Solid Crouse Angle On Bears/ Saints

What's your point, Boom?

Do you post these because you think they don't serve the NYT readership?

Do you post these because you think they contain factual errors (as pointed out above by 21), and therefore present an opportunity to discuss the nuts and bolts of reporting and information gathering and story construction?

Do you post these because you think they represent an opportunity to talk about craft? If so, what are your thoughts on the specific mechanics and techniques Crouse employs?

Do you post these because you're disappointed there isn't a better New York angle in each case? Even though New York has no team in the playoffs?

Do you post these as a dissatisfied reader? If so, why are you dissatisfied? Insufficient Xs and Os? Even though on each of the days these ran, there were several other playoff Xs and Os stories in the same section? Four of them today, for example, with additional sidebars and so forth?

Honestly curious.

 

I can't speak for Boom, but I suspect in posting this particular link, he's trying to point out that maybe doing a warm and fuzzy piece on a guy who had more ammunition in his pad than the typical Iraqi insurgent isn't such a good idea.

While all of the allegations and legal stuff was included, check out some of these observations/quotes:

And for the ending. . .

 

I'm going to cut Karen some slack here. That's not easy to parachute into a place and try to profile a troubled person by talking to total strangers. What would you expect the long snapper to say: "Yeah, I'd love Tank to show my kid how to fire an Uzi." Of course, the teammates will close ranks.

That's the problem that I have with a lot of stories like this -- they're spins. I don't think Karen should have been assigned the story at all: what is she going to find out in two or three days that fleshes out the story? I don't think it makes a difference what her affiliation is.

Not surprisingly, the story, as Suburbanite said, is cast with a warm-and-fuzzy glow. I really hate that about a lot of newspaper editors. If the Bears make it into the Super Bowl, I can see thousands of them sitting in their offices, saying, "Let's do OUR Tank Johnson story," and coming up with . . . nothing new.

 

Karen's work seems better suited for the styles section or Ladies Home Journal. In her previous life she must have been the writer who writes the lead ins for NBC Olympian bios.

Everything Karen does now seems to be about redemption, but it never seems to fully explain the reasons behind player needing redemption in first place. Most have been self induced.

Stories come off as very predictable . Why not scour around Tank's neighborhood and learn about his last night disturbaces?

It seemed like lobbing soft balls at Jets worked well

MY she is is trying to insure further access to the Bears

 

The first two things you quote: You mean you wouldn't want your reporter to be that observant to report little details like that? I can imagine it's easier to be observant when you don't assume the subject is guilty until proven innocent.

The third thing: You do make a point; you wouldn't expect a teammate to trash Tank.

 

I could give you an answer, jgmacg, as to why Boob Boom posts this stuff, but I'm not getting into his idoicy.

The real problem here is people -- the Bears, the NFL, the NY Times --continue to make this criminal out to be a nice guy at heart.

Fact: He was on probation for a previous guilty plea on a weapons charge and was found to have a fucking arsenal in his house.
You or I would have had probation revoked and been tossed in jail until the next trial. Tank Johnson gets to play football, with NO repercussions from the team or the league other than sitting out 2 games....whoop-de-damn-doo!

Fact: AFTER the latest weapons arrest and a supposed "lecture" from the team owner, he is out at a club where his "bodyguard" gets killed. And he gets another free pass.

And now, everybody is trying to tell me what a sweetheart Tank Johnson really is? He should be in jail awaiting trial, not playing in an NFC championship game and having people try to convince us that he's just a misunderstood nice guy.

HE IS A FUCKING CRIMINAL!

 

So the only stories that should be written about Tank Johnson should be columns about how he should be locked up? That a reporter should not look at all aspects of a subject? I trust you don't tell your reporters to only find stuff that supports your worldview.

 

My problem is that many of her stories lately seem to have the same spin. They read like cover stories in ESPN Magazine about misunderstood athletes.

As for the observations, Dooley, I'll bet if he had a copy of Guns & Ammo in his locker she wouldn't have mentioned it. . .

Although I do agree with Ike--the story probably shouldn't have been assigned in the first place.

 

Well, that's a nice slam on her integrity. I'm guessing most any reporter worth his/her salt would have mentioned the magazine thing. And she or any enterprising reporter has every right to get all the facts about someone instead of reflexively joining the pack of sanctimony. And are you saying that only Bears beat reporters can write about Tank Johnson?

 

What I'm saying, Dools, is do not write this story that ends up trying to be warm and fuzzy about a guy who should be in jail.

Serious question: If you were on probation from a previous guilty plea to an illegal weapons charge and were arrested again with a small arsenal in your home, do you think you'd be walking the streets?

 

Dooley, Here's a Justin Miller feature she wrote last month. It's a great read and well-written. But she paints him as a big happy-go-lucky kid and ignores the two arrests at Clemson that caused him to fall from the first to second round. I'm not saying those arrests should be a scarlet letter on him for the rest of his life, but they probably deserve mentioning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/sports/football/14jets.html?ex=1323752400&en=c4d39e3ef40f8838&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

Look, Karen is not the first writer to try to show Tank's other side. Here's one by Mike Downey, Chicago columnist, veteran sports writer, former tabloid guy -- and all right, Downey is not exactly in his prime. But if he had been all that off-base, someone at the Trib likely would have talked him out of it, right?

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/football/16487142.htm