How do we feel about the Chron guys now?

SCOOPS!

 

This is a joke, right? You can't be serious.

 

Creamora, this is the most thought-provoking series of posts I've ever read on SportsJournalists.com. It's becoming more and more obvious that the Chronicle/GOS reporting had two primary sources -- the reporters' hero, Novitzky, and Ellerman, and they relied on them for what is turning out to be a very questionable narrative. Novitzky had a clear agenda from Day 1 (see Playboy story) and Ellerman was either duping them or they had suspended their skepticism for reasons of expedience (selling a book, bringing down famous people, maybe winning an esteemed prize from Scripps Howard?). This will bother a lot of people on the board but you've laid it out very well. I'd note that the information you've provided fits nicely with LW's comments a couple days ago in which he assigns altruistic motives to the Chronicle/GOS sources.

The information you laid out makes Novitzky look worse than ever, too. He should have gotten a byline on the book, which I will now consider fiction.

 

I've heard Creamora before. Not him specifically, but him by type. He's the prototypical jailhouse interview. Every convict I've ever spoken to has declared his innocence. Our jails, y'know, are full of innocent people. In their time in jail, they've studied their cases down to the last detail. They see all the discrepancies. They see the flaws in the police behavior. They will argue endlessly that they have been railroaded without cause. If only the world outside understood the events the way they truly happened, they'd be out of jail in a minute. Justice would be served. The police would go to jail!!

The only difference in Creamora's argument is that he makes both the police and the Chronicle the bad guys creating miscarriages of justice.

For a long time, I was susceptible to these jailhouse con artists. A friend once heard a mutual friend ask, "So who's Kindred springing from jail now?" No longer. I've come to realize that the great majority of convicts are convicts because they've earned it and well deserve it.

Creamora's arguments -- legalistic, hair-splitting, rich with half-truths, distortions, and sophistry of the most cynical kind -- are the jailhouse bullshit of a con who believes he is too smart to be in the Graybar Hilton.

For some reason, Creamora can't accept the truth that the Chronicle did good work.

 

"We would have never had to resort to this if the Federal Government had laid their cards face up on the table, but they did go to great lengths to protect the wealthy athletes names who were caught up in this thing, their names were drawn up in the court files and redacted, but the truth does want to be free and people on all sides of the case wanted to help us because they thought it was wrong to cover for the sports star."

In other words, the federal government redacts the names of people it had not yet, and might never, charge -- perhaps in order to preserve their credibility as witnesses, perhaps to prevent them from being tried in that kangaroo-est of kangaroo courts, The Court Of Public Opinion. (Judge Dem A. Gogue presiding.) Of course, to Williams, hero of the First Amendment, this is a class-based thing. Rich and famous people getting away with something. So, luckily for him, here come Nowitzky, the obsessive, and Ellerman, the sleazy lawyer. So he talks to Captain Ahab and Shyster J. Flywheel. In addition to being laden with unproven assumptions as to the government's motives, that quote is the most self-important bit of preening ever posted on this board.
"The truth wants to be free"?
Thanks, Oprah.

 

You're basing this on the parenthetical comments made by creamora? Have you verified their accuracy or explored his agenda, or are you accepting his comments on face value?

 

Why attack someone who made very credible observations instead of reacting to the observations? Why not try to refute the substance and validity of the posts?

In effect, you're saying so what if they ran with Novtizky's view of the world because Novitzky is law enforcement and therefore on the side of goodness versus evil? How about because it isn't good journalism?

Much of GOS reads like Novitzky's authorized biography, interesting in that it shed some light on his obsessed perspective but falling far short of a definitive account of the Balco proceedings. They wrote a nice good vs. bad guys story from law enforcement's perspective.

 

21, Creamora's observations are similar to the thoughts that were going through my mind as I read the book last March. Obviously, Creamora went to a lot of trouble (that, frankly, I wouldn't have undertaken because it's just not that important to me) to go back and find some solid examples of the book's flaws.

Now, there's obviously a school of thought on the board that says, so what, the good guys are prevailing and the bad guys are getting exposed. Maybe justice is served. However, I've become increasingly convinced that journalism was not very well served.

 

after 20 pages of debate I doubt anyone is going to change their opinion on whether the reporters/ Chronicle were right to publish the sealed testimony.

I have a question that might take debate another direction.

By publishing the sealed GJ testimony how was the greater good of general public/ Chronicle readership served?

 

And if we're going down that road, others in this thread sound like the mothers of convicts.

"My Lancey and Marky would never do anything wrong! They're upstanding boys! I refuse to hear anything else to the contrary!"

Again, thinking they did good, even great, work does not mean one cannot question just how that work was done.

 

No question a lot of readers were interested in hearing what Bonds, Giambi and the rest had to say behind closed doors. But if you mean "greater good" as in public service (for the children! or cleaning up the game!) the GJ leaks weren't crucial to any of that. No doubt the public wanted to know, but the public also wants to see whether Britney Spears is wearing underpants.

I found it kind of disingenuous that the Chronicle used the entirety of not just what they reported but everything that's happened in the years since Ken Caminiti came clean to justify the importance of the leaks. As if the "greater good" that may have come from this was dependent on the leaks. It wasn't.

I also laughed at how many times they referred to George Bush patting them on the head and telling them they were doing a good job.

But I guess when you're trying to fend off jail time you do whatever you have to do. I know I would.