Uh Oh. John Altaville in Hot Water? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Uh Oh. John Altaville in Hot Water?

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At what age does a man have to stop looking at sexy young women? Does a hunk at 20 become a creep at 40?

These young ladies were wearing outfits cut waaay below their naval. I'm going to assume that the design was intentional and that the young ladies had no objections to them. So what is wrong with that and what is wrong with commenting about it? Altavilla's only mistake was that he used an employer account.
 
vtcwbuff said:
At what age does a man have to stop looking at sexy young women? Does a hunk at 20 become a creep at 40?

These young ladies were wearing outfits cut waaay below their naval. I'm going to assume that the design was intentional and that the young ladies had no objections to them. So what is wrong with that and what is wrong with commenting about it? Altavilla's only mistake was that he used an employer account.
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Well, that's a pretty big mistake.
 
Huskies Rule said:
Geez- I always thought the First Amendment protected all speech, even that which is stupid and insensitive.
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It does. No arrests have been made. Nor, will there be any arrests. However, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." –Benjamin Franklin

Doing something stupid doesn't necessarily make us a stupid individual. However, doing something stupid does subject us to the consequences.
 
John was dumb for tweeting it, but the bottom line is the cheerleaders, and UT, WANT this type of attention - otherwise they wouldn't be dressed that way (on TV). My son and I went to the Oklahoma-Texas football game a couple years ago and hung out before the game at ESPN's College Gameday event which was broadcast from that venue. The UT cheerleaders in chaps were a very prominent part of that program, and it wasn't like they grudgingly gave their permission to be on TV - clearly they were aggressively seeking the exposure (pun intended). So if they DON'T want that type of attention (ha!), there's a real easy way to not get it - just put your clothes on.
 
From the linked article in the previous post:

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Tweet's a riff on Urban Cowboy and the Boz Skaggs song (and yeah, in that context, definitely skeevy)


Surprised how many find it acceptable for the beat sportswriter for the women's team to put on social media how turned on he is by college students.
If he did the same about a UCONN player, would it be okay?
 
Lurker said:
Overall, I think Altaville's professional work is shallow and boring and kind of flippant and irrelevant. He also tends to "borrow" a lot (but hey, other than that he must have some redeeming characteristics?!?) :oops:. I stopped deliberately following his work years ago in favor of the more balanced BY ;). Given a choice, I would have MUCH rather seen Altaville get canned rather than Rich, who was insightful and wrote with intelligence and respect. Altaville would not be a big loss to the Huskies community (IMO), but Rich was!
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Amen to that. While in Jerusalem a few years back, I interviewed Charde Houston who was playing for a team just outside the city. I pitched him my story and a little bit about how Charde was doing. (I'm a reporter.) He said thanks, then proceeded to get on the horn, interview Charde himself, and post the story.

Not a big deal, perhaps, to many of you, but I lost quite a bit of respect for him back then.
 
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Molehill, meet Mountain.
Reporter is looking for something to tweet, mistakenly steps over the line and tweets something many people in the stands were thinking , apologizes, paper will probably give him some kind of publicly embarrassing reprimand to save face.
Let's move on.

Regarding Kerith, she should have said something to her colleague privately and given him a chance to rescind the comment (if he chose), rather than make it an even larger issue.
 
Cheerleaders are just cheerleaders. They are people. You don't get to leer at them at all regardless of how old you are. "Leering" is not something that's acceptable behavior.

If you still don't get it, try this.

Your daughter is on the UT Dance Team. She's proud she made the team -- all those years of dance paid off!

Then, you read a reporter's tweet. How do you feel? How do feel that a reporter has leered at your daughter?
 
FairView said:
Molehill, meet Mountain.
Reporter is looking for something to tweet, mistakenly steps over the line and tweets something many people in the stands were thinking , apologizes, paper will probably give him some kind of publicly embarrassing reprimand to save face.
Let's move on.

Regarding Kerith, she should have said something to her colleague privately and given him a chance to rescind the comment (if he chose), rather than make it an even larger issue.
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Good Point Should have talked to him privately. He's a man with a wife and at least one daughter. He was being a silly guy. No need to put this out there in public. Should he have not done it on work time yes. Should he lose his job for it. No When someone makes a dumb mistake there is no reason to hang him or her out to dry. We are all human and we all have done silly things. It shouldn't cost us our job and or family. This should've been handled privately I agree Fairview. JMO. Did he say something derogative? I didn't read the tweet.
 
magic said:
So MEYERS, what exactly is "your " cutoff age for looking at cheerleaders ? Everyone in the stands around us were also commenting about the cheerleaders, AND how it would be great to join the BIG 12 (10).
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I have no problem with looking at the cheerleaders. That's what they are there for, obviously. Why would you ask that?
 
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Tonyc said:
Good Point Should have talked to him privately. He's a man with a wife and at least one daughter. He was being a silly guy. No need to put this out there in public.
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Except he'd already put it out there in public.

I'm fine with him taking it down, apologizing and moving on.
 
schmendrick said:
Amen to that. While in Jerusalem a few years back, I interviewed Charde Houston who was playing for a team just outside the city. I pitched him my story and a little bit about how Charde was doing. (I'm a reporter.) He said thanks, then proceeded to get on the horn, interview Charde himself, and post the story.

Not a big deal, perhaps, to many of you, but I lost quite a bit of respect for him back then.
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That's a different issue entirely.
 
Tonyc said:
Good Point Should have talked to him privately. He's a man with a wife and at least one daughter. He was being a silly guy. No need to put this out there in public. Should he have not done it on work time yes. Should he lose his job for it. No When someone makes a dumb mistake there is no reason to hang him or her out to dry. We are all human and we all have done silly things. It shouldn't cost us our job and or family. This should've been handled privately I agree Fairview. JMO. Did he say something derogative? I didn't read the tweet.
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Agree, way overblown. Those who think the uniforms are appropriate are the biggest hypocrites of all.
 
ThisJustIn said:
I think it simply underscores the "hidden" sexuality of sports. In general, women are objectified men are not. There have been a series of incidents in the last week or so that underscores that. Of course, some folks are going to trot out the "thought police" to hide behind to they don't actually have to think about the implications and ingrained biases. But do the flip test and see if you can point out the examples of the opposite happening - a female reporter tweeting about male cheerleaders, a pair of female hosts dismissing the quality of a male reporter's reporting but praising the size of his "johnson," etc. etc.

It's all worth discussion. It's all worth reflection. It's all worth thoughtful examining of the impact of words and language. What you decide to do AFTERward is on you. As is folks' reaction. It's all part of growing up and being more aware of the fact that you can impact the people and world around you.
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If enough women refused to wear skimpy outfits and shake their booties in front of thousands of people, then it wouldn't happen. Thing is, there are women who either don't see it as objectification or who don't mind being objectified. The problem is that people make assumptions that if some women don't mind being objectified, all women don't mind. It's incumbent on a woman to stand up and say, no, you do not get to say that about me.
 
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Is this what we are complaining about:



I am not particularly offended by that. He was trying to be witty. In hindsight, he should have avoided the tweet but Crimeny it is not like the guy is predator.
 
Tonyc said:
He's a man with a wife and at least one daughter. [...] No need to put this out there in public. .
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Exactly, he shouldn't have been tweeting this sort of thing publicly because he has a wife and daughter.
 
"I'm fine with him taking it down, apologizing and moving on."[/QUOTE]

Which seems to be what the rest of the world is doing.

He said something on his work account that many viewed as inappropriate and which offended some of his company's clientele. The company took it down and he apologized. The End. AFAIK, he isn't fired or fined or anything.

But to take issue with the woman who called him on it because it should have been private because "he has a wife and child"!?! Don't get that at all.
 
I follow Altavilla and have been annoyed by his (I'm sure he thinks he's funny) comments about the blowouts. He usually mentions that he's napping or sleeping or whatever. Sometimes throughout the game that is all he tweets about. He obviously is not happy in his job. I have considered unfollowing him but just never wasted my time. Now after reading his comments and all of the responses after the cheerleader tweet by him ( which I do find sleazy for a media person assigned to the women's basketball program) I'm going to assume that his joking and insults should have been checked by the Courant a while back but they didn't care. Now he figures that everybody understands his humor and loves him he goes a little bit overboard. Regardless what we think I think that Mr Altavilla will be pulling in probably the Wolf Pack gig. He seems like a wise guy to me anyway.
 
Wally East said:
Exactly, he shouldn't have been tweeting this sort of thing publicly because he has a wife and daughter.
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Well I have a wife and a daughter, and I'm not offended in the least. Now I'm not a huge fan of Twitter and the need to memorialize and publicize every thought, but that comment is pretty mild. Reread Nan's post that you and I liked above and realize that it kind of goes with the territory of being cheerleader in a skimpy outfit. Now if he had made comments to them or tweeted something lewd, that would be a whole different story...but that didn't happen.

Full disclosure: I like John's work and feel like he is a very good beat writer.
 
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CL82 said:
Well I have a wife and a daughter, and I'm not offended in the least.
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That's fine that you weren't offended. Not every one agrees.
 
Wally East said:
That's fine that you weren't offended. Not every one agrees.
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Nor is everyone offended. Life's funny like that. ;)
 
I'm not condoning what John A did here, but I do think there's some cognitive dissonance here given that the TV broadcast often makes a point of positioning cameras directly under cheerleaders while they're in the air. If you think the former is a problem, why is the latter ok?
 
vtcwbuff said:
At what age does a man have to stop looking at sexy young women? Does a hunk at 20 become a creep at 40?
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It depends how rich and/or powerful the man is.

Just ask Hefner and Clinton.
 
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