So if Torre stays...(a journalism question)

I think it hurts the media's cred badly, as it is yet another incident in the chain during the last few years where nearly every major story has been botched in some fashion.

There should have been a confirmation or denial within 48 hours of the original story.

 

Spnited,
How the hell do you know what the mentality is at the News and the Post? Do you work for one of them? Have you ever? This may be your perception, but there are plenty of writers at both papers that value journalism and don't just "throw shit against the wall."

 

That's the crux right there. The blaring headlines said TORRE WILL BE FIRED. Then in the story it said "Torre will be fired unless Steinbrenner cools off, calms down, changes his mind or is talked out of it."

Thus, it makes for good tabloidnalism. Not good journalism

 

to defend spnited,

he knows many folks who work at the tabs. i used to be one of them. the reporters at the tabs are serious journalists. the editors? uh, not so much. sure, they'd rather be right than wrong. but while the original news story had the proper hedges in place, the screaming headlines in CAPS did not.

i know bill madden, and know through my friends at the news that he is understandably chagrined at the definitive screaming headline treatment, which did not accurately portray the hedges in the story. no room to hedge in those one-word headlines. those tabloid editors hate using a ?

they'd much prefer OUT! to OUT? it's not their byline out there.

 

Piggy-backing on those who have pointed out that there was nothing inaccurate about the original story: nothing has come out since that in any way contradicts what Madden/Quinn wrote. If you read tonight's/tomorrow morning's headlines, Cashman and Swindall are both essentially on the record saying that Steinbrenner needed to be talked out of it. And if Steinbrenner is getting set to fire his manager, that is most definitely a story, and it's news, even if he does not end up doing it.

 

Actually, the original story isn't necessarily the problem here....it's the countless other media outlets who then report the report as fact, discuss it as fact, analyze it as fact. That was my earlier point about the TO story....it's not just the rush to be first, it's the rush to not be last that spins the story out of control.

 

I agree with those who consider the possibility that the story was accurate when written and that King George changed his mind.
Here's something else that came to mind: Perhaps the source is a friend of Torre who hoped -- accuratetly -- that leaking a story of impending doom would trigger contemptuous public reaction that would, in turn, compel Steinbrenner to keep Torre after all.
To jump all over these reporters without total knowledge of the facts is dangerous.

 

Dude:

Did you read 21's post?

I'll bet you I can find a dozen newspapers that ran with the original report as if it were fact.

 

Guaranteed, here's what fucking happened: Steinbrenner, after being embarrassed in the playoffs for the fifth consecutive year, gave a trusted writer a juicy morsel after Game four. The writer ran with the story, qualifying it every step of the goddamn way. The editors at the writer's paper, sensing a huge story, said Torre was a goner. The story became national news, with everyone offering an opinion.

Steinbrenner picked up on this and began testing the waters. Would he be slaughtered in the media if he fired Torre? The response was tepid. Some places said "You can't fire Joe!'' Others said, "Joe, it's time to go." The principal owner took note, and when the Yankees struggle next season, Torre's going to be canned, replaced by Steinbrenner's favorite son, Lou Pinella.

 

Excrement. Steinbrenner would have fired him if that's what he wanted to do.

 

Except for a year or two when a competing newspaper died, I've spent my whole career in competitive markets. At one paper our SE called in one of our beat writers, a real pro who is now a respected columnist, pointed to the competing paper's lead sports story and asked, "Why didn't we have this story?" Beat writer said, "Cause it's not true." And it turned out it wasn't. But for a day or two we all thought our guy got beat. As did the people on talk radio. You get the picture.

As a beat writer myself I lived in mortal fear that one of the see-if-it-sticks guys was going to get lucky and make me look out to lunch. It's hard not to get caught up in this mind-set and I'd be lying if I said I didn't to an extent.

I think Spaceman has it right, too. Remember in "All The President's Men" when Bradlee tells Woodward and Bernstein that he had a story about J. Edgar Hoover being replaced and then the announcement went the other way? Bradlee says something like, "It didn't happen, but I wasn't wrong."

 

I believe the line was: "I screwed up, but I wasn't wrong."

Many newspapers today are having trouble with the "I screwed up" part.