Yahoo's MMA Coverage Today Reaches EPIC FAIL Level
by Luke Thomas on Jun 6, 2008 1:45 PM EDT
in MMA News
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PrintIn an article by Kevin Iole titled, "Bank on it", the Yahoo sports writer profiles UFC 85 headliner Thiago Alves by saying the following:
Thiago Alves’ family is in the banking business in Brazil. But he was only 14 by the time he knew the world of high finance was not for him.
By that point in his life, it had become apparent to Alves that he was different than either of his brothers and that life would take a different path. Fighting was in his soul, he said, and he couldn’t deny it.
Seems all good and dandy, right? WRONG. The problem with the article isn't that Iole is a bad writer or that it's not timely. The problem is that Alves' family is in the baking business, not banking:
Alves knows something about following a recipe. Growing up in Fortaleza, Brazil, he worked in his family's baking business and assumed he would one day take the reins of the enterprise. Enter Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme. After watching the martial arts movie mavens, Alves knew he had found his passion.
I'm really not trying to be the bad guy or the blogging equivalent of the enforcer when it comes to criticizing the mainstream media, but this is, as we say in the Marine Corps, "unsat".
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ever baker knows
you can’t be getting high on your own supply, i mean you can’t be getting fat on your own vat (of dough)
Comedy!
Good one Brett.
Iole does a nice job on his columns. I cant believe he screwed that one up. I say we inundate his mailbox with bakery orders.
Read My Blog
"Life's tough, tougher if you're stupid."
I say not
Look, everyone bags on Iole and no one more so than me. But I don’t think Iole is a bad guy and I don’t think anyone should be insulting him. Iole’s at fault, but that should’ve been fact checked somewhere up the chain.
If anything, the complaints should go to Yahoo’s ombudsman, I reckon.
Honestly though, I got the impression that you did think Iole was a bad guy. Well, insomuch as I understand that most people who think someone is a corporate schill is also a bad person.
Not trying to give that impression
Iole is a fan of the sport. I respect that. And as a mainstream writer, he’s got a lot of power. But you can’t make errors like this.
Me Neither
I enjoy most of his columns. I just thought it would be fun to do some needling.
Read My Blog
"Life's tough, tougher if you're stupid."
Wow, good find...
Good find Luke. Iole is a good writer, but he definitely has some odd stances. The factual inaccuracy here completely kills that entire portion of the article. Come on Yahoo!
I'll give Iole this much...
...he has gotten much better recently. But man. FAIL has never applied quite so much as this.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like hard work." -- Thomas Edison
by Brent Brookhouse on Jun 6, 2008 12:49 PM EDT reply actions
Honestly
It’s a very poorly written column as well. Seems like something he wrote and posted very quickly with no editorial review. Very corny and not up to his usual standards.
Here's a question
Do you think they’re going to fix it or just leave it like it is forever and ever? Think they’re going to admit they made a mistake or just pretend like it didn’t happen? Or how about this: from now on Iole can just keep saying that Alves’ parents are bankers, like he kept saying that Wanderlei refused to fight Chuck back in the day.
I wouldn’t give Kevin such a hard time if he just admitted he fucked up when he fucks up. God knows, I constantly mix up the three Thiagos in the UFC, as well as James and Josh Thompson / Thomson. But every time I make sure i issue a correction for being a moron.
I love to hate
I figure...
he’ll just leave it and pretend it didn’t happen.
...Just like he leaves most stuff that he brutally goofs.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like hard work." -- Thomas Edison
by Brent Brookhouse on Jun 6, 2008 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions
I like reading Iole’s articles usually because he has such good access to UFC people and gets important interviews easily, but his writing style is pretty bland, he doesn’t really bring any sort of unique analysis to the table, and a lot of the articles are just so corny that they sound like a lame biopic.
Anyone can make a mistake, he should just admit it and move on.
ombudsman? i think not. editor? doyle might give it a read. but that stuff just gets thrown up on the site. before we rush to judgment, however, where does alves say he’s from either a family of bakers or bankers? no quotes to that effect in either story. ostensibly, savage and iole both interviewed alves, and one of them screwed up. but is our only basis for beating up iole that savage said something different? perhaps this blog can steer us to first-hand evidence of alves’ doughy past.
Amateur
That is absolutely ridiculous. Iole’s column rarely anything more than little UFC puff pieces (not suprising considering the UFC/Yahoo! partnership) but this is pathetic. In Iole’s article, which is prominently displayed on the front-page of Yahoo!’s MMA section, he appears to have interviewed Thiago Alves. Did this little fact not come up in the interview and Iole knew it beforehand and decided to go with it? Did he have trouble understanding what Thiago said because of his accent (despite his “flawless engligh”)?
Luke – are you going soft or something? I very well may be mistaken about this, but I seem to remember you applying a virtual rape-choke to Iole over his ineptness on more than one occasion. Not to mention, every other post by you lately has been you giving an e-spanking to some incompetent writer. I would’ve expected a screw-up of this magnitude to make your blood boil.
... of course Yahoo’s “Live Coverage” link for this UFC event, HERE still lists Evans vs. Irvin as being on the fight card. I don’t think going back and updating or correcting things, whether the result of an “epic fail” or changing circumstances, is very high on Yahoo’s mma coverage team’s list of things to do …
The polite thing to do ...
... would be just to send him an email to correct him. I can see how he made the mistake—listening to a Brazilian accent maybe baking sounds like banking. I don’t think it’s worth of indicting a guy over a simple mistake like this. Now, supporting Kimbo Slice, that is an unforgivable sin …
Yeah...obviously...
I mean…in journalism facts are much less important than opinions…
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like hard work." -- Thomas Edison
by Brent Brookhouse on Jun 6, 2008 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Brilliant...
...the article now reads:
Thiago Alves’ family is in the baking business in Brazil. But he was only 14 by the time he knew the world of baking and distributing cookies and cakes was not for him.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like hard work." -- Thomas Edison
by Brent Brookhouse on Jun 7, 2008 12:45 AM EDT reply actions
it's been amended
And hilariously so:
Thiago Alves’ family is in the baking business in Brazil. But he was only 14 by the time he knew the world of baking and distributing cookies and cakes was not for him.
"Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth." -- Bob Arum
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