The Colin Cowherd Cincinnati Rant

[Joseph]

Did anyone hear this guy a few days back lambasting the city of Cincinnati?

Here are a few of the snippets of the mans diatribe

• "What is it with Cincinnati? ... For how small a city it is, is it me or does Cincinnati have a disproportionate number of bottom-feeders and low-level gutterballs?"

• "Jerry Springer, Pete Rose, the Bengals, Bob Huggins, wild chick on an airplane, Larry Flynt ... They're not serial killers, they just have no class."

• "I mean, I live in a city that's essentially the same size, Hartford. We don't have half the problems, half the weirdos."

• "I mean, it's just boring. People get in trouble. It's just boring."

[Thanks to Cincy Jungle.com for the transcript to those comments]

I heard the [I think] entire rant on I think Friday on Willie's show on 700, and the man just went on and on and on about how terrible the city of Cincinnati and essentially the entire region is [so think about that you N. Kentuckians and Daytoners before you are too quick to agree with his assessment].

I know he's the equivalent of Howard Stern for sports, but I can't believe ESPN thinks this guy has merit as a sports host. I've never been one to send a letter to the editor, but I am in serious debate about emailing the powers that be at ESPN radio and asking them to do...what I don't know.

He thinks Cincinnati has no class? Has he looked in the mirror lately?

[westofyou]

"I mean, I live in a city that's essentially the same size, Hartford. We don't have half the problems, half the weirdos."

Now Hartford is a scary city, scary cops, scary, creepy stuff there.

[guttle11]

I can't believe people actually take stuff like this seriously. I thought it was hilarious.

[Redsland]

They're not serial killers, they just have no class.

Manson is from Loveland and went to Walnut Hills.

[westofyou]

Manson is from Loveland and went to Walnut Hills.

Miller Huggins went to Walnut Hills... Chili too Briefly (IRRC)

[Joseph]

Manson is from Loveland and went to Walnut Hills.

He didn't say there were no serial killers from there, just that Rose and Huggins etal were not serial killers.

For the record, I live some 3+ hours away, so I'm not a resident, I was just offended [for lack of a more proper term].

[macro]

I may be wrong, and often am, but I don't think Cowherd means to be taken seriously. I've always kinda considered his show a sort of stand-up comedy act, where he cuts on people and regions but is doing it, more or less, as good-natured ribbing. He cuts on something or somebody every day. It's kinda like Mike and Mike cut on one another daily, but do it as best friends. In this case, the recipients of Cowherds cuts are whomever or whatever he happens to be talking about that particular day.

That being said, it doesn't mean that people have to like it or be happy about it.

[Heath]

Who is Colin Coward?

[cincy jacket]

On a somewhere related note, did anyone hear his "Blow up random website" topic a few days ago. The jist of the whole thing was to send tons of people to one website that annoyed him each day and basically blow it up by using up all their bandwith ( or however that works I'm no expert on all that.)

He sent all his listners to thebiglead.com and it ended up being shut down all weekend. I don't know all the laws about this but could that be considered a crime? He purposefully tried to ruin some guys livelihood or at least bring him financial harm. It could be argued that he was just giving him free advertising but everyone knows that was not his real attempt. In retaliation though a related website has posted where he lives and his wifes cell phone number and the new ESPN obudsman blasted him in her column this morning.

[WMR]

Intent is everything in situations like that and, wow, I took CyberLaw last semester and just off-hand I would say if you could show that the traffic for that site was 100% out of proportion to what they normally experience and these troubles were caused by overloaded servers which has never happened before, you would have a decent case for damages if they could be proven.

He might be surprised, but an enterprising DA or Federal Prosecutor could probably use one of these new-fangled cyberlaw statutes to charge him under that as well.

Now if he says, "Go to that website and tell them how dumb they are" etc. etc., then he has a better argument to cover his butt. What someone would have to show is that he intended to hurt their website/business and instructed his listeners to go to that site for that very reason.

[cincy jacket]

Intent is everything in situations like that and, wow, I took CyberLaw last semester and just off-hand I would say if you could show that the traffic for that site was 100% out of proportion to what they normally experience and these troubles were caused by overloaded servers which has never happened before, you would have a decent case for damages if they could be proven.

He might be surprised, but an enterprising DA or Federal Prosecutor could probably use one of these new-fangled cyberlaw statutes to charge him under that as well.

Now if he says, "Go to that website and tell them how dumb they are" etc. etc., then he has a better argument to cover his butt. What someone would have to show is that he intended to hurt their website/business and instructed his listeners to go to that site for that very reason.

When he told people to go there he said go there and see if we can blow it up. He played explosion soundtracks in the back and bragged after that it only took 90 seconds to do it. He said he was planning to blow up random websites every day on his show from now on. Which I highly doubt will happen now.

So I guess if there is another Mike Nifong out there who wants to get his picture on tv we could see charges filed.

[WMR]

Yep, very easily, CJ. Haha, why do I see Cowherd getting a call from ESPN's legal department?

What a dumb idea and yeah from what you say it sounds like his intentions are pretty much self-evident.

[Chip R]

It appears this has already got the attention of their new Ombudsman

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/colum...nne&id=2830113

Cowherd's 'attack' on blog: 'Zero tolerance'
By Le Anne Schreiber
ESPN Ombudsman


Shortly after introducing myself to ESPN's audience in my first column Thursday, I checked the ombudsman's mailbag. It was jammed with dozens of messages of outraged complaint against ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd, who had called on his listeners that afternoon to shut down an Internet site by flooding it with visitors beyond the capacity of its bandwidth.

The "random site" he chose to attack was thebiglead.com, a sports blog that is sometimes unmercifully critical of ESPN. "We shut it down in 90 seconds," Cowherd boasted on air. "We don't even know thebiglead." After a bit more gloating, he said "We apologize -- but just don't screw with us." Then he asked his listeners to "knock it out again, just for fun." The attack launched over the airwaves by Cowherd kept thebiglead.com shut down for more than 48 hours.

Some of the politer terms my correspondents used to describe Cowherd's behavior were immature, irresponsible, arrogant, malicious, destructive and dumb. I agree.

The official response from ESPN's communication department was: "Our airwaves should not be used for this purpose. We apologize." It is the kind of bland public statement that does little to assuage the anger and distrust of ESPN's audience over an episode like this. I could not tell from that statement how seriously ESPN regarded the offense, so I contacted Traug Keller, senior vice president, ESPN Radio, to get a clearer idea of ESPN's reaction.

Keller responded immediately to my request for an on-the-record statement. "We talked to Colin Cowherd, and we talked to all our radio talent, making it clear that you cannot do this," Keller said Friday. "Our airwaves are a trust, and not to be used to hurt anyone's business. Such attacks are off limits. Zero tolerance. I can't say it any stronger."

Keller said that he had not formulated a policy about such attacks on Internet sites until now because he had never imagined the possibility of them.

I appreciated Keller's quick, forthright response.

Now that ESPN Radio has such a policy, I presume such attacks will be treated as an offense that warrants suspension. In determining penalties for his airwave players, perhaps Keller should exchange notes with NBA commissioner David Stern and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

This is not the planned second posting I mentioned at the end of Thursday's introductory column. That will come later this week.

[pedro]

Manson is from Loveland and went to Walnut Hills.

Born in Madison Place IIRC.

[pedro]

Cincinnati is a lot nicer than Hartford from what I can remember.