Tom Izzo Speaks Out On Spartan Nation About Talk Radio and the Internet!
Hondo: The fans often take a lot of criticism for talk radio, and players and coaches do for their reaction to it. I think a lot of the responsibility goes on hosts, like myself and others, to call them out on certain things. Do you agree there’s media responsibility too?
Izzo: You know, it’s an interesting subject. I once got in trouble for saying I wasn’t crazy about the First Amendment, freedom of speech. Because I don’t think it was written like it’s being administered, in other words, back when it was written. That’s a controversial subject that I’ll probably get into and people will probably be mad at me. I just think in general you cannot…I don’t see why people should be able to give opinions on something they’re not educated on. I’ve got no problem not agreeing with you or somebody else on who should play or not play or how to handle this or don’t handle this. If you spend time around our program… One of my favorite guys was Earle Robinson, just because I never saw a sporting event I was at that he wasn’t at. So when he gave his comments…as you know you spend a lot of time. The guys that spend time or maybe… Me giving my opinion on pro football, I think I have an educated opinion because I talk to people, I watch, I love it, I spend my Monday nights trying to do it if it’s not during season. At least it’s a somewhat educated opinion. When people are giving their opinions… That’s why I struggle with callers sometimes. If they’ve been there, if they’ve looked at it, if they understand why you made a trade because of a salary cap, then I got no problem with it. If you don’t understand those things, then it adds fuel to the fire and gets everybody all riled up, which I think sometimes talk shows wanna do. And then it goes from there. Twitter, to me, is different than talk shows because a talk show, your name is on it, you’re there. Where Twitter you hide behind a keyboard a lot of times and I struggle more with that.
Hondo: There seems to be a lot of extra testosterone when you’re writing in anonymity, isn’t there?
Izzo: I haven’t heard it put that way but that’s a very, very good point. You do a lot of different things when the accountability is not quite as demanding. I struggle with that a lot.
