Game Day Coaching Messes: October 23 Edition

If Stepford had a football coach, his name would be Nick Saban. Someone who not only recruits, but judges talent pristinely, as recently pointed out by Mike Leach. Someone who interacts comfortably and humbly with wealthy alumni. Someone who looks ridiculously good from all angles and at all ages on national television. Someone whose face will someday be in Merriam-Webster next to the word "coach." Someone who, on game days, ummmmm. Well, truth be told, even Nick Saban isn't robotically perfect every game day. 

Ah, the game days. Today's rant is in response to last weekend's various inexplicable coaching decisions made in the heat of game day battles. All of the recruiting, superb training regimens, and intricately designed offenses and defenses can't save football teams when coaches go into brain freeze at the most inopportune times. Here for your perusal are game day decisions too unfathomable to have been made by human football coaches with IQs above 60. Yet somehow, they happened.

Steve Addazio -- Colorado State at Utah State

I don't have words for what transpired to end the Colorado State/Utah State game, but I will try. On a night when CSU played badly with half a dozen crucial offsides penalties and multiple strategical screw-ups (like failing to recover a gimmick Utah State kickoff at the end of the first half), the Rams, a team not designed for comebacks, came back.

They cut a nine-point deficit with five minutes left to two, then had a first down at the Utah State 20 with no timeouts and 11 seconds left. All they had to do was spike the ball. It was too much for Addazio, who somehow sent the field goal unit onto the field without first spiking the ball to stop the clock. A clusterfuck fire drill ensued with players running back and forth on and off the sideline, and the kicker rushing his set-up and steps in a mad dash to get the kick away. The kick sailed left as time expired. 

Afterward, Addazio explained that nobody had sent the FG team onto the field. They just went, he said, on their own. Holy hell, man, how disorganized can you be? Then Addazio tried to impose his view of reality on everyone else. The kick missed, he said, so it didn't matter that his team was playing musical chairs for 11 seconds. We are to presume, according to Addazio, that with a normal routine, the kicker would have missed anyway.

And oh yes, the game was for first place in the Mountain West.

Addazio gets the "Idiot of the Week" both for his end game management and his presser. Considering how hard his team fought, his inability to manage his team in crunch time is the most egregious coaching error I have seen in 40 years. It has been my experience that when teams play their brains out, as CSU did, and the coaching staff blows the game, the teams do not recover for a long while, if at all. Penn State took a month to right themselves after last season's Indiana loss.

Evidently, I wasn't the only Ram viewer to note the Addazio mess. Footballscoop.com took note. Liz Roscher for Yahoo Sports did a fine summary with her, "Baffling, chaotic last-second blunder costs Colorado State win over Utah State." She was as critical as me, if somewhat less apoplectic.

I also noticed a rush on twitter to procure variations of www.FireSteveAddazio.com. Already some twitter handles state the same. Good to know it wasn't just me.

Western Kentucky at Florida International

With six minutes left in the game, WKU led FIU 31-12 and had a first down at the FIU one-and-a-half. I suppose the WKU offensive coordinator wanted to pad his personal "I coach this offense" stats. Or he wanted to pad his quarterback's personal resume with another TD. So WKU elected to pass on first down. Just one issue. With six minutes left, FIU was going to almost certainly balls-out blitz, which they did, planting the QB back at the 10. Western Kentucky winds up throwing an incomplete pass, kicking a field goal with four minutes left, and then had to defend for the final four minutes. FIU runs a bunch of plays and goes the length of the field to score. 

The WKU head coach and offensive coordinator get an "Imbecile of the Week" rating for this. They use no clock with a first and goal inside the two, and they force their defense to play a lengthy possession. Not only are their defenders at risk for injury, but they are also at risk for a bevy of meaningless plays, each of which carries the potential for a targeting call, which could bench any defender the following game.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the defensive coordinator appreciated his own OC not eating any clock at all. The OC tried to pad his own resume while degrading the DC's resume. It's as I always say. In college football, offensive coordinators are the root of all evil.

Tennessee at Alabama

And finally, the Tennessee Vols. I just want to point out one strange moment in a strange game. The Volunteers are down 21 on the road at Alabama with seven minutes left. They face fourth-and-five from their own 30. They elect to go for it. Why they do this, I cannot tell you. They are not playing Akron at home. They are playing Alabama on the road. Facing fourth-and-five on their own 30 with seven minutes left, they have less than a 1 in 10,000 chance to win the game. So why do it?

People have volunteered (ahem) various explanations. They boil down to "winners never quit and quitters never win" melded to the Jim Carrey line from Dumb and Dumber, "So you're telling me there's a chance!?!"

I respond to the folks making these arguments with a simple rhetorical question. What do you think is more likely? (A) Tennessee converts fourth-and-five from their 30 with seven minutes left and goes on to win the game or (B) the Vols' starting QB gets hurt in the next seven minutes?

The "winners never quit" crowd tends to shut up.

What earned the Tennessee coaching staff my "Morons of the Week" award is that after Alabama had stopped them on fourth-and-five (of course) and scored three minutes later, the Vols got the ball back and were immediately faced with the identical down and distance from the same yard line. And they punted.

I thought winners never quit?

Conclusion

If coaches don't have a clock management specialist on staff, they risk looking like Steve Addazio, blowing first place because they choked as a head coach.

If athletic directors allow coaches to hire offensive coordinators based on yards and points instead of wins, you get the irrational, team-sabotaging decisions displayed by Western Kentucky and Tennessee.

Bob Dietz

October 28, 2021

Orange is the New Black

"Bad Vols, Bad Vols. Whatcha gonna do when they throw at you?"

The year was 1971. 

Harry sat there, slowly filling an empty dish detergent bottle with pebbles, one small rock at a time. We were at the edge of town, on a chunk of land overlooking a state road cutting through a piece of the mountain. As members of a small town juvenile gang, our little group of 14-year-olds was expert at creating an armamentarium to drop on cars traversing the road below. I didn't have a very good arm, so I stuck to basics -- tomatoes stolen from gardens, Tiny Tarts candies, and eggs. Others of our group used more exotics, like Sugar Babies, apples, or the occasional expired quart of milk. 

Harry, however, had his strange hobby. He collected his household's empty dish detergent bottles and filled them with pebbles. He was very precise and workmanlike about it. He wanted those bottles weighted just right for throwing purposes. Today, we'd call his hobby "psychotic" and possibly "obsessive compulsive." Back then, I thought it was a little bit disturbing. But I would never have said that to Harry.

We were idiots, of course. Our little "bombing cars" hobby could have killed someone. Fourteen-year-old males, however, are generally not noted for their judgement and concern for others.

I was reminded of Harry's rock-in-bottle hobby as I watched the conclusion of the Ole Miss/Tennessee football game Saturday. As Vols fans pelted the field from vantage points, raining down bottles of water, soda, and the occasional mustard, both sidelines were forced to retreat to the middle of the field or to the locker rooms. Cheerleaders, band members, and dance teams ran for cover, holding cheer placards over their heads as shields as if laying siege to a castle. Rebel coach Lane Kiffin showed the officials a golf ball that had been aimed in his direction.

The folks who brought their own mustard bottles disturbed me in the same fashion that Harry's pebble-by-pebble hobby had disturbed me. Who plans for concession stands to run out of mustard? Or were they really planning to pitch mustard at people all along?

The game was delayed more than 20 minutes by fans, which I do not believe I have ever seen before, and I am 64 years old and have watched a helluva lot of football games. The precipitating event was a questionable ball spot on a fourth-and-25 that gained 24. Earlier in the game, a very questionable forward progress call had cost the Vols a touchdown. Nothing like SEC officials to light some emotions afire early, then throw gas on those same emotions at the end. 

Golf balls, water bottles, and the occasional condiment all pelting down on friend and foe alike. The Vol faithful would have been very much at home with our youthful tossing of tomatoes and eggs. Like us, of course, the Vol fans were idiots, as they could have seriously injured someone. Bottles of water are heavy. Golf balls can be wicked.

Vol Nation

There's nothing like 100,000 mask-less Volunteer fans throwing bottles and golf balls to frame the Knoxville faithful as orange-clad maroons (an old Bugs Bunny term). I'm not going to get into the university and SEC response questions. Pete Thamel did a great job asking the proper questions for Yahoo Sports in "Takeaway: What should Tennessee's punishment be for ugly scene in Knoxville?" Instead, I'll ask whatever happened to actual game rules that make it the home team's responsibility for ensuring a game can be safely played? 

Why not penalize the home team for the delay? If the home team can't provide a safe hosting environment for a play, shouldn't the home team get flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct? Just flag the team repeatedly until fans either comply or the game is called. Not a neat, clean response, but it is proper and appropriate. If fans can't provide a safe venue for a play, penalize them. Thirty seconds later, if they still cannot provide a safe venue, penalize them again. 

Yesterday reminded me of what an irresponsible jerk I sometimes was as a kid. It also reminded me that while idiocy and adolescence may go hand in hand, adulthood isn't necessarily a cure for stupid. 

Especially in Knoxville.

Bob Dietz

October 18, 2021

Loose Lips Sink Pirate Ships

Being a free speech advocate, my first instinct has been to defend Jon Gruden. But I have managed thus far to exercise a rare display of discipline and not do that. Gruden did, after all, say some nasty stuff, albeit in what he thought were private email exchanges. 

Instead of defending Gruden, or conversely, piling on with some faux outrage against someone less righteous than me (the new American hobby), I'll talk about the over the top responses to the whirling teacup absurdity of the last few days.

There's actually a bunch of different angles to take and things to consider, so let's start the discussion with the underpublicized obvious, as usual. 

1) The NFL claims it didn't leak the emails. The NFL sat on the Gruden emails for months.

Well, I do buy this. The NFL as an institution sitting on the Gruden emails is zero surprise. I mean, c'mon, be serious. The NFL, as an entity, exposing itself by volunteering emails to the NFLPA or the public? Among the 650,000 non-Gruden emails, there's undoubtedly some worse exchanges than anything we've thus far seen. Why would the NFL leak the Gruden emails? They got religion? They got woke? As they say on ESPN, "C'mon, man!"

2) Somebody hates Gruden and leaked them specifically to torpedo him.

Well, duh. As the Punisher says, "It's not vengeance; it's punishment." Yeah, the Game of NFL Clue suspect leaker list includes some obvious names, such as Goodell himself (never call your boss a pussy in public), DeMaurice Smith (who was up for re-election), and the president of Goodyear (never promote French tires at the expense of American).

3) The NFL will not be releasing more emails.

LOL. No kidding, Sherlock.

Headline Comedy

I have seen some of the most adolescent, ridiculous, fantasyland headlines the last few days. I'll mention just a few.

William Brangham of PBS and William Roden (TheUndefeated.com) want to snuff out "Grudenism" by learning the names of Gruden's "enablers." Mr. Brangham and Mr. Roden, you both need to not just wake up and smell the coffee. You need to douse yourselves with a full pot of scalding joe. A list of "enablers of Grudenism?" Pretty hilarious. You'd wind up canceling half the NFL owners, half the execs, and pretty much hand the NFL over to the players' union, not that there's anything Seinfeldian wrong with that. Yeah, that'll happen.

Next up, and I hesitate because I'm a big fan of USA Today's Nancy Armour, "Opinion:  John Gruden's vile emails will taint NFL until it comes clean about Washington investigation."

Ms. Armour, I'll break this to you gently. The NFL is pretty vile. Vile is as vile does. If Gruden's emails tainted the NFL, the whole batch of emails would smell like an 18-wheeler that just plowed through a surfeit of skunks. As to the NFL ever "coming clean?" I once knew a small town bookmaker who lived a couple of blocks from our house. He was in the shower when the police busted down his front door. He descended the stairs wrapped in a towel and announced, "Hey fellas, I'm clean!" My point is, unless there are warrants, nobody is coming clean.

Carron Phillips from Deadspin's headline, "Jon Gruden is the perfect example of how mediocre white men get to thrive in the workplace."

Yowza. Let me process that for a moment. So, first of all, we are to accept that coaching NFL teams is concomitant with your usual workplaces. Okay, if you say so. The idea is that Gruden has rotated in and out of the 32 highest paying and most expert jobs in football, and was hired for the highest profile football broadcasting job, despite his being "mediocre?" Really? And undoubtedly it was the old white boys' club that was primarily responsible for this as opposed to Jon Gruden's skills or attributes? That's a lot of stretching, a la Reed Richards, one might say. 

Saying somebody is "mediocre" because they were "only barely above .500" coaching in the NFL is like saying that somebody is "mediocre" because they only finished eighth in the Olympic mile with a 4:01. One would hope Phillips read Gruden's biography before proclaiming Gruden's "mediocrity." I have a copy here if he wants to borrow it.

Mr. Phillips, not all events you witness in life teach meta-lessons. I think you've been watching too many of those meta-lesson Disney flicks. My suggestion -- lay off the Disney. And lay off proclaiming unmerited speculative conclusions without real data, and then using them as headlines because you'll garner applause.

Moving on from Mr. Phillips, I saw "racist" used as an adjective before Gruden's name in several articles. Because Gruden referred to a black man's lips as resembling Michelin tires. And that was it. Understand, there were a boatload of Gruden emails, and that was the most racist thing they found. So now "racist" precedes Gruden's name as an adjective.

Gruden is being labeled racist because referring to the size of a black person's lips is considered a trope. I looked up the word "trope," and the definition is "a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression." I don't think Gruden was being figurative or metaphorical. I think he was being nasty. That doesn't necessarily make him racist in the common parlance. I say that because "being a racist" seems to be one of those things, like pornography, that no one can define but that everyone claims they know when they see it. I have issues with this flowing, subjective definition, but we'll tackle that another day.

The Righteous in Judgement

The Righteous judge the Less-than-Righteous. I'm not sure what that accomplishes except to garner standing ovations and maybe sell Righteousness uniforms on the side that one can wear in public.

There's much more to cover regarding all of this, including Adam Schefter being criticized for his handing his drafts to sources for editing. I'll have a bit to say about that. And I wanted to mention that I'll be doing a piece about Lamar Jackson, who played an absolutely brilliant game Monday night. This is two years in a row where Jackson saved me in Last Man Standing contests by engineering fantastic comebacks with no margin for error. What does that have to do with Gruden? Well, Lamar Jackson has a nose like...you'll have to read that entry to see.

Conclusion

Colin Kaepernick was, of course, correct. The NFL is a white man's monopoly, like a Who's Who of modern slave owners. And that's why the NFL settled with Kaepernick rather than allow its executive emails to see the light of day.

But who didn't know this already? And who could possibly be shocked, shocked I tell you, by the Gruden emails? 

Good luck with the NFLPA getting access to those 650,000 non-Gruden emails. I wonder if any of the offshores have a line on that.

Bob Dietz

October 13, 2021

Urban Reviewal

I'm no great fan of Urban Meyer. The bottom line, however, is that the public reaction to his "partying in Ohio" videos has been histrionic and largely ridiculous.

So I'll spend the first section of this entry defending him (sort of) and then explain to what degree and how I think what he did was wrong. Not inappropriate, mind you, but wrong considering his job duties.

In case you haven't been following sports this past week, Meyer's Jaguars blew a 14-0 lead to the Bengals last Thursday (I'm restraining myself from a pussy versus pussy comment here). After the standalone Pussies Galore game (okay, I failed), Meyer did not fly back to Jacksonville with his team, but stayed in Ohio and attended a friend's birthday bash sans his wife. At said bash, attendees filmed a young woman doing a gentle shake as she backed up to Meyer, who was seated on a stool with his legs spread. A second video shows Meyer's hand close to and possibly touching a woman's derriere for about three seconds as they crowd near the bar.

From these videos, Meyer has gotten all kinds of hell. People have said he should resign as Jags coach. Some ESPN reporters have oohed and aahed at Meyer's impropriety. The Jaguars' owner has reprimanded him.

My Take

I'm going to go out on a limb here. As a famous guy, Meyer attended a birthday party. He had a few cocktails. People tried to get him onto the dance floor. He refused, so various young ladies who had also imbibed decided to try to entice him onto the dance floor. Meyer, having likely been put in this situation many times in the past, wasn't going to just shoo them away or walk out of the party. He allowed the interaction to play itself out, and what we saw on the videos is evidently as salacious as it got, or we would have seen anything worse, also on video.

So everyone wags a finger. "The horror, the horror" they say. I find it absolutely absurd.

You think those NFL players turned "reporters" calling for Meyer's resignation haven't done worse a dozen times? The arrogance and certainty of the Meyer condemnations is asinine hyperbole. I mean, really, how do ESPN reporters know that Meyer and his wife haven't been swapping for the last 30 years? They flat out don't. And who are a bunch of reporters to lecture anyone on their own subjective rules, regs, and moral certitude? The noise of moral absolutism tries to drown everything out...again.

If Meyer "loses control of his team" because a woman decided to sway between his knees in public, what is next? He gets fired for watching videos of Meana Wolf? I just do not get it. Cancel culture defends sexual nonchalance unless it's a white power-broker male being nonchalant?

Most of the "horrified" reporters are using moral racketeering as a substitute for content.

What is Meyer's Job?

Being politically correct doesn't win football games. This isn't a Disney movie. Being a Leave-It-To-Beaver "good husband" also doesn't win football games. So getting caught with your shorts near a cookie jar is largely irrelevant if Urban Meyer's job is to win football games. 

Now if the argument is that Meyer's hiring was more to sell local tickets than win games (a reasonable argument), then perhaps Meyer alienated soccer moms, even though it appears that soccer moms were in evidence at the party and may indeed be his weakness. If you want to castigate Meyer for loss of soccer mom sales in a conservative state, well then, to quote Blondie, "Rip Him to Shreds." But I find it rich when former NFL players and coaches chime in as if offended by the moral degradation on display. If anyone thinks today's players and coaches have somehow shed the proclivities of Joe Namath or Ken Stabler or Dennis Rodman, I have a message for you. This is why strip clubs have private rooms and escort services have delivery.

Urban Meyer getting danced at by hot soccer moms doesn't exactly fulfill Anton LaVey's salacious satanic recommendation to "do as thou wilt."

What Meyer Did Wrong

Coach Meyer, however, may have misstepped in ways other than simply getting filmed. The key question, to me, is whether he had pre-planned the birthday bash and had let everyone know weeks in advance what he would do after the Thursday game. 

If his "dial at three" partying was a kneejerk response to a brutal loss, that would not pass muster with me as an owner or assistant coach or player. A hard Bengals kind of loss makes it even more important that Meyer fly back with the team and deal with it. On the other hand, if he had informed everyone weeks in advance that, win or lose, he'd be staying in Ohio for a couple of days off, then if I'm the owner or assistant coach or player, he's in the clear.

I suspect this was not entirely the case, as Meyer came forward on Tuesday and said that he had told the owner "well in advance" that he was staying in Ohio for a brief break. I'm suspicious because "well in advance" is non-specific sleazeball language. Had Meyer told the owner weeks in advance, Meyer would have stated "weeks in advance." Instead, Meyer retreated to non-specific weasel phrasing. Yes, I pay attention to language like that. Secondly, Meyer did not specifically mention "telling the players well in advance." The absence of a statement to that effect is a problem. He really needed to have explicitly told his team "well in advance."

If my suppositions are correct (I'm fairly certain they are), I would have called Meyer onto the proverbial carpet and chewed out his ass. The team should have been informed weeks in advance of the Meyer mini-vacation.

Conclusion

Meyer was absolutely wrong if he hadn't told his team weeks in advance that, win or lose, he wouldn't be flying back with them.

All of the reporters shocked, shocked I tell you, that Meyer didn't run screaming from a soccer mom wiggle should be put on polygraphs and quizzed about their own proclivities. Just for context, of course.

And we still do not know if Meyer and his wife have been swingers for the last 30 years. I prefer to think that they have.

Bob Dietz

October 7, 2021

Sports: Cam, Covid, and the Deepest Cut

I have a long-lived love/hate relationship with Cam Newton. Well, to be completely honest, it's mainly hate, so let me talk about that first.

It all started with Cam at Florida as an undergrad, stealing a student's laptop. Cam wrote "CAM" in chalk on the back of the laptop, then when the police came knocking in search of stolen property, Cam tossed it out of his dorm window. Process that story for a moment. There's a little humor and not a lot of IQ in it. Anyway, I found the whole tale pretty amusing, and I certainly didn't hate or love Cam for it.

Coach Meyer at Florida had a dude named Tebow in the quarterbacks' room, thus Cam decided to transfer. Here's where my hatred was ignited, although I didn't know it at the time. Auburn, not the cops, came a-knockin' for Cam. Wait, let me back up. According to those paragons of virtue, the NCAA, Auburn came a'knockin' to Cam's dad. Unbeknownst to Cam, so the myth unfolds, Auburn alumni stuffed various envelopes with somewhere between 200K and 400K to secure Cam's services. I don't know the exact amount. You might want to check with Charles Barkley; I'm pretty sure Sir Charles can pin it down a bit. 

So Cam's dad packed up the truck and moved Cam to Lee. County that is. Swimmin' pools; undergrads. Well, the first thing you know, Cam is Auburn's starting quarterback and the biggest pain in Alabama's ass this century. He helmed a damned near unstoppable offense. Auburn was running plays my dad ran coaching fifth grade football with a stud quarterback. And nobody could stop the Tigers. Every QB off tackle play garnered five yards, it seemed.

This is where my hate revved up, but not directly because of Cam. You see, I had uncovered a truly awesome sleeper team that year, a team I thought could and would go unbeaten and win a national championship. I thought the team I liked was maybe the best college football team I had seen in a decade. Their team speed on defense was unbelievable. And I could get them at 100-1. So I took them. That team was TCU.

Andy Dalton was the TCU quarterback, and he was not nearly their best player. The Frogs opened with a 30-21 win versus #24 Oregon State, then went on a 384-64, 9-0 rampage before beating San Diego State 40-35. Then they wrapped things up with a 66-17 win at New Mexico.

I waited for TCU's invite to the title game. It never came. Auburn had won by three at Miss State, by three in overtime versus Clemson, by three at Kentucky, and by one at Alabama. The NCAA and its lapdogs chose Auburn and Oregon for its single-game championship. My 100-1 undefeated and beloved Horned Frogs were frozen out through no fault of their own. 

It was then that I realized I needed to hate Cam Newton. Or at least hate Cam's dad. Or something. I missed a huge payday because Cam's dad got a huge payday. The butterfly effect had stung me in the ass.

Covid Cut

Well, it's a decade later, and the New England Patriots cut Cam Newton today. Most people were surprised. I really was not. The way Belichick played Mac Jones so many snaps the last pre-season game, I figured some PR stat-padding was in the works, and that implied certain things.

Theories abound regarding Cam's cut, but most center on Cam evidently being unvaccinated. He had traveled for a medical appointment last week, and some kind of Covid rules required him to miss practice for three days. Since Belichick stated that Cam hadn't broken any team rules, I'm baffled as to what occurred, and no clear cut explanation has emerged.

Media Reaction 

What interests me is the language being used in discussions of why Cam was cut. Many blurb articles say Cam's "stance" on vaccinations was partly to blame. Publicly, Cam hadn't said a thing. He said his decision was private. That's all he said. So how is that a "stance?" Not saying anything is sort of the opposite of a "stance."

Did any of today's Cam articles feature questions regarding Cam's medical history? What about questions addressing Newton family heart issues or auto-immune disorders? Nope, I did not read one bit of speculation. No reporter broached the subject. Did anyone ask Cam if perhaps a family member or anyone he knew had a bad vaccine reaction? Doesn't appear those questions are part of the conversation either.

Look, I'm not defending Cam Newton for being unvaccinated per se. I am castigating media for not asking pertinent questions. As someone who has heart issues, who has a brutal auto-immune family history, and who could have died the last time I took a drug with a "rare" side effect, I can appreciate vaccine trepidation. Media members need to ask the proper questions, or at least frame them for discussion if Cam keep things completely private.

Cam's Future

Well, this is almost ridiculously hand-in-glove, but the perfect fit for Cam is the Dallas Cowboys. If Prescott gets hurt again, Cam fits the stylistic bill for the Cowboy offense. And they may be the least hard-core vaccinators in the most anti-vaccination state in the league. 

That about covers everything...except I did say love/hate. So what do I love about Cam Newton? Well, keep it to yourselves, but I love his wardrobe. I'm not sure it's cool for a 64-year-old guy to love Cam's wardrobe, but I do. I bought a fine looking linen Cam Newton suit at Belk. I put on a few pounds during the pandemic, so I've kind of grown out of it, but it was my favorite suit. And I love the hats Cam wears to pressers.

So Cam, if you're reading this, I've bulked up to a 44 long. And bronze and maroon are my favorite hat colors. I'm not too shy to ask. The way I figure it, you or your dad owe me something.

Bob Dietz

August 31, 2021

Deplorables' Power?

Later in the week, I'll sink my teeth into a debunking of a really poor nationally televised piece regarding Covid. Today's entry, however, focuses on broad questions. My last two pieces have dealt with the pandemic's effects on American media. My argument is that when journalists decide to write and publicly present information so as to generate what they believe will be the greatest public good, they have jettisoned their responsibilities as journalists. They have become advocates for particular actions, and their reporting has shifted into the realm of propaganda.

The example I discussed was the categorization of the unvaccinated as fearful, irrational folk who are creating a drag on the U.S. effort to "solve the virus." An alternative perspective, I wrote, is that not being vaccinated is a political act, and its adherents wield attention and power they would otherwise lack. My problem with American journalists is that the second perspective does not get discussed or even mentioned in most reportage, and I suspect this non-discussion is quite purposeful.

Power or No Power?

Do I actually believe that the unvaccinated have been responsible for bringing Covid control to a screeching halt? Well, not really, at least not since the Delta variant has become the dominant Covid strain. Here's why I think that the unvaccinated have become more scapegoats than power brokers in August, 2021.

While some American studies suggest that vaccine efficacy with Delta has dropped from 90% to between 70 and 80%, a UK study indicates a more severe drop off in effectiveness. The below 40% vaccine efficacy versus Delta (from the UK) suggests that vaccination is no longer a huge factor in whether one gets Delta. The vaccines dramatically reduce the chances of Delta hospitalization and death, but they are only moderately useful in preventing infection itself. We're beginning to see reports of vaccine efficacy drop off being sprinkled throughout mainstream media in the last 72 hours.

Since Israeli and other studies have demonstrated that viral load from the vaccinated infected is comparable to viral load from unvaccinated infected, then the unvaccinated should not really be scapegoated as the overwhelming sources of virus spread. In fact, if vaccinated people tend to socialize more, go to restaurants more, or go to sporting events more than unvaccinated, then the vaccinated may, per capita, spread more virus than the unvaccinated. In other words, if the vaccinated behave differently, and they are being given permission to behave differently via vaccination gold stars, then they may per capita be more responsible for virus transmission.

Reporting Bias

Basically what I'm saying is that Delta has almost completely changed the game. The "deplorables" are no longer the sole virus control villains, and most American media simply does not discuss or even acknowledge it. For example, have you seen any reportage of how many people get Delta from the average unvaccinated, currently infected person versus how many get Delta from the average vaccinated, currently infected person? These stats would put things in direct, stark focus, and yet no U.S. health institution is even hazarding a public guess. Why do you think that is?

The question indeed becomes why. Why has American media decided to interpret reality as if the virus were the original strain with 90% vaccine efficacy? Is it easier to just report reality as if the virus were some monolithic constant? Does that simplify the writing? Do reporters have a difficult time, like the CDC, deciding that good practices in April are not necessarily good practices in August? Are American reporters spinning and framing news because the unvaccinated make convenient villains and, having established them as villains, consistent reporting trumps accurate reporting?

Going Forward

When the original strain was the dominant Covid strain, the unvaccinated bore more responsibility and wielded more political power of a sort, than now. They may have deserved their original casting as villains and fools, but the script has been largely rewritten by Delta. With the original virus, media interpreted reality as a kind of Unvaccinated Walking Dead versus Science Sapiens story. Now, who is responsible for what amount of illness is more along the lines of Murder on the Orient Express.

American media, however, is slow to adjust, as it loves villains and scapegoats. Villains and scapegoats make for easy writing with all kinds of moral imperatives and familiar storytelling. But this easy writing hinders providing a reality-based reportage for Americans. Villains and scapegoats do us a disservice.

I'll get into more of this tomorrow as I briefly examine media coverage of the California teacher who infected half of her class. It will be a warm-up to my deconstruction of a major television piece regarding Covid. 

Bob Dietz

August 31, 2021

In the Name of "The Public Good"

Tuesday's (8/24) "Hillbillies or Heroes?" entry asked why American media doesn't publicly recognize, acknowledge, and explore anti-vaxxing as a rational political act. Since reticence to vaccinate demographically overlaps heavily (but not perfectly) with Trumpism, one would expect serious discussions of anti-vaxxing as a political act with power and teeth. Such discussions would almost seem required.

Why are such discussions not ubiquitous? That question brings me to one of the themes I'll revisit repeatedly in the weeks ahead. I'm sure there are a thousand dissertations being written these days regarding the paths of American pandemic news coverage. I'm a simple gambler, used to dealing with the challenges of partial information, so I'm going to speculate in a decidedly simple way as to why these discussions are not front and center in mainstream media.

Framing anti-vaxxers as rational and political, and as wielding power, may be viewed by American media as making a bad situation worse. The pandemic has decidedly raised our day-to-day stress levels during what has become an unwavering blue/red cultural civil war. Underlining more examples of this cultural war, although entirely justified and reasonable, may be perceived as adding fuel to the cultural firestorm. Acknowledging that anti-vaxxers wield real, significant power seems too distasteful, too worrisome, and too much of a public anti-vaxxing boost. Reporting such would do more public harm than good. American media therefore avoids the topic.

The problem with reporting that edits, spins, and adjusts tonal variations for what it perceives as the public good is that it's no longer unbiased reporting. This kind of reporting is advocacy, and the consequence of advocacy is propaganda. 

When journalists spin stories because they perceive their spin as benefitting the public, they have become propagandists. They may be 100% correct in that honest reporting would make current situations worse, but they are still engaging in manipulative, dishonest propaganda.  It is Propaganda with a capital "P."

Editing for the "good of the reader" infantilizes the reader/viewer. The power of information that should be shared with readers/viewers is instead retained and monopolized by the journalists. That is selfish. It's dishonest. It's a kind of paternal anti-journalism.

In the last few weeks, I have run into some of the most blatant, purposefully constructed examples of propaganda I have ever seen in mainstream American media. Tomorrow, I'll preview the single worst example. Next week, I'll deconstruct that piece of journalism line by line. 

The evolving state of American journalism has really been a surprise to me, akin to opening Dracula's coffin for the first time. Yeah, there's the dude who said he knew what was best for me. Immortality and all that. Like Dracula, American journalism is leaving out a few of the gory details. American reporters have become the story, and they have become advocates for particular actions and particular points of view. In doing so, they are trying to rob us of glimpses of the overall picture. It's time to get out the holy water and stakes and expose their carefully constructed storylines as mirages.

Bob Dietz

August 28, 2021