Media Bowl Gifts

About 6-7 years ago, we had a high school kid who played in the all-star baseball game that AFLAC sponsors every summer. A week before the game, a box arrived on my desk that contained a packet of information about the game, a bag of Cracker Jack, a bag of peanuts and a bobble-head duck with the AFLAC logo on it.

I used the packet for a story, ate the Cracker Jack, gave away the peanuts and stuck the bobble-head on my desk as one of those things that you accumulate over the course of time. In all the years since, not one single person has mentioned that as some kind of conflict of interest or any other impropriety.

FWIW, a couple of years ago, we had another kid play in the game and I didn't get anything except an e-mail with the PR guy's contact info. Didn't make a difference.

 

All football fields are the same: 100 yards by 53 or so. All golf courses, and within that, all holes are different. Helps to experience the course by playing it at least once if possible.

 

If "You could get a column out of the experience" is a defense, I could get a lot of columns out of the experiences I could buy with the money I'd make from selling my front-page centerpiece to parents of the JV kids.

 

Pre-internet the only way to get stats was through the SID office or the PR office of a team.

They would send you, for free, a book with everything you wanted to know about the team. There was no bigger gift provided by a team, and I am guessing that very few reporters turned up their noses at this gift.

 

That's very true.

You can also cover events without talking to any players or coaches -- just using quote sheets or maybe just watching it on TV.

 

I just don't get why so many sports writers seem to be such bitter, self-loathing masochists who think if anyone's doing anything that brings them the slightest amount of pleasure there must be something wrong with it.

 

Actually my explanation is that most of the people bitching the most about it are deskers. Just my opinion.

 

Well, it's always a good idea to share the swag with them.

 

This desker was happy to take home an XL Evansville women's hoops t-shirt to his very pregnant wife last year.

 

I think this is a great discussion. I would, however, like to see it focused a little more on the crux of the issue: accepting actual gifts.
Any reasonable person can tell the difference between accepting help to do your job - official stats, press box/locker room access, free parking, etc. - and accepting a straight-up gift/swag, like, in my example, a blanket. And then I think there are things that would fall in a gray area.

 

How can you say that!!! We never bitch about anything!!!