Media member sells Kyle Rudolph's gloves on eBay

One of the most priceless artifacts in our office, to me, is the drawer full of old football tabs that goes back to the very first one we printed in 1976. They're the backbone of our area's sports history, and if those things are ever lost or damaged there's literally no way to replace them. Same with the four or five large filing cabinets of old photos and clips that are right next to them. I have no idea what exactly those cabinets contain, but when there is any story about anyone from the 1970s or 80s it's a good place to start researching.
I've been at my paper long enough that I feel like the guardian of that history. We're planning to move to a new office some time this year and I'm making damn sure those things come with us. Some moving guy is going to hate me, because they're full and probably weigh several hundred pounds apiece. And I'm not emptying them.

 

On the subject of old media guides, a few years ago I needed to track down someone who used to work in a certain non-front-facing department of an organization (as in, over a decade prior) for a story I was working on, so I went on eBay and bought that team's media guide from that year (I think I paid less than $10 for it) and used that as a jumping off point to find the name of this person and track them down. So they can be legitimately useful.

 

I think this is the proper way to go for media members wanting memorabilia for charities, go through the team PR or community relations folks.

 

When the weekly I got my start at back in the 80s was shut down, the parent company had the good sense to donate the paper's morgue to the local historical society. Every now and then I get a message from an athlete I once covered wondering if I had a clip from a particular game handy, it's a relief to tell them to contact the people at the historical society for that info.

 

Confession time. I did this long, LONG ago.

We had a bevy of media guides that were rather obscure. WNBA, NHL, NFL. Arena football. A bunch of college football and basketball guides. Most of them just mailed to us.

At some point during one of the summers, clearing out the sports office, I sold a bunch of the media guides once we didn't need them anymore on eBay. There was one Indiana Fever guide that I remember fetched $95 on eBay from a super fan. Probably made about $800 or so from the ones that sold.

Then I thought about it more and said "no more".

 

Absolutely right.

Now, should a journalist take some steps to ensure transparency/legitimacy with any charity or fundraiser? Of course. But having one and getting someone you cover to speak at the event or donate something of value isn't going to cause an ethical crisis.

Neither is selling old media guides on EBay.

What IS a major breach of ethics, however, is misrepresenting yourself to someone, lying to them in order to obtain something, and turning around and selling that item for profit. That should get this person who sold Rudolph's gloves fired and blackballed from the industry.

 

It’s strange the name hasn’t come out.

 

I think some of that is because this guy sold a lot of media guides and game programs. Maybe programs are more than media guides depending on the situation, such as last week's Patriots game which he sold one of those, but pretty much an interesting market and even the fact that there is a market.

But really the issue is him crossing the line and selling the bigger items, and apparently going a step further and lying to obtain them.