On Thursday night Jadeveon Clowney was briefly detained by the Columbia Police in their search for a suspect that had a similar description to that of Mr. Clowney. He was released, and apparently did nothing wrong. This happened around 2 or 2:30 am. A picture of the incident was taken, apparently with a cellphone. That picture was sent to Travis Haney, the beat reporter for the Charleston Post & Courier. Haney tweeted (@TravHaney) at 3:24 that a witness informed him that Clowney was temporarily detained and released at the scene. Haney later questioned what a high school senior was doing in Five Points so late during the week. At 3:44 he then put a blog post up with the picture stating what was known at the time: Clowney was there, why he was detained was unknown.
After reporting these facts, Haney began to receive public condemnations for his reporting. The detractors were on twitter, message boards and radio stations. There were some questioning the facts in Haney’s story. Some were questioning Haney himself, and many were questioning whether this should have been reported on at all. None of them had a legitimate gripe.
Certainly few Gamecocks could have been happy to wake up to news that uber-recruit Clowney had a run in with police in five points the night before. Given the Stephen Garcia news that had broken about a week earlier, the frustration of the fans could be understood. Some of those fans chose to vent their frustration at Haney, and their anger was clearly misplaced.
Haney did nothing wrong; in fact, he did his job. Think about that for a minute: Haney’s job is to report news about the South Carolina Gamecocks.
I’m glad it’s his job; he’s good at it, and this certainly qualifies. Would you have rather read twitter rumors today about the Clowney incident, or would you rather have a picture and a story with the known facts? Further, you can probably thank Travis Haney’s story for letting everyone know about the incident that led to further facts coming out that eventually exonerated Clowney.
I’m not a reporter. When I write here, I do it as a fan and in addition to my day job. So, when I talk about a reporter’s job and what he should and shouldn’t do, it’s from the outside, but I like having reporters who write about the Gamecocks. I enjoy reading about them, and I usually can’t get enough. In fact, I began writing here because I told Moose about something I wanted to read and he asked me to write it. It’s not the reporters’ job to whitewash the facts or ignore inconvenient events. I’m glad it’s not, and I’m thankful for people like Travis Haney who let us know what’s going on and give us plenty to read to keep up with the teams we love. So, if you want to know all you can about your favorite teams, you have take it all in: good, bad and indifferent.
