NYT reporter says she would boycott Masters until women allowed at Augusta

Would she actually "not be welcome"?

Are women routinely allowed to play the course as a guest of a member? Can the wife of a member play the course on her own? Honestly don't know, and would be curious to know the answer.

Obviously, it's different than actually offering a membership, but it's also different than "not welcome".

Where I grew up, all the clubs had all male membership. I believe they made exceptions for widows, if their husband was a member.

I believe Winged Foot has changed their membership policies somewhat, to ensure they can still be in the rotation for the US Open and the PGA, but I'm not sure about the others.

And, Winged Foot still isn't a paragon of diversity.

 

Women can play as guests.

 

This is somewhat true.

If you only read this site, you'd think Mike Lupica, Mitch Albom, Skip Bayless, Rick Reilly, Jay Marriotti, etc. were the worst, least accomplished writers ever.

Though, most of that would turn around if any of them came here and posted. Then people would be up their collective asses.

But, the truth is Karen Crouse's work on the Jets left a lot to be desired -- and Boom pointed it out at the time.

 

If Lupica, Albom, Bayless or Mariotti showed up and posted under their real names, I'd be happy to go rogue out myself and tell them I think they're miserable human beings who have stepped on others, abused the system and have turned into shills. Because I'd be in the right.

Reilly, meh. He's a benign shill who draws none of my bile.

 

Really? I'm pretty sure if Albom or Mariotti came here, the hostility would only grow. The others? I know I would still criticize them. You picked five examples of journalists whose integrity or output has been questioned throughout the industry. And while some members of this board are charitable toward Chris Jones, a likely symptom of his regular posting here, others (at least one member, in particular) are outright hostile.

And let's not pretend that Jones comes here and posts from time to time. He was, at one point, a very active member. All told, he probably has about 5,000 posts between his extant and deleted user names. He has apparently been to SportsJournalists.com outings. In addition, Jones hardly falls into the Lupica-Albom-Reilly-Bayless-Mariotti category. He's rather respected throughout the field. Dave Kindred has been ripped pretty well on here at least once, and he's an icon.

One last point: Every time a thread about favorite stories comes up, you can be sure a few of Reilly's features from the 1980s and 1990s will be mentioned. Lupica's older work gets nods of appreciation here, as well. And there remain a few Albom apologists, though I admittedly find almost all of his writing grating.

 

By what metric? It's completely subjective.

 

I am going to agree with Azrael here.

She did say "If it were left to me."

I disagree with her sentiment, but she didn't say she'd blow off a story.

 

How could we forget Karen's memorable redemption story on Ricky Manning where she mentioned the "unfortunate incident " at Denny's but failed to mention that Manning confronted the victim with "Are you a faggot?", "You f---ing Jew," and then called him "an ugly f---ing Jew" and a "faggot." The victim asked to be left alone and the football players beat him unconscious. Or her redemption story on Tank Johnson with many key elements left out to the point that the Times had to issue corrections.

 

Karen Crouse was deft enough on the Jets beat that Laveranues Coles opened up to her about his abuse as a child. It was a difficult story for any professional athlete to tell, but Crouse gained his trust and told it well. No one else had it, and I wager no one else ever would have.

She doesn't deserve the treatment she's getting here.

 

That was the problem. She treated the Jet beat like it was The Lifetime
Channel.

 

This is a quote from the end of that story, one I'm sure will cement some of the negative reaction here while it does the opposite for me.

“I love the [Masters] tournament for the reasons the players do -- the course is beautiful, the history is abundant,” Crouse said. “But I find it harder and harder to get past one thing that’s missing. [PGA Tour commissioner] Tim Finchem is not making a stand. High-ranking players with daughters are not willing to talk about it. Somebody has to make a stand. Why not me in my own little way?”

Reporters are not supposed to take a stand. They're supposed to observe and report. And be robots. The vast majority of the time that is a fair and true statement. But there are times when being a human being should trump that. I don't blame Karen Crouse for thinking this is one of them, considering she not only was reporting on a place with an archaic, sexist policy, but had been the victim of that type of behavior the previous day when she was apparently ignored for 20 full minutes.

She also works at one of the most revered newspapers in the country, potentially serving as a role model for countless females in an industry filled with challenges. I can see how she would struggle with this position and how she could feel she had an obligation to not just turn a blind eye.

This scenario is not all that different than if it had been a male African-American reporter speaking out against a club that denied access to people of color, and his editor responded that "he has been spoken to." The word choice there would have been poor, as I believe it was here.

With all due respect to the Times editor and the understandable desire to remain high above the fray ethically as a journalist, there are times your role as a human being should guide you more practically.

Crouse was not insubordinate in any way. She said if it were up to her, she would not cover the event, and how can anyone realistically blame her for that? It must be a sickening feeling to cover something that is lauded as this wonderful tradition when it is steeped in discrimination against your own gender. Despite that, she has continued to cover it and acknowledged that the power structure of the reporter-editor relationship doesn't allow her to make those calls.

And, heaven forbid, editors and reporters should disagree. Heaven forbid they should offer some candid opinions, the same type, as Paola mentioned earlier, we bemoan not receiving from athletes.

Good for Karen Crouse for taking a stand in a rare instance when her conscience probably pushed her to walk a fine line. She deserves more support than she's received from her editor, even if it was something as subtle as a slightly altered form of wording, as Paola said. The woman had the courage to speak out in an atmosphere that has already tried to intimidate or dismiss women and her boss' public response, at a time when every sexist out there will slam her with pot shots, is to say, "she has been spoken to"?

The response from her supposed peers on a journalism board is to simply slam her with a by-the-book interpretation while at the same time, as 21 said, the more frivolous practice of playing rounds at the club and participating in a story that way is deemed perfectly fine?

Disappointing. There are so many more awful ethical missteps in this field every single damn day and they seem to grow by the week. Reporters becoming more compromised or hearing something they don't report because they have to pick their battles or so many things that favor the people in power that we cover, because it's easier to do so.

A reporter making her life a little tougher by offering some brave words in the name of taking on something that should so clearly be seen as wrong is not what I think should earn this level of scorn. Some critiques, sure. But I have a lot more respect for Crouse making the comments given the whole environment than I do problems with the remarks.

 

I don't know whether Karen Crouse made her feelings on the Masters known to Joe Sexton. If she did, then she undermined him by questioning his indifference publicly. If she didn't, then she undermined him by blabbing to a competing reporter in an on-the-record interview instead of confronting her boss about her misgivings.

You don't disagree with your boss publicly. That's my biggest problem here.

Furthermore, Crouse should know where she works and consider it in her actions. The Times' ethics policy may be antiquated in the minds of critics, but it exists as a set of guidelines for employees to follow. The Times chose its policy, and the Times pays Crouse's salary. We're bound by the rules our employers create. If she doesn't like those rules, she can find a new job. My guess is she either realizes she overstepped or is considering a new employer that won't constrain her opinions in the same way.