It may not be immediately evident with how widespread the news was of course picked up once it broke, but Spartans Illustrated was the one responsible for breaking and the first to report on the Mel Tucker news today. As the Forum members appreciate @DavidHarns explaining how the news of the sexual harassment allegations coverage came about, I'm going to do the same with how we broke the Tucker story before anyone else.
It came to the attention of an SI source earlier today that Haller met with the football team to disclose to them that MSU was serving notice to Tucker that the school would be terminating his employment for breach of his contract. We immediately worked to confirm this news and began work on the background information about Tucker for the article in the meantime.
During the course of writing that, Michigan State refused to confirm the team meeting, but did confirm the news regarding Tucker's notice. SI worked to obtain a copy of the letter and was successful in doing so. We received it before any other outlet (3:30 p.m. ET) and published the story at 3:38 p.m. Within minutes, it was up on social media platforms as well ahead of other media personnel sharing the news. Note the SI tweet timestamp of 3:40 p.m.
After publishing the initial breaking news with the key excerpts from his notice of intent letter, I worked diligently to include the full details worth noting that were conveyed to Tucker in MSU's letter. Once completed, we updated the article to reflect those as well. Namely it involved the extended details made clear by Michigan State on what specific actions represented his breach of the agreement. The main bullet points of course were these three things, all of which Tucker himself confessed to having done while still married:
For me, the importance was getting the details right on what step MSU is on. Many outlets in their haste wrote that Tucker has been fired by MSU, and that isn't really true at this point. Continuing with following the proper legal procedures, MSU only served notice of intent to terminate the employment agreement as required in Tucker's contract. Some outlets also falsely attributed who was the first to break the story, but the timestamps are hard to dispute in that regard as well. This was an SI team effort to be there first and we achieved exactly that.
We hope you all appreciated the coverage today, and really over the past week or so. Thank you all for your continued patronage of our coverage and we look forward to continuing with the hard work as Michigan State football continues its season and the coaching search gets into full gear.
It came to the attention of an SI source earlier today that Haller met with the football team to disclose to them that MSU was serving notice to Tucker that the school would be terminating his employment for breach of his contract. We immediately worked to confirm this news and began work on the background information about Tucker for the article in the meantime.
During the course of writing that, Michigan State refused to confirm the team meeting, but did confirm the news regarding Tucker's notice. SI worked to obtain a copy of the letter and was successful in doing so. We received it before any other outlet (3:30 p.m. ET) and published the story at 3:38 p.m. Within minutes, it was up on social media platforms as well ahead of other media personnel sharing the news. Note the SI tweet timestamp of 3:40 p.m.
After publishing the initial breaking news with the key excerpts from his notice of intent letter, I worked diligently to include the full details worth noting that were conveyed to Tucker in MSU's letter. Once completed, we updated the article to reflect those as well. Namely it involved the extended details made clear by Michigan State on what specific actions represented his breach of the agreement. The main bullet points of course were these three things, all of which Tucker himself confessed to having done while still married:
- Commenting on Brenda Tracey's physical appearance, including her "ass"
- Making frequent flirtatious remarks during conversations that "happened often"
- And of course masturbating and making sexually explicit comments about himself and Brenda Tracey while on the phone with her in an action he identified as "phone sex" during a "late-night intimate conversation"
For me, the importance was getting the details right on what step MSU is on. Many outlets in their haste wrote that Tucker has been fired by MSU, and that isn't really true at this point. Continuing with following the proper legal procedures, MSU only served notice of intent to terminate the employment agreement as required in Tucker's contract. Some outlets also falsely attributed who was the first to break the story, but the timestamps are hard to dispute in that regard as well. This was an SI team effort to be there first and we achieved exactly that.
We hope you all appreciated the coverage today, and really over the past week or so. Thank you all for your continued patronage of our coverage and we look forward to continuing with the hard work as Michigan State football continues its season and the coaching search gets into full gear.
