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Though we’re reluctant to dredge up last week’s shameful (or is it shamless?) interview of Brett Favre by Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, Steve Bilafer fillets “Breta” in the current issue of SportsBusiness Journal, and we’re compelled to share some of the comments with you.
Says Bilafer, “Favre got hit harder by Michael Strahan on that sack record fiasco.”
The overriding point? “Van Susteren completely let Favre get his message across unchallenged.”
Amen.
So, basically, don’t count on Greta serving as the sideline reporter for any “Minneapolis” Vikings games.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Serves Bert Farve right for interviewing with a tranny.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Mike… The one-sided coverage on the Favre issue is getting irritating. Why all the Favre-bashing? The interview with Greta was meant to give Favre a forum to give his side of the story. I don’t see you criticizing any of the media who gave Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy an open forum to give their side unchallenged. Now we know both sides of the story… That’s fair. I hope you and the other writers on this site wise up to that and begin to report fairly on this topic.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
Who the hell is Steve Bilafer and why do we care about his opinion of Greta?
Ted Thompson’s job is to manage the team and he is the one that is not dealing with a staff issue.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
@pgear.
True, I doubt anyone else would have ‘lobbed softballs’ like that. This interview was less about finding facts and more about letting a man have an open forum. No one else would let him do it.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
@pgear,
For your sake, I hope Brett doesn’t make a quick turn anytime soon - you might just snap your neck.
The Favre bashing is warranted, for the all of the reasons that have been laid out. And I’ll throw a another one out there. Why didn’t Brett speak up when his mother and brother were out there spouting off about teh Packer’s organization? Because that’s exactly what Bus Cook and Brett wanted. I don’t know if this is all Bus’s idea to get Brett out of Green Bay, but I’m sure he’s had more than his fair share of blame in this. When all is said and done, Brett will only have himself and Bus to blame for this mess.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
I must have missed the part where Thompson and McCarthy went onto a 24 hour news network and were given an open, unchallenged forum to state their points of view.
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Rating: 2.6 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
Shameful? She let him speak when the world wanted to listen, what’s wrong with that? If Keith Olbermann gave the forum you’d be saying how brilliant it was that Olbermann let him speak his mind…
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
They were interviewed by several news outlets throughout Wisconsin as well as Sports Illustrated and given an open forum to give their side. Because it wasn’t Fox News, CNN, or any other news network doesn’t make a difference. They gave their side and Favre gave his. Period.
I’m ok with the Favre-bashing… What I’m not ok with is the one-sided reporting of the Favre issue. It hurts the credibility of this site and the writers.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Gee, someone at Fox News basically serving up PR for one side of a news story. I never saw that coming.
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Rating: 3.2 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Where was Ted Thompson’d and Mike McCarthy’s O’Riely treatment? They get a free pass with carefully scripted PR statements and Brett Favre gets grilled because he spoke his mind?
Unfortunately I think people are intimidated when players speak their mind. They would rather hear endless robotic party line interviews like the boring ones Brady and Billichek give all the time: “Just taking this one game at a time” “Spygate is not a distractions” “We don’t let those things worry us” ZZZZZZZ!
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Rating: 3.75 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Vox Veritas,
Their carefully scripted PR statements were all over ESPN. ESPN is a 24 hour news network, no?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Seems like everything Favre touches, it eventually has negative effect and a loss of credibility.
Personally, I believe that the media or other powers that be have not “drilled” Bus Cook sufficiently regarding this mess. If I can recall, reports of Favre “unretiring” for the utmost time was preceded by Bus Cook “shopping” Favre around in order to make money off of him for one more year. That seems to have gone unnoticed. It is my opinion that there is more than meets the eye regarding this issue. After the tampering investigation (which is warranted), someone needs to look at Cook’s dealings in this matter.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Any serious journalist should call someone on it if they’re making contradictory statements and ask them to clarify.
Farve had been telling everyone “no comment” until he found someone to lob softballs at him in front of a national audience under the guise of an actual interview. Fox News should have just asked him for a press release.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
VoxVeritas, Thanks for posting re:Favre bashing. He has the right to tell his side–I guess the sports reporters feelings are hurt that he didn’t choose any of them to talk to. Maybe he’s aware that most of them have jumped on the anti-Favre/Favre as primadonna bandwagon. Seems like its a pretty popular place to be these days. No I agree that Favre didn’t handle the whole un-retiring thing well, but there sure are a lot of negative, spiteful people out there. How quickly they forget…
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
God, this is what she looks like AFTER plastic surgery!
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July 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
who cares what you think? Favre or any player has the right to retire, then unretire.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Quote: God, this is what she looks like AFTER plastic surgery!
There’s only soo much a surgeon can do!…..Here’s a before shot:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/12/04/greta.debrief/story.greta.jpg&imgrefurl=http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/12/04/greta.debrief/index.html&h=168&w=220&sz=15&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=N2sNmiFjpXe_5M:&tbnh=82&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreta%2Bvan%2Bsusteren%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4DKUS_enUS247US247%26sa%3DN
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