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Sam Caplan responds to Luke Thomas
By Zach Arnold | December 6, 2007
Addressing the way the MMA media has covered the death of Sam Vasquez:
My reasons for devoting light coverage to the story had nothing to do with fear or bringing negative attention to the sport and was not an attempt to sweep the situation under the rug. It has to do with how I was taught to practice journalism.
For me to comment on this situation is a lose/lose proposition. This story should be about Sam Vazquez, not a story about how the MMA media covered the story.
Here is part of what I stated on Monday:
Call me cynical, but I don’t think you’re seeing a large outpouring of emotion over the death of Sammy Vasquez from various members of the ‘MMA media’ because it doesn’t serve much of a purpose for said parties to talk about the death. No ‘upside.’
Given the bad track record of the ‘MMA Media’ umbrella in terms of covering in-depth stories that deal with hard controversy (like issues involving organized crime or promoter malfeasance), I can perfectly see why Luke Thomas reacted the way he did. More thoughts here.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
There’s a possibility that it’s not the lack of “upside”, but a lack of knowledge, of the fighter, the org, the situation, that causes people to not comment. For my part I found all the information I needed pretty rapidly, mainly from outlets that purport to be news-oriented like MMAWeekly and Sherdog.
Let me get this straight…a guy who writes some blog blasted some other guy who writes another blog for not covering a very marginal story? Not every blog covers every story, nor should they.
And, frankly, as a reader of said blogs, I have to admit I don’t care about Sam Vasquez outside of any legislative impact on the sport. Why should I? Just because he was a fighter?
I know that the comment section shouldn’t be abused to “flame” fighters,promoters, or media (or those who say they are “media”)but I’m sorry– I don’t like sam caplan and i think he is just a HUGEEEEEEEE MIZARK/TUF NOOB.
I have my reason’s why I don’t care for sam caplan/five ounces of paiun so don’t confuse this with random “flaming”
..
Honestly, a guy that no one ever heard of before died in a show no one has ever heard of. It was a freak occurrence with no negligence. MMA is an extremely safe sport with thousands of regulated fights per year with no deaths prior to this one.
What more is there to this story?
I am sorry he died. I am sorry for his family. I hope no one ever dies in MMA again (but I’m sure they will it is a dangerous sport).
For crying out loud, I wasn’t calling out Sam Caplan at all. I registered complaints about websites, not people. Even if I was referring to 5 oz, it wouldn’t matter: the site has several writers. I’d be indicting them all in that case, albeit to slightly varying degrees.
Salvatore,
I’ll bite, what makes me a TUF noob or a “mizark?”
And what are your reasons for not caring for “Five Ounces of Paiun?”