Six years ago, before hoopgurlz was ESPNhoopgurlz, owner Glenn Nelson pissed me off when he censored me. I posted on the hoopgurlz message board something about a Seattle-area club team, and Glenn disagreed with me. I maintained my stance and his next step was to remove my posts. I private-messaged him asking him why, and he gave me some excuse about preserving the integrity of the board and how it was wrong to say what I said. Yet, I had said nothing defamatory or libelous; it was just my opinion, and that’s the whole point of message boards. So I quit reading hoopgurlz because it was clear he didn’t want anyone disagreeing with him, and I don’t deal with people like that.
Sometime before last year, when I again began checking their boards occasionally, they got bought out by ESPN. But it looks like they’re still up to the same old, same old.
About an hour ago, someone I know posted the fullcourt.com story about Griner not being at the All-American game on the hoopgurlz.com message board. Ten minutes later, the post disappeared. The poster started another thread asking why the Griner thread was taken down. So far, no response.
I’m sure Glenn Nelson is upset that his site wasn’t the first to break the story. But taking down the information off his site as if the story hadn’t been written is cowardly, to say the least. How can anyone call themselves a journalist when they don’t abide by the most basic tenants of journalism: freedom of the press and freedom of speech. It also makes me wonder what else they edit, in or out. If they want the information on hoopgurlz that tightly-controlled, can they be trusted?
No.
I’m going to go back to boycotting that board.