...next caller.

Sorry, Moland. Breaking this story by 10 minutes on the web is no big deal.
Nobody outside of the business cares who "broke" a story, especially of a trade that everyone knew was going to happen at any minute.
The breaking a story concept gets waaaaaaaaay to much play arouond here. We care, and we should because it's our job, but our readers for the most part have no idea who actually broke a story.

 

MAN
BREAKS
PENIS

This was an actual headline on the cover of a daily tab I worked at in Kingston, Jamaica. Talk about breaking news ...

 

A huge AMEN rains down from the chorus.

 

I never said the readers care... What I said was, any reporter that doesn't care about getting beat on the biggest NBA story of the year is in the wrong business.
Am I wrong? Isn't breaking news our job?

 

But when you get "beat" by 10 minutes on a Web site, you're not really getting beat.

The fact of the matter is: "breaking" news, as regarding the common practice, is overrated. Being the first person to say where Allen Iverson got traded ... does not matter. No one cares who has it first. No one cares who "broke" that story. No one remembers because no one cares.

Now ... digging for a story like the S.F. Chron reporters did, getting information that no one else has, and writing about it ... that's when people care who did the work. But so few people engage in that type of reporting, that nobody's making a fuss over it.

Your point is well-taken, Moland. But there's not a way in the world that anyone can "beat" or "get beat" on this Iverson story -- or any "big" story, like a T.O. story, that gets so much hype beforehand and so much chatter afterward -- once it's out there, it's out there for everyone. And it doesn't matter who had it first, last, or anywhere in between.

 

Sorry, Buck, but I care. It's part of what we do on the web. And by the way, it makes it more fun.

Is it going to change the world in the grand scheme of things? Absolutely not.

But when you get that "as first reported by xxxxxx" in a web story, it's great stuff.

 

I agree with buck.

We get caught up in the "inside baseball" stuff that doesn't mean a thing to the readers.

Balco is a big deal. Being first by 10 minutes -- or hell, make it a full hour -- on Iverson? Not so much.

 

I understand all this. I get that readers don't care who beats who by 10 minutes, especially because so much of it is who posts it faster now. But still... There is something fulfilling about walking into a press box, looking at a competitor, and knowing he learned the news when he read it on your Web site. For me, that's what keeps me going at the news. Readers may not care. But I still do.

 

right on buck. we agree on this.

 

It depends on the story, though.

If you're David Aldridge and you feel satisfied because your Iverson story hit the Web 10 minutes before ESPN got ahold of it ... well, you've lost focus of the big picture.

If you're Karen Crouse, and you just polished off the final writethru of your Laveranues Coles story ... now that's something to be fulfilled about.

It doesn't matter who breaks the first story -- and you shouldn't feel fulfilled if you're the one breaking it. The thing about news is, it's new every day. Then it gets old, and then what do you have?