Should this be interpreted as a red flag ...

To clarify, if I need to, I'm talking about watching the event on TV. That is still a first-person account.

Off radio? That's hearsay.

 

As I recall, the disclaimer announced on every sports broadcast ever says ``the pictures, descriptions and accounts'' of the game are copyrighted. Not the facts.

 

By the way, Starman, just for the sake of friendly argument.

You're the Broncos beat writer, and the team's star quarterback breaks his leg in a motorcycle accident in Key West.

You, sitting in Denver, learn about it off TV, watch the account, make all the requisite calls.

By your logic, your news story on this very important event probably shouldn't have a byline. You weren't where the accident occurred, after all.

Right?

 

Well, if MLB has the Red Sox provide a media work room with TVs in it, I think that constitutes consent, though it may or may not be in writing. Sitting in the publisher's office and watching it on the newspaper's only working TV, to me, is not the same thing.

 

There are two separate issues here.

One is - The copyright issue. Personally, I think when millions of people see it, it's in the public domain, so no violation. It's an interesting question, though.

Second is - The ethics issue. Is the newspaper perpetuating a fraud on its readers?

To me, the second issue is more concerning.

 

I don't care whether that is exagerrated or not, I laughed my ass off at the entire scenario. Great punch line.

 

Playthrough makes a good point. When many of us started out in the biz, we didn't mind going the extra mile on a story when it would help us down the road. In my case, I would drive 60 miles on my day off to cover the NFL team and write either a column or feature for Monday's PM. Not because it made our section better (although it did). But because I got clips, access, rubbed shoulders with big-time writers and eventually landed my next two writing gigs. They weren't using me. I was using them.

And guess what? My successor got to cover the Super Bowl, several years after I had moved on, because we had begun a tradition of covering the team. So our readers did benefit. (Oh yeah, my successor didn't have to go to the Super Bowl on his days off!) ;D

 

Can't be them. You can't stop what you never started.

And I'd love to know how some of the absolutists on this thread propose to generate road gamers for minor league sports. Baseball at least gives you an online boxscore, but it helps to listen to the game and understand the action in context. For stuff like indoor football though, it's the radio or nothing, and Mr. Pusblisher and a few thousand readers don't consider nothing a real choice.

 

I really think that the average reader doesn't understand what having a dateline or not having a dateline means. Ditto with the byline, so I think this may be a moot point.

 

While we're discussing whether this is right for print media, it's probably worth mentioning that radio folks have been reading copy right out of the newspaper forever, and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it. Just sayin'.

 

seems more like a white flag.