The full interview is available here, but I gotta warn you, the interview is really only good from a sociological perspective, as a snapshot of how local sports journalism has devolved and been bastardized with tabloid fodder to become, well, these kind of much-hyped but senseless interviews.
My thoughts on the "content" of the interview...
* The funniest part was listening to Jones struggle to keep his agenda straight. Bender came on the show because his shady recruiting influence is supposedly (according to Jones) being investigated by Pat Forde of ESPN and Pete Thamel of the NY Times. Since Jones is a sworn enemy of both, naturally, he would like to support anyone that goes against them.
But even so, it was impossible for Jones to take Bender seriously. Faced with Brandon in real-time he became a little disoriented, lost sight of his UK-centric radar for a moment, and just treated a buffoon as a buffoon.
It reminded me of that time when Glenn Beck had that weirdo pedophile congressman, Eric Massa, on his program after he was forced from office by his own party. Naturally, Beck assumed having an angry Massa ready to dish dirt on the Democrats would be a good idea, but even after substantial hype, it was clear to Beck within minutes that Massa was a clown, and Beck had to apologize to his viewers afterwards for wasting their time.
Kind of the same thing going on here.
* The other irritating aspect, from a sociological perspective, was that Jones kept referring to these rumors, innuendos and reports throughout the interview in a detached manner. Those reports are coming solely from his own website!
It was surreal to hear back and forth like...
MJ: How crazy is it that everyone's talking about you, seeing your name in bright lights?
BB: Real crazy. Don't know what it's about.
To my knowledge, not a single source had published a recent word about Brandon Bender until KSR dove into it, and they did so only because they'd heard rumors that Forde and Thamel were investigating. So what if they were? Maybe they investigated but decided there was nothing there. Then again, maybe they will publish something, and if/when they do, they'll be held to journalistic standards for their sources and accuracy.
But it's worth noting that Jones decided to dive into, whatever this is, without having read a single thing about it, without knowing if any accusation is true or false, or even if there are any accusations.
All Jones knew, or had heard, was that there was a story maybe in the works involving a name he remembered being written by people he didn't like. And as a radio host, having that name on air would be EPIC!
But eventually, no matter how talented the carnival barker, the bell tolls and the rubber has to meet the road. And in this case you can boil Jones' interview into one sentence: "Brandon, if or when you're accused in the future in an article that has yet to be published by people I don't like, and if or when you're accused of doing said things that I have no specifics on, would you maybe come back on to talk about it? OK? Thanks, Brandon. Click. Good guy, that Brandon, courageous for coming on".
The whole interview encapsulated the reason for my distaste for KSR and the Matt Jones phenomenon in the first place. It's not cause he's a UK homer, he's supposed to be, I'm fine with that. I'm a fanatical UofL homer.
The problem is that Matt Jones wants it both ways. He wants to be the newsbreaker, news-reactor, and uber-fan-in-chief all at the same time. When he wants to be treated as a serious journalist, Jones expects deference and respect. But when he's treated as a serious journalist and held to standards of professionalism, he hides behind this "I'm just a little website operator that's bullshittin' with my buds" schtick and relishes in his own pettiness.
Pick one hat and wear it, that's all I ask. Or if you don't want to, at least stop bitching about it.
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