald-Leader is fine with it, and given UK's checkered past, you can hardly blame them.
Posted at 11:35AM on May 10th 2008 by aseaofblue