Iowa Broadcaster Loses Job Over Internet Photos
Last week, Iowa radio broadcaster Ed Podolak — someone I hadn’t heard of until this mess, but someone who, I am assured, is relatively beloved around Iowa — got in a little trouble over photos of him drinking, carousing, and peering down a grown woman’s shirt. Pretty standard “drunk on Saturday” stuff — except, of course, to college administrators, a distinctly joyless breed of people who believe alcoholism is the sole reason people don’t show up to their intro Finite Math lectures at 9 a.m. Those people are pissed. Now Podolak is dunzo. It’s officially being called a retirement, but it’s pretty obvious the man was canned.
How did the photos originate? First, they were taken by an Iowa State fan. Second, they were posted on the Wizard of Odds, “The College Football Site For Winners.” (Tremendous blog tagline, by the way.) Third, they spread, like all things do, about the Internet, and before you know it, Podolak was a minor sports blog figure. Fancy that.
Of course, the Wizard of Odds’ choice to post those photos in the first place is basically what got Podolak fired. So does “the Wiz” feel bad? Apparently not, and mgoblog’s Brian Cook lays the smack down:
By the way: I’d like to personally congratulate Jay Christensen of The Wizard of Odds, by the way, for posting these photos in a bid for cheap hits and costing a guy even Iowa State fans think is pretty awesome his job. Good work there. You’ve contributed greatly to the national discourse of college football with this. Love the utter lack of remorse in the follow up.
Cook is right. If you’re going to cost a guy his job by posting essentially innocent, but potentially damaging, photos of the man on the Internet, the least you can do is apologize when guy eventually gets fired. Reporting the firing without a mention of your own hand in the process feels more than a little sleazy; it turns sports blogs, and the varied and nuanced choices of the people behind them, into some sort of robotic operation. Directive 101a: Post drunk photos at any cost. Come on man. Have a heart. At least say you’re sorry. (UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter, it appears Iowa gave Podolak the chance to have a reprimand or suspension of some sort and he decided not to take it, which marginally tilts the blame field even more toward the silly drunk man.)
That last paragraph probably reads like I think it’s OK for blogs to get people fired, so long as they apologize. That’s not what I mean. I also don’t mean to downplay Iowa’s hand in the firing too; they could just as easily have suspended Podolak and given him a crash course in how not to end up drunk on the Internet. What I mean to say is that while there are no strict lines out here, whatever fuzzy boundaries exist are probably violated when you post a photo of a radio broadcaster enjoying himself with other adults. It’s one thing to consider the photos, rationalize them to yourself (there is an argument to be made for posting them, after all) and dealing with the consequences. Ignoring those consequences is childish, and cowardly.
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The Wiz simply republished what was already out there on Iowa-based Web sites. Not doing your homework and making such charges is childish, and cowardly.
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That said, The Wiz of Odds brought the photos to a larger audience, message boards or not, and I fail to see how that decision didn't lead, in one way or another, to Podolak eventually losing his job. It did, whether he made the final decision, or the administration did. And one more time, because it bears repeating: There is a precedent for posting stuff like this and I'm not wholly opposed to it -- I just found the Wiz's lack of condolences in his follow-up post to be really cold and off-putting. If you're going to start a firestorm, deal with the repercussions.
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Even without the background info supplied by the two Iowa commenters above me, what of the dumbass drunk guy who knows damn well what he does for a living and exactly what kind of humorless, souless folk his bosses are? Sweet Christ, people have camera phones, and if you're a remotely public figure any and all photos of you engaged in any kind of randy activity WILL SHOW UP ON THE INTERNET. When are old people required to commit this fact to memory?
I'd apportion the responsibility here as follows:
(i) Podolak -- 100%.
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And yet again, I'll repeat it: There is an argument to be made for posting the photos. There is also an argument to be made for not posting them, I guess, but if faced with similar circumstances, we might have posted them. It's just the lack of responsibility taken in the Wiz's second post that irks more than anything.
And finally, I'm not sure why we can't blame Iowa's adminstrators for being, as you say, humorless and soulless. They get a pass on that? They're allowed to fire (or, apparently, suspend) a guy for doing a completely harmless thing -- drinking in public and flirting with apparently consenting women while doing so -- without being called out for being soulless? That doesn't seem fair.
I'd apportion the responsibility here as follows:
(i) Podolak: 40%
(ii) Soulless Iowa types: 40%
(iii) Us Internet cretins: 20%
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