Orlando

My line starts getting blurred when beat reporters go on TV or radio and give opinions about teams/players/situations they cover, and then go back to the daily grind in the paper. To me, beat columns or whatever you want to call them should make readers question the relative objectivity of anyone who writes them.

 

Well, at least Alma is consistent... I'll give him that...

I'll never apologize for freelancing for any magazine that will pay me or getting paid to go on the radio. Some of us have kids to raise and I'm a little more concerned about that than being "disingenuous" because we made some extra money...

The more I read this, the more I feel sorry for Elling... He is one of the best golf writers around and they made an example of him... I love the Sentinel, but this really sucks...

 

it's mind-boggling to me that this is allowed to happen. it's like, as long as you're writing your Sunday national notebook, you can take anything you want out of any paper anywhere without attributing it.

i read this stuff in huge major metros everywhere I travel and it infuriates me. why do all these firm rules suddenly not apply to sunday notebooks? here's a sunday NBA notebook quoting 12 different people in eight different cities and none of the quotes are attributed. did the writer actually call Kobe, Jason Kidd, Mehmet Okur, LeBron, Allen Iverson and Carmelo and everybody else?

the notion that once something is published somewhere automatically makes it fair game for everybody's notes column is preposterous and goes against everything I was taught. yet it happens in just about every Sunday section.

and a tagline that, "This story was compiled using information from various sources," hardly makes it OK

 

They're not always lifting. Some beat writers trade items with beat writers in other cities. I think San Jose was the first to acknowledge on the bottom that this was so.

 

no, they're not always lifting. there are still notes networks among national writers in every major sport. but i still think stuff should be attributed, even when it's being willingly shared

one byproduct of these notes networks is a sameness among many notes columns. if you check out 10 national notes columns on your beat, you're gonna see the same stuff in eight of 'em. big deal? not really. i just don't like it. because it's laziness & a replacement for doing real work.

 

You mean this semi-seriously, right?

 

Those papers have a contract with each other. And the byline is the same every time. It's not someone passing off someone's else's work as ther own.

 

How about when a columnist does his/her radio show and then his/her tv gig, then comes back the next day with the newspaper column, which is nothing but a rehash of what was said the day before on radio and TV.

Newspaper gets it last, and a day later, and the columnist is getting three paychecks from the same material. Those guys on ESPN are cleaning up, maybe writing fewer columns since they're so B.U.S.Y. Did they take a cut in pay from the paper to spread this stuff all around?

Doubt it.

Makes Elling look like small potatos in this mess.

 

Nobody wanted to say anything about this during the McKenzie dirge, but it's a point that needed to be made.

The journalist in question [NAME REDACTED for the ultrasensitive, Janie Jones] took a short cut and produced stolen rubbish. Call a spade a spade. The writer whose work was carelessly pilfered has spoken.

 

I'm amazed that with all the people who bitch (rightfully so) about the lousy pay, we have all this harping at people who can parlay their work into extra money.

Sounds like a little -- OK, a lot -- of jealousy at work.

 

Sounds like you're in The Zone...

 

Look at it this way:

The Hometown Bugle pays $1,000 to send its writer to Hawaii to cover local player in the LPGA opener.

In the course of talking to local player, writer has extra information and extra quotes that he then uses for a magazine piece on local player.

Magazine gets a story without having to foot the travel bill for the writer.

Writer gets two paychecks and frequent-flyer miles for doing barely more work than the initial assignment for Hometown Bugle.

If I'm Hometown Bugle, I tell writer, "If you want to freelance, the magazine must pay half the travel bill, or your frequent-flyer miles go belong to the company."

Without Hometown Bugle paying for the travel in the first place, writer doesn't get the opportunity for second paycheck, and magazine doesn't have a writer to provide a story.

Hometown Bugle deserves a little remuneration from one or both parties.