Ben Koo

Owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing. Recovering Silicon Valley startup guy. Fan of Buckeyes, 49ers, A's, dogs, naps, tacos, and the old AOL dialup sounds.

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

I'm retiring from doing this....

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

@StephStradley @TickPick Thanks! I've heard that.

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

I know that mostly everyone is of the thought to wait to buy World Cup Tickets (agreed), but if buying from the secondary market, what's the best site to use (specifically for the World Cup) Ticketmaster? SeatGeek?

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

@Jthomp72 I have no idea but feel like if you want specific area/quality of seats, the money window will be around 72-48 hours before.

Buying a lot of OSU tickets on the secondary market, day of can be dicey. Day before is usually good. Two days out you start to see stuff go quicker

[Joel D. Anderson 🆓 @byjoelanderson]

man, who should we believe: someone who's virtually never gotten along with her colleagues in a true newsroom and was previously accused of being a terrible manager at their previous stop, or the multi-Emmy-Peabody-Polk award winner beloved by his co-workers?

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

Bari Weiss and David Ellison chose the path. He, and others, just chose not to go down it.

More staff, and a lot of viewers, wont either.

[Ben Mullin @BenMullin]

Bari Weiss Speaks on Scott Pelley’s Firing: ‘That’s the Path That He Chose.’ New, with @grynbaum
https://t.co/v37Saio719

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

@BraggBobby More than women’s hoops?

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

If it went to open market , how much would the CWS and WCWS get for rights fees?

Probably a lot more than whatever it’s theoretically getting on paper under the broader ESPN NCAA championship deal.

ESPN is absolutely cleaning up on that one.

[ESPN PR @ESPNPR]

ESPN's #WCWS viewership continues to soar 📈

🥎 Through 10 games, 1.5M avg. viewers
🥎 3 of the 5 most-watched non-Finals games on record
🥎 @TexasTechSB-@UCLASoftball 2.0M avg. viewers, the 2nd most-watched non-Finals game EVER

#NCAASoftball

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

60 Minutes is going the same way as Deadspin. More exits are coming.

Ownership did this. Ownership wanted this.

Vichy 60 Minutes.

This is a major loss.

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

#BREAK: CBS NEWS has terminated Scott Pelley's contract.

[Awful Announcing @awfulannouncing]

Wright Thompson opens up on a number of subjects.

- Why he didn't write the sequel to his most famous story.
- Why sports and sportswriting matter.
- Becoming a student with new media.
- Saying no to Michael Jordan and the difference between selling merch and journalism.

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

@chiwizardry 3 years. So we are pretty settled at this point

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

I have a friend who hasn't seen where I live coming over and while we're both adults around~40, I can't help but wonder....

Do dudes give other dudes house tours?

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

Too much money in politics. Too many lobbyists. Too many lawyers. Gridlock and unpopular legislation.

This is what the United States is and it’s only gotten worse and will continue to do so.

[Jake Zuckerman @jake_zuckerman]

As political pressure has mounted on Ohio's data center industry, it has responded by hiring a fleet of more than 50 statehouse lobbyists.

The Data Center Coalition has also stood up a nonprofit that bought $10,000+ in pro-data center ads in May
https://t.co/uzqjn1QXJk

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

If you don't agree with ownership's editorial changes, you have choices. Want to boycott 60 Minutes? Plenty of options...

You have CNN. There are late-night shows. HBO has some great shows and docs. Lots of people today get their news from places like TikTok.

Wait...what?

[Peter Kafka @pkafka]

Pelley pointed out that Weiss has "no qualifications for her job" and told Bilton "you have slender qualifications for this job." Pelley, the former anchor of "CBS Evening News," noted that the changes Weiss has made to that program "have been catastrophic."
"why should we expect any of this is going to be any better?"

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

@MichaelRedd_ Look forward to it.

With the NBA and WNBA having so many new media partners, and the surge of former players launching podcasts, any chance you'll look to add a new platform given how well your Wemby take went over?

In Cbus, if you want any guidance or contacts...

[Tim Kawakami @timkawakami]

ESPN exec going to fire off a retort to this one?

[Drew Lerner @Drewbydoobydoo]

Scripps CEO Adam Symson on the ongoing dispute with DirecTV:

- Any suggestion by DirecTV that the dispute centers on local sports rights is a "false flag"

- Says DirecTV is engaging in "anti-competitive, antitrust behavior"

More from a fiery interview with Symson ⤵️

[Michael Redd @MichaelRedd_]

Been thinking about this. It's not about hoops, but it is about a hooper.

Give Wemby and his marketing team major credit.

For three or four years now he's been saying yes. Access. Interviews. Riding the subway. Playing chess. Living with monks. Voiced geopolitical takes. Stunt-y or not, doesn't matter.

I think reporters have been starved of actual access from NBA stars for a long time. From LeBron to Jokic, you only got the few crumbs that the player and his sneaker brand and his agency wanted you to have. Then, journalists (and talkshow hosts) would have to make a meal out of crumbs. (Crumbs that often came with strings attached.)

Wemby's kind've bucked that trend. So now that he's got the biggest stage of his career, those same access-starved reporters (who also, fwiw, tend to align with his politics and disposition) have got stories, angles, and the "superhero" they've craved to cover.

Whether Wemby's genuinely that guy or just plays one really well, I don't know. But from a media and marketing standpoint, he and his team ran their long play about as well as we've seen it run in a long time.

Salute.

[Ben Koo @bkoo]

Yes of course

[Columbus Dispatch @DispatchAlerts]

Ohio political blogger D.J. Byrnes was taken into custody at the Ohio Statehouse on a telecom‑harassment warrant. https://t.co/Mla2Ow5blv