Well, the Washington Post article that Kim Mulkey preemptively described as a “hit piece” is here. It dropped on Saturday morning prior to LSU’s Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA.
Kent Babb profiled the Tigers’ head coach in a piece titled ‘The Kim Mulkey way.’
What was perhaps the most-anticipated article of the year was a bit of a snoozer. Although it did a good job of peeling back the curtain on Mulkey and how she became such a controversial — and remarkably successful — figure in sports, there was no new information. No new scandal. Nothing.
Essentially, all of the things that we already knew to be true about Mulkey were presented with slightly more context. Womp womp.
The rather underwhelming article raises questions about how much oversight was involved from a legal standpoint.
Kim Mulkey was not the target of a “hit piece.”
I am curious to know whether Mulkey’s legal team, which is cited multiple times throughout the article, took out all of the juicy stuff by threatening litigation. I want to know how much was crossed out, if any.
It seems hard to believe that Mulkey would go on such an unhinged rant about the media and rip journalists to shreds over what was published. If anything, I felt like the article actually humanized her behavior.
Sure, there were some bad moments, like how some of her former players view her treatment of the LGBTQ+ community. The way that Mulkey handled Brittney Griner’s imprisonment was not great.
However, we already knew that.
And for every negative opinion of Mulkey, there were players who pushed back. There was a tangible balance to the article that kept the author from piling on with a targeted agenda.
So why did Mulkey threaten to sue for defamation before it dropped? Why was she so angry? What did she think was going to be published?
We don’t know the answers to those questions. We probably never will.
But for Mulkey to stand on her soapbox with a lengthy prepared statement that attacked the author of the article and the Washington Post, and the media as a whole, over a profile that played in her favor (in my opinion) seems unnecessary. The rant made her look worse than the article.
What is being hidden?