8itorials

Mailbag: November 18th

8itorials,

If you’d ever like to get in touch with us about anything, please drop us a note at SportsChannel8NC@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to post it so everyone can see what you sent us privately.

Dear SportsChannel8,

Might as well call it UNCChannel8 these days. I was seriously hoping once I started following your station that your entity wouldn’t fall under the same spell as ESPN, CBS, Fox, and all the other local NC news outlets. That being just another haven of UNC homerism. Let me guess, you have roughly 2-3 UNC J-School folks on your staff just like everyone else. Go figures.
 
To get to my point, the UNC love is just becoming too much. Of course you all have done nothing to keep the heat on the bigger issue of rampant cheating at that university. Did you forget that they still have a NCAA ruling coming? 
 
The UNC football love makes me sick. Look at their schedule. They haven’t played anyone. They don’t have to play Florida State, Clemson and Louisville, but not shockingly your team of blue-lensed UNC fans have had little to say about that. You all waste your time coming up with college football playoff predictions for them that have ZERO chance of happening.
 
If only Georgia Tech had just beat those cheaters when they had them down, I guess we wouldn’t be sitting here. But knowing you all at sportsUNChannel8, that would just mean your coverage of UNC basketball would have started earlier.
 
Respectfully Irritated,
 
Anonymous

Dear Anonymous:

Thanks for your letter. While we’ll be the first to admit that we venture into the “homer” side for all of North Carolina’s college and pro teams, I can assure you that we would never, and I want to make this clear for emphasis, never hire anyone with a J-school background.

We go where the news goes, and right now the news takes us to UNC football. If the internet had been around back then, I promise you we’d have posts about the disrespect Duke received in the polls in a nearly identical run in 2013, and you can bet that we would have dropped a fire Ms. New Booty or Ridin’ Dirty parody to celebrate Wake’s ACC championship in 2006. And if State had done anything during that time frame, we would have been all over that as well.

You do bring up an interesting discussion, however. What if UNC had lost that day in Atlanta? My guess is they never recover and we’re sitting here talking about a red-hot Duke team, which gives you a 75% chance of still hating the work we do here at SportsChannel8. So don’t blame us. Blame Georgia Tech.

The “cheaters” comment makes me assume that you’re a fan of the Wolfpack, however, so three things on that assumption …

  • Please forgive me if I’m making an incorrect assumption, that’s not fair of me. NC State has wonderful fans who love their team very much, and every fan base across America has a subset of their population who just wants their rival to crumble.
  • When there’s news on the NCAA scandal, we won’t shy away from it. Sure, we’ll run it through legal first, and then we’ll give North Carolina a heads-up about it to make sure they’re cool with running it so we don’t burn any bridges. That’s not North Carolina specific, though. We’d do the same for your favorite school.
  •  Here’s a previous post we ran about a month ago featuring an adorable dog who cheers for the Wolfpack.

Hang in there, Anonymous. We’ll do something to make you laugh and share us with your friends in no time. Go Everyone, as long as they’re from the state of North Carolina.

Ben Swain

Editor, SportsChannel8