Media Bowl Gifts

And to (sort of) answer the original question, one of the most useful gifts I ever got was not from a bowl game, but from the old Food Lion (or maybe it was Hardee's then) All-Star Whateverthefuck basketball mini-tournament in Charlotte. This was back in the days of dial-up, and it was a little double-ended retractable phone cord thing to go from your computer to a phone jack in the wall.

 

Next time you come out, camp out overnight -- sleep on the sidewalk -- before the Rose Parade. You'll need the blanket, and you'll get the true Tournament of Roses experience!

 

If you're just doing this so you can get free stuff, you're wrong. But as long as you're doing your job and not letting it affect your work negatively (as was said, playing a round at Augusta or riding in a NASCAR vehicle can give you a good story and positively affects your work), there is nothing wrong with taking the free stuff.

If you absolutely cannot allow yourself to use it, then try this: Instead of refusing and telling everyone how great you are for doing it, why not take it and give it to a friend, family member or co-worker you appreciate? That way, you have a clean conscience and have done something nice for someone.

I have to question the wisdom of the liquor cabinet in the media workroom, though. Having never had alcohol, I could be wrong, but wouldn't that kind of defeat the point by having it where people are working? Wouldn't that work better in the hospitality suite at the media hotel for AFTER the work has been done?

 

I do the job for the cheesy swag.

 

I've often thought that if the media industry was so serious about its employees not taking free stuff, it should pay them better and make it a non-issue. If it's unethical to take it, it's equally unethical for degreed employees to be paid so poorly they have to grovel for free food, or to think that just because you pay them, you own them, like the paper a couple years back that ordered its reporters not to buy tickets to a concert doubling as a political campaign fund-raiser.

On another, those who say all the media's getting the same stuff are missing the point. The point is that in giving the free stuff, the bowls are trying to curry favor with all the media. And it works, else they'd stop doing it. Maybe the one guy on here wouldn't think twice about writing about all the empty seats or the protesters outside, but I seriously doubt that's universal.

Oh, and the Masters badges? There is no event anywhere for which the media sucks up more than at Augusta National.

 

Newspapers are a business run by whores which tells its employees they must adhere to the ethics of the clergy, because of the spiritual importance of the work. Great deal for the whores.

 

A friend of mine has often said sportwriting is awash in its own bull$hit. The self-righteousness dripping from this post pretty well backs that up.

 

I'm certainly glad you're not my co-worker. Geez. Get over yourself.

 

It's only the Toy Department!

 

I think most sportswriters are much more conflicted writing a negative story about someone who has been a good source than they are likely to write a more positive story about a bowl because there's a media hospitality room and they got a beach towel.

 

I would guess that feeling is not unique to sportswriters.