“ I’VE BEEN WRITING
ABOUT LOUISVILLE
CITY FC SINCE
BEFORE LOUISVILLE
CITY FC WAS
A THING.”
–Jonathan Lintner,
Louisville City FC
Media Director
be called Louisville FC. … Those sorts of things
are pretty cool now,” Lintner said.
Lintner studied journalism at Western
Kentucky, joining a paper in Evansville upon
his graduation.
“(I) worked for about a year at the newspaper
in Evansville and wanted to come home (to
Louisville), so I got a job at The Courier Journal,”
he said.
Lintner worked at the newspaper for three
years where he gained a host of experience. “It
culminated into (me) being the lead person on the
Kentucky Derby for the 2016 Derby,” Lintner said.
“Somewhere along there … I saw this thing on
the internet about the Louisville Coopers and this
ownership group from this team called Orlando
FC that I had never heard of was coming here
and they were basically trying to give Louisville a
franchise, which seemed pretty wacky at the time.”
In retrospect, professional soccer in Louisville
was, at first, a wacky idea. Luckily, the wacky
nature of the team has passed, garnering a large
fan base and following. But with a following
comes a desire to interact with and know more
about the team you are rooting for.
As Kevin Costner (sort of ) puts it in Field of
Dreams: “If you build it, they will want to message
you on Twitter about things.”
That’s where Lintner enters the pitch.
“You know they call PR ‘The Dark Side of
Journalism’ … but really I’m promoting the team,”
Lintner said. “I feel like we have a cool thing
here that people are into, so that makes the job
easier. People ask what I do, and I never really
get anywhere until I tell them ‘I run the Twitter
account,’ ” he laughed.
Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the myriad
of social media that’s evolved as a means of
communication is important in the modern
world, but it is not all about the “likes,” as the kids
say. Despite Lintner’s trademark “crack a joke
and winky-face emoji” tactic for when he is not
able to reveal a specific update, oftentimes the
job is a much more demanding in an age where
information is flying faster than 700 speeding
bullets.
“The nightmare is something getting out that
isn’t true, because people kind of go with their
first impression and that’s what sticks with them,”
Lintner said.
One example is the debunked rumors of
potentially building the new stadium, now
officially announced for Butchertown, in New
Albany.
“There are just so many things that go around
social media that ar en’t true,” Lintner said.
“People always say with PR that you’re spinning
something, but given my background, our releases
look more like news stories. … You have to give
the facts of the situation and let people make of
it what they want. I’d rather them come up with
their own opinions and own stances than us try
and force feed them something.”
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