Paul Finebaum opens up on media coverage surrounding Georgia football

In the last two college football seasons, the Georgia Bulldogs have taken care of business on the field, bringing home back-to-back national championships to Athens, Georgia. But off the field, the Bulldogs’ players have had their fair share of off-the-field mishaps.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been closely documenting the off-the-field activity of Georgia’s student-athletes, reporting on the team’s history involving reckless driving, head coach Kirby Smart‘s lack of accountability, and most recently sexual assault/domestic violence allegations.

College football analyst Paul Finebaum recently spoke with ESPN’s Matt Barrie about the coverage of the Bulldogs, breaking down his thoughts and insights based on his experience in the media landscape.

“Having been an investigative reporter in my early days I say this now, you can pretty much create whatever you want as long as you have a little bit of news to work on,” Finebaum said. “And I think in some ways that’s the case, you have a lot of players who have been on the fringe of trouble.”

Reporter Chip Towers and the AJC investigative team have received pushback and backlash from Georgia fans regarding the publication’s recent coverage of the Bulldogs, but Finebaum stands somewhere in the middle of it all.

“And the media entity in question here is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which used to be an outstanding newspaper,” Finebaum said. “I don’t know what it is any more because there are no such things as newspapers outside of New York, and Washington, and few other places. It’s fascinating to watch this battle between fans and the AJC, and I don’t really know, I would normally take the media’s side.”

Finebaum also believes that the content and style of the AJC’s reporting could stem from where the industry is at as a whole at the moment, as print journalism continues to decrease in popularity and controversy continues to increase.

“But I’m skeptical of the media these days as well Matt, because they are fighting for their own survival. I mean I just literally read a tweet as we were coming on the air here that the New York Times is getting rid of its sports staff. Well, they also own The Athletic, but I mean the New York Times using another entity to cover sports, there’s no such thing,” Finebaum explained. “Whatever it used to be it no longer is.”

Smart has held his tongue for the most part on his team’s off-the-field incidents as it relates to the AJC, but it will definitely be interesting to see how it is addressed at SEC Media Days starting on Monday, July 17.