1. USA Today has an interesting read by college sports reporter Dan Wolken. "At Ole Miss, evolving perceptions both outward and inward" focuses on the history of the university's usage of Antebellum and Confederate imagery. Specifically, Ole Miss' "Rebels" nickname has drawn criticism for years, and the "Colonel Rebel" mascot the school once used in athletic marketing and gameday events was removed in the 2003 football season.
USA Today brands story on obsolete Ole Miss mascot with obsolete Ole Miss mascot
The Rebels are in the news, which means it’s time to talk about embarrassing history. And use it for branding!
USA Today
2. Wolken’s piece focuses on the variety of lunatic, single-issue fringe groups that, among other acidic intentions, fight to keep an off-brand, foam-head Colonel walking around Ole Miss tailgates and sporting events.
3. Wolken’s story is fair to all involved. I’m calling these groups lunatics, not Wolken, because I’m an Ole Miss graduate of 10 years driven to a mental tic by any national media reference to my alma mater.
Here is how it tends to go. The media uses words like “a particular faction.” The university tries to explain that faction as “a vocal minority.” I usually go with “self-defeating, caustic, out-of-town peckerheads pissing down their own legs to claim they’re fighting in a storm of oppression.” Thanks to these lovable troglodytes, nary a single major event at Ole Miss -- such as this weekend’s game vs. No. 3 Alabama -- can pass by without a fresh national thinkpiece about the perpetual controversy around campus.
If you think I’m wrong, search the New York Times archive. Oxford, Miss., is the Grey Lady’s “The South is horrible unless this is the Travel section” satellite office.
4. When you click on Wolken’s story, you’re taken to what looks to be some kind of fancy, Ole Miss-specific news hub.
5. Gannett has nestled Wolken’s fair story in “Walk The Grove,” that Ole Miss-specific hub marketed directly to Ole Miss fans by using a really angry-ass-looking Colonel Rebel variation, created by USA Today.
Update, 2:22 p.m.: USA Today’s header has since been changed.
Full disclosure: here’s how this company represents its own Ole Miss site. Note the apolitical plastic cup as a primary logo.
6. Colonel Rebel hasn’t appeared on an Ole Miss sideline in 11 years, since the athletic department tactfully-ish pulled him during a historic, 10-3 football campaign in Eli Manning’s senior season. If there’s one absolute we as Ole Miss graduates have gleaned from decades of tripping over ourselves, it’s that football wins are a cure-all for any “controversial debate.” Showing all but the most extreme Ole Miss fans a No. 11 AP Top 25 ranking is like shaking car keys in front of a crying baby.
7. As a journalist, my question to USA Today and its parent company is as follows: What comment would you have to Ole Miss administrators angry over your use of an 11-years-removed image, modified so that you can contain the copyright, for the express purpose of generating traffic and ad revenue from news items related to the University of Mississippi?
Wouldn’t use of this particular image undermine Wolken’s attempt as a Gannett content creator to illustrate the odds at which the Ole Miss community is with a particular faction of pro-Colonel supporters? Doesn’t “Walk The Grove” do more to exacerbate this situation and serve to undermine the credibility of USA Today as an impartial arbiter of news?
After 32 years, USA Today is an institution that must reconcile with its imagery.
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