As The Mel Tucker Turns: Lansing Reporter Audrey Dahlgren fired by WLNS for appearance of being Team Tucker
For those of us eating up the Mel Tucker soap opera, this is an interesting turn.
Audrey Dahlgren--who I only just learned of when she broke the story about the SD4L fiasco--was fired by WLNS because she tweeted out that Brenda Tracy lied, based on what Tucker's lawyers released last week.
I can't link the DetNews article because I don't pay for their website. But OutKick lays out the story in chronological order, including Dahlgren's twitter fight with USA Today's Kenny Jacoby:
October 11th, 2023 at 12:05 PM ^
He admitted to jerking off while on the phone with her.
What is in dispute is whether it was consensual or not.
October 11th, 2023 at 1:48 PM ^
Hmmm,
A coach has a relationship with a vendor which is against University policy.
The fallout from this relationship causes embarrassment to the University.
Coach is fired.
Seems pretty clear.
October 11th, 2023 at 12:26 AM ^
to Blue@LSU:
Agreed, absolutely. I am not going to attempt to understand what really happened here other than Tucker's honest admissions (let the joke alone for now, please).
I will reserve judgment until the whole story gets told. It's much too soon to take sides.
October 11th, 2023 at 12:29 AM ^
All three of these things can be true
1) Mel Tucker can be fired based on the terms of his contract
2) The reporter can be fired for her tweet
3) Tracy could be a liar and guilty of extortion if the evidence as reported turns out to be true.
October 10th, 2023 at 10:47 PM ^
When you're a local college reporter you get much more access to coaches than most places and then those coaches in turn expect positive reporting. Its easy for a reporter to not maintain independence when relationships turn into something more than just reporter/coach and drift into friendships.
Dahlgren should have known better and simply lost her professionalism
Through 40 years of watching the Sparty coverage on the two local stations its very difficult for them to say anything critical of anyone at that school. Most often they report the "bad stuff" as stories written by reporters from outside of Lansing news sources. Its sort of pathetic really. Both local stations completely ignored the basketball rape allegations, played softball with Dantonio and the 40 man assault on MSU hockey. It was not local media that broke the Nasser stuff, or a local news source that broke this Tuck stuff and it won't be a local station that breaks the next thing. There will always be a next thing at that place.
October 10th, 2023 at 11:58 PM ^
The real GREEN wall.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
It really goes beyond that to, starting in the mid 00's MSU made a huge play to get football on WJR, the king of Michigan radio. Greatly increasing their audience. The Free Press hired an MSU grad for the Editor and negative coverage of Michigan skyrocketed while MSU got softball coverage. Its actually been disgusting.
October 10th, 2023 at 11:20 PM ^
MSU has a puny empire, held together by Mork and his 7-1 run against the two worst UM FB coaches in history. Other than that, he's 2-4 vs. real guys. This is like Romania under Ceausescu at the end of his reign in 1989 when he should have pled mercy and instead tried to muscle his way out and got shot and killed. MSU needs to formally and forcibly retire Mork, tell him he's peronsa non grata and bring in a winner (Not Narduzzi).
October 11th, 2023 at 1:24 AM ^
From the beginning I figured this was basically a story of two people with different motivations entering into a relationship that was (by their own admission) more than business and when they couldn't extract what they wanted out of it, they tried to fuck eachother over. They couldn't just move on with their damn lives. I feel like anyone that's not naive as shit can read in between the lines and see that now. They both have issues. Maybe Tucker is more to blame. Maybe it's 60/40 or who knows, but it doesn't matter. Both of their careers are probably fucked now. Some will support her until the end no matter the facts. Some will support him. Both will shame the other side. It's all so predictable and boring to me now. Let's kick off the next divisive topic we can all pretend to be experts about. I'm ready.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:26 AM ^
Let's kick off the next divisive topic we can all pretend to be experts about. I'm ready.
gravy?
countertops?
October 11th, 2023 at 6:15 AM ^
Ooh, gravy!
I have a theory that good biscuits ‘n’ gravy are the gateway drug to an excellent breakfast.
It’s a satisfying hypothesis to test.
October 11th, 2023 at 6:38 AM ^
Gateway drug to an excellent nap is more like it.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:39 PM ^
Since this is a debate, I'll take the counterpoint.
Biscuits 'n' Gravy is disgusting.
Your turn! lol
October 11th, 2023 at 8:35 AM ^
The gravy thread does not get nearly the recognition it deserves....
I don't know that there has ever been an topic farther OT....
Gravy.... .MMMMMMM!!!!!
October 11th, 2023 at 12:03 PM ^
...but never on a pasty.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:10 PM ^
correct, ketchup only!
October 11th, 2023 at 8:40 AM ^
Both people had made bad decisions. It seems that Tracy absolutely played up the 'there is more than a professional opportunity' for Tucker in hopes to further her business. He could not resist the pull of what he thought was 'a damaged woman who just needed a good man' That might have been part of Tracy's pitch, but he leapt into the fire with enthusiasm. There are no heroes here. Tucker humiliated MSU and Tracy is shown to be someone I would not want to ever be associated with.
They got into a shit throwing contest and are now covered with shit. That being said, I am still intrigued by how the misogynist vs racist 'themes' are going to surface when likely neither has any relevance in this matter.
October 11th, 2023 at 7:51 AM ^
Can we add Outkick to the banned links list? Fuck Clay Travis and anyone that looks like Clay Travis.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
Keep banning things we don't like or agree with? How weak are you? I think Barstool is trash but I wouldn't dream of banning them. Outkick is similar in ways, but who cares. Grow up. It's a stain on this site that publications like Barstool are banned already. Due to weak people like you, apparently. You said "fuck Clay Travis and anyone that looks like Clay Travis". Yeah, you're not part of the problem right?
October 11th, 2023 at 12:37 PM ^
Outlets that are operate in deliberate bad faith don't deserve to be included in the public discourse.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:47 AM ^
And the horse he rode in on.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:52 AM ^
Gonna be a hard pass on anything from the outkick from me.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:44 AM ^
I apologize to you and others for the OutKick link. I must admit, I am not familiar with their oeuvre.
As I noted in the OP, DetNews blocked me with a paywall, but their headline essentially matched the OutKick story, which did not appear to have anything outlandish and embedded many relevant tweets.
They did take Dahlgren's side, but not in an absurd manner, in my opinion.
They also had a ten minute video on the page that I went back to watch and had to turn off before I got halfway through. Yikes.
I will do better to avoid posting OutKick in the future.
October 11th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
Tuck around and find out...
October 11th, 2023 at 11:43 AM ^
Boys, Bros, Bretheren. Lets not argue. Lets imagine best case scenario. Tucker wins, gets paid some compensation moneys AND demands to get his jerb back. MSU loses face and cash and we keep winning games for another decade.
October 11th, 2023 at 12:03 PM ^
There is always 'more to the story'
October 11th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
you'd have to be pretty delusional to think there was any chance Tucker was walking away from this with his employment still intact, and risking your job would help him do that.
she was a nobody reporter outside of a nothing media market. Good luck finding a job after blowing up your career.
October 11th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
Make it go away....
October 11th, 2023 at 5:00 PM ^
Years ago, before I retired, I remember a colleague telling me about a built-in corporate-based E-mail sending "delay" you could set up IF you were worried that you snapped at someone in the Email and didn't want it to go - just in case you had 2nd thoughts. I believe his was anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes. He told me he deleted or changed many emails over the years before things actually went out. It's almost like if you are going to use FB or "X" or whatever, then you'd hope for this type of functionality.
I agree she should have just stuck with "Tucker alleged Tracy lied" and then presented the "facts" according to Mel. And then ended with something like "expect more revelations to come forth as both sides fight and MSU moves to squash the lawsuit" maybe even a "grab some popcorn" (well maybe not that!)
I think they are both losers in how they handled this situation - even if Mel crossed a line (I do believe she's a victim, but reminds me of the woman with Trevor Bauer). If she's really down to $5, then her foundation ran out of venues - it's not something people bring back over and over. Better to bring in another person sharing another situation, but getting the same message across.
Glad Mel's gone. Tracy deserves some kind of settlement from MSU and Mel. Mel, per my MSU grad friends, will probably be back in 2025 as part of Saban's reclamation project. Nick gave him his 1st real CFB coaching spot while at MSU.
So glad we can talk about a 24 game regular season win streak and not be buried in this like MSU fans!
October 12th, 2023 at 5:12 PM ^
I feel badly for the MSU student athletes. It doesn’t appear as though they deserve to be in the middle of any of this. If MSU would have acted immediately and not tried to sweep this under the rug, the student athletes could have hit the portal and not have had to burn a year of eligibility being caught up in this. MSU looks awful and the student athletes are the biggest losers . . . again. MSU’s Administration should be ashamed. This is yet another example of the supposed adults behaving like adolescents at the expense of the student athletes.