Chuck Amato’s weekly Monday press conference created a lot of controversy. A reporter kindly sent SFN comments shortly after the PC was over to post on the web. In fact it was one of the main reasons the SFN server blew up.
If you click on the link above you will see that NC State SID Annabelle Vaughan tried to give ground rules for the press conference. We thought that was a mistake from the start. Why couldn’t Amato just say “no comment” if he didn’t want to answer certain questions? Why did he need Ms. Vaughan to play Mommy?
Another quick note. Last week James Henderson posted on PackPride.com that NC State informed him that PackPride was to stop posting video clips from basketball games on the internet. These were video clips that a PackPride photographer took at the game. He went on to post that Wolfpack Sports Marketing had exculsive rights to do this.
Say what?
So you are telling me that if the N&O or WRAL wanted to take video clips they couldn’t post them on their website?
You can click here for a recent entry that consolidates some criticisms of Wolfpack Sports Marketing and NCSU Sports Information Department.
Instead of beating the competition by creativity and better content. It almost seems like gopack.com sucks so bad that their only shot is to limit access to what certain media members can cover. Thank goodness that they don’t have the power to limit the coverage of their competition at comparable ‘official’ sites at other ACC Schools — almost ALL of which have had media guides available for download to their fans for years. Not NC State!! That would require a little work! (See this entry from 2005)
Back to Monday’s press conference. The Wilmington Star News wrote a small editoral about the Monday press conference. See below:
After its football team lost another game, the third in a row to rival North Carolina, N.C. State athletic officials asked sportswriters not to ask one of the most obvious questions: What’s the future of the coach?
If they did ask such a question, writers were told, the press conference would be ended. Eventually that’s what happened, according to Star-News Correspondent Andrew Jones.
N.C. State teaches many lessons. Free speech apparently is not among them.