I happen to respect Rex’s insight and writing. He’s all Arkansas — knows the state (and it’s press) like few do. Per usual he makes some very good points here about the double standard he sees, exemplified by the bad phone incident last weekend.
And, BTW, I’m not sure I disagree with the double standard.
Since I wasn’t there to see it all up close and personal, I will refrain from embellishing on what I think may have occurred. I don’t have an axe to grind nor a narrative to lead others around by their nose. I definitely have more respect for our AD than I do for this Nelson dude.
Old news, already handled, let’s move on! Go Hogs!
Rex Nelson is a reason I no longer go to the LR TD Cub. He’s full of crap and full of himself.
Silly as Rex can be. He should spend more time worry about double standards for the daughter of his former boss.
When judging someone I look at a pattern of behavior. If a regular occurrence, more severe the consequences.
Riley is a good guy who made a mistake. No pattern of bad behavior.
Come on Rex…At least make fair analogies. Someone working at a state revenue office were to come out from behind the counter and react the same way toward an Arkansas taxpayer waiting in line? Someone working at the state Capitol were to approach a journalist during a committee meeting and do what Hall did? These could almost fit the category of intentional assault. Hall’s reaction was a spontaneous half second reaction to a guy sticking his phone camera into his boss’s face. Hind sight probably wouldn’t have done it but it wasn’t that big of a deal.
My question for all those in the sports media do outraged by the incident, and demanding Riley be fire, at the minimum ( It’s Muss they really want fired), where is all the outrage at the real rogues gallery of SEC Basketball Coaches. Oats, Pearl, Calipari, and now Beard. Some made their name cheating. Others looked the other way when their players committed, or were involved in real crimes. One, just tried the choke the life out of their girlfriend. The selective outrage is infuriating.
Well at least the young man didn’t ask if we can get some muscle over here, as a Missouri professor did a few years ago when trying to banish a student journalist. That professor was fired and then landed at Gonzaga. I have no answers here, as I haven’t seen the flying phone incident and what led up to it. " can we get some muscle over here" remains the cut line for me. Anything less than that can probably be handled with sonething less than dismissal.
Only know about the incident from reading, so factually I know nothing, and not to make any excuses for any alleged or actual bad behavior, but my first thought has been; why was the Kentucky kid/reporter in this situation in the first place? Still no justification for bad behavior, but the initial thrust of what I was seeing was pretty much directed at pointing out Muss’s post game reactions.
I guess the cell phone makes everyone the paparazzi, so more restraint and judgement is necessary to avoid messing up. Pay for the cell phone, apologize and move on.
I don’t think Rex is judging whether Riley is a good kid or not. Rex is more focused on what led to Riley not wanting the reporter to video Muss. I am sure Riley just doesn’t go around preventing everyone from filming Muss. But in this case he did. I am thinking Rex thinks Hunter should have addressed that part of the incident.
IMO, Hunter addressed the phone dropping incident and that should be the end of it. As a poster said in this thread it is an old story. Guys like Rex always want to compare what happens in Razorbacks world to the rest.
I get what he’s saying. I look at patterns of behavior. That’s all I’m saying.
When someone makes a mistake that’s what I look at and I then make a judgement.
I agree that the media is kind of forced to back off intense criticism of all things Razorback. That’s pretty clear to me. Small state, coaches and ADs able to keep score of media hits a lot easier. Looming threat of losing sources. It’s always been that way, maybe with some slight exceptions. But I also think the “double standard” Rex thinks exists is borne of his bad analogies. Athletics is different as another poster says. Intense passion is involved. There may be a little of that in front line state politics, but, otherwise, some of the least passionate people I know of are garden variety state employees, including other forms of university employees. So there’s a huge difference he’s not really accounting for.
Good grief. There is no double standard related to the phone incident. If that had been a staffer at ASU, UALR, UCA, or some other state school the staffer would not have been fired there either. That is just so stupid. Does Rex really believe that? Because if he does then he is an idiot.
I was a student manager for the ASU basketball team many years ago. There were players that got arrested for DWI and other things. It was never in the newspaper and no one outside of the team knew about it. If that had been a UA player getting a DWI it would have been the lead story on the sports page. So that notion of double standard is a bunch of crap.
Hunter, Muss and Riley fell short of expectations and civil conduct. What the heck is calling a KY media member a kid??? He is media as much as a newspaper or ESPN?SECN reporter. So Muss knows all the bad words. The little bit of video left definitely shows a large angry Riley intending to arrive with malice. I am sure if the phone were ruined he would be financially liable. Did that happen? did Riley offer a direct apology? I doubt Muss would have been behaving as he did if his wife or child were in that exit tunnel.
Oh yeah. The gal that won by a landside…
…Well I agree with the article, had that been an Arkansas student media member and a Kentucky staff member did the same thing it would be holy heck! On this site, just be professional and it won’t be any problems.
If you read his blog, Rex has really laid her and her staff open too. Big time. That is kind of surprising since as I recall he worked for Mike Huckabee. He’s not liking the muzzle she and “outsider” staff have put on state agency leaders.
To clarify a bit more, Rex was recently upset over the governor’s office not treating him with the respect he felt he was due based on his former association with Mike Huckabee when he served as Arkansas’ Governor. Apparently, they did not return his call or something along that line. The riff caused speculation in some circles that he might mount a campaign for Governor in opposition to Sarah Sanders. He seems to be wearing overly sensitive feelings on his sleeve of late. Being somewhat of a “yellow dog” I find this all to be highly amusing. I wonder if Rex is close to the new BOT member Sander’s appointed?
Final question. In my mind I would not feel Rex is much of a UA Razorback in that he has always identified with Ouachita, I would expected that to be true for Sarah Sanders as well. It is really more amusing as I think about it more. I add the rather bizarre and completely inappropriate comments made by the new BOT member at the board meeting placing Hunter on notice regarding games in Little Rock.