After the Mariners’ biggest gut-punch loss this season, a video of announcer Angie Mentink was posted to Twitter.
This happened Wednesday night, and the video showed Mentink entering a prompt on her phone: “good questions after a tough loss in baseball.”
The video was initially posted by someone in Tacoma with a small account. It was then RT’d by the main Barstool Sports account, which has 6.8 million subscribers. The caption: “The future of journalism.”
It was seen millions of times before being deleted.
I am thoroughly furious about this for a number of reasons:
Taking a video of someone who doesn’t know they’re being filmed is absolute loser shit.
While the video was posted after Wednesday’s ninth-inning meltdown, it was actually recorded earlier this season. This implies there was a plan behind the posting. I’m not a big fan of the word “weaponized,” but I’m not sure what other word fits.
I don’t see a problem with a media member looking at the questions suggested by ChatGPT or another similar LLM before an interview.
Even if you do think it’s bad practice, it’s worth noting Angie suffered a stroke on Feb. 21. Her recovery has been incredible, and you have to be an extremely aggressive asshole to judge the steps someone in this situation might take to have the confidence it takes to hold a conversation on live television.
I should note that I’m not exactly objective about all of this. I’ve known Angie for a long time. I worked at the UW Daily when she led the school’s softball team to prominence back in the 1990s.
Personally, I admire her spirit. Professionally, she’s become an extraordinarily versatile broadcaster, universally beloved by the people she works with. Neither of those traits is particularly common in that industry.
She handled the whole thing with self-deprecation and humor, which is exactly what anyone who knows her would expect:
I, on the other hand, am pissed.
At pretty much everything.
I’m pissed at how stupid people are online, how quickly they jump to conclusions. One zoomed-in still shot from the video, and suddenly, thousands of people are stating definitively that this reporter is relying on AI to do her job. There’s zero proof she used any part of the questions suggested let alone quoted them verbatim.
If you think Mentink is just another reporter who has no clue about the sport, you do not know the first thing about her history. She lettered in football in high school, playing linebacker and wing back. She was one of UW’s first softball stars. She played baseball. Professionally. She charged the mound once when a dude was pitching.
It sucks she was turned into a punchline Thursday.
I’m pissed at the way dogpiles escalate on platforms like Twitter. The way context is stripped from any situation, and because this person has already been singled out, everyone feels entitled to join in.
I’m pissed that a jackass named Jon Root connected the video of Angie to the story about Dianna Russini, concluding this was a “tough week for women in sports media.” He’s right. It has been, but that’s because of how women in this business get scrutinized.
Angie didn’t do anything wrong. Dianna did, in my opinion, but that doesn’t reflect on anyone other than her.
Mostly, I’m pissed that people have become so eager to point out the stupidity of others that they’ve lost the ability to think critically. About anything.
I own a book titled “How To Interview.” It’s full of notes. Is this proof that I’m relying upon reference materials because I’m too stupid to know how to ask questions?
How is that book different from asking a generative AI to suggest questions?
I am trying to use Anthropic’s Claude to store and analyze NFL statistics. Is that unethical? If so, how is it any different than consulting a Web site like ESPN.com or ProFootballReference for answers to my questions?
What about spell check? Grammarly? Are these proof that a reporter is too stupid to know how to do their job.
I understand that people have a lot of strong feelings about how generative AI could and should be used by media members. I do, too.
I also don’t think it’s wrong to use ChatGPT or other LLMs as a brainstorming tool. I can understand how someone might disagree with this. This could warrant a thoughtful discussion, but people would prefer to point and grunt, “That reporter stupid.”
That’s pretty much what happened Thursday when a person who has spent her life in and around Seattle sports was ridiculed online because she was trying to make sure she could do a high-stress job less than two months after suffering a stroke.
That sucks, and it has left me very pissed at one specific little pissant out there who’s switched his Twitter account to private.
