ETHICAL BOUNDARIES?

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Sep 11, 2007 by Tully Corcoran

By Tully Corcoran

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

This is how a rather routine butt chewing became a story, and how a punt return sparked a debate over ethics, both of coaching and of journalism.

Kansas receiver Raimond Pendleton returns a punt for a touchdown, excessively celebrates. An enraged Mark Mangino chews him out for getting a senseless penalty. Coach cusses. Local TV station shoots the action, picks up the R-rated audio and posts it, uncensored, on its Web site.

Video hits YouTube.com, people everywhere attach it to e-mails, and soon the video has gone "viral," meaning the video is being circulated on the Internet in a number of ways - e-mailed, linked, blogged, posted on various Web sites.

The video of Kansas coach Mark Mangino F-bombing Pendleton, captured by Topeka's WIBW-TV (13), had reached nearly 170,000 views by Monday and become more than a little controversial.

The Lawrence Journal-World ran an editorial criticizing Mangino, and fan message boards have been abuzz over the incident for more than a week. Some fans are outraged that Mangino would use such coarse language or yell at a player so furiously; some feel embarrassed that KU is getting pub for a sideline shout-down; some just think it's funny.

But what difference does it make to Mangino? And what, if anything, does it signal for local TV coverage?

For one, Mangino would rather not have sideline audio broadcast to the public, but the chance of it happening won't change the way he handles his players.

"We coach the way we have to coach," said Mangino, who added that he has not seen the video. "We never want to do anything that's not appropriate, you just don't like audio being used in the coach's box."

Before the Internet, such a clip probably would never have seen the light of day. The language in the clip would have been too salty for a TV broadcast. And before YouTube, the world's premier gathering place for uploaded video clips, it never would have gotten 170,000 views, not during the one day the video was on WIBW's site.

The use of technology, mainly the Internet, is something that all teams and media are still trying to reconcile.

"The rules of the Internet are being written as we go," WIBW sports director Mark Ewing said. "I think we were within our boundaries."

Ewing recounted an almost identical circumstance last season, when Kansas State's Jermaine Moreira also was flagged for diving into the end zone. K-State coach Ron Prince ripped into Moreira, but the words were out of range for WIBW's microphone.

"The only difference," Ewing said, "is the fact that we could hear (Mangino) so clearly."

Whether to post or not post the video originally was not given much thought, Ewing said. WIBW used the clip as part of its extended highlight package, which typically includes things like crowd shots, pregame shots and sideline shots. WIBW personnel simply packaged the footage and posted it like it normally would.

Ewing said the photographer, who did not use any special equipment to capture the audio, did his job correctly.

"If he wouldn't have gotten that, I would have been upset with him," Ewing said. "Even if you had a ticket to the game, something you can't see is that ground-level emotion."

It wasn't until the next day, when the e-mails started coming in, that Ewing realized people had been offended. He then took down the video.

"It certainly didn't strike me as something that's offensive, because I see it so much," Ewing said. "It's the saying that one man's silk is another man's burlap."

Consider KU the burlap man. Kansas expressed to WIBW its objection to the use of the audio, something Kansas associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said he never thought he'd have to do. He said that if TV stations are going to broadcast anything they catch on camera, KU will reconsider its sideline policies. In the meantime, the clip serves as a reminder that, in the Internet age, the spotlight is always shining.

"I think we'll certainly talk to our coaches, remind them that with today's technology, that's a possibility," Marchiony said. "And with the apparent lack of judgment and standards of one TV station's Web site, this could happen."

Photographers for both print and television media are permitted on the sidelines during games, and KU has no written policy regarding the use of sound derived from that access. Photographers are limited to certain areas of the sideline, but are well within earshot of the players and coaches.

Most of the time, sound captured on the sidelines is purely ambient. Though WIBW caught the footage from afar, the station's camera was close enough - about 15 yards, Ewing estimated - that Mangino's words to Pendleton were clearly audible.

That Mangino was in Pendleton's face is no problem to anybody at KU, including Pendleton. Neither was the video of it. The 45,000 people in the stands saw that much. What rubs the Kansas administration is that WIBW posted the uncut audio.

"We were surprised and disappointed in what we consider a lack of judgment and betrayal of trust that allows that to be aired," Marchiony said. "I think there is a general understanding about what stations will air. And we are going to be talking to the stations that cover us, because if our understanding is wrong, we need to adjust how we operate our sidelines."