Tom Verducci PEDs column: Should SI be disclosing?

Would this be a good time to point out that, despite all of his faults, Verducci's assessment isn't wrong?

 

Not at all. I pointed it out in the initial post on the thread. But when you're writing paens every few days to the greatness that is MLB, readers have a right to know that you are an employee of ... MLB!

 

I completely agree with you on that point.

 

It was Nunez. SI ran a correction the next week.

As far as a confict of interest goes, it's gotten to a point where it's not surprising anymore, because corporate doesn't seem to care. Whether it's NBC spending weeks on silly features hyping up the Olympics that they're just coincidentally televising, or the Podunk News writing cutesy a feature about the new business in town which just happened to run an ad that week, it's getting tougher to get upset when conflicts of interest arise.

I just want the business to not act all hypocritical when their employees decide to do their own conflicts of interest.

 

I believe you are correct.

 

Can't wait to read his take on this.

 

is this the first thread on verducci's conflict?

seems like it would have been aired out already.

 

Didn't Verducci write the Caminiti piece back when he was one of the first players to admit to using PEDs?

 

Yeah, he seemed much more willing to take on the game back when MLB wasn't supplying him his beer money.

 

As our business continues to splinter and morph, more people are going to be working for more than one employer. Some will work part-time here, part-time there. The potential for conflicts will grow. That is NOT to say that this reporter in particular is violating ethical standards -- mine or anyone's. Who makes the "rules" for conflict-of-interest? A guy who owns a local team and a local paper? There was a time in this business when teams paid for newspaper reporters' hotels and food and transportation. There was a time (not all that long ago!) when teams sent lavish Christmas gifts to sports reporters. There was a time back in Chicago when I actually had to take a crisp $100 bill out of my pocket at Christmas and insist to the team PR guy that I would not be able to accept his gift. For a while there, it seemed as if everyone agreed on what was ethical, even those who didn't abide by those standards. As Sinatra once sang: " . . . and the skies have got so cloudy, when they used to be so clear. And there used to be a ballpark here."

 

I don't know. Working for the league you cover for the most prestigious brand in sports journalism seems fairly cut-and-dry to me. Particularly when you are using your position at that brand to launch broad sides against other, competing leagues.

 

You make a fair point. 20 or even 10 years ago, such a deal would not go. But things have changed. People work on free-lance contracts. They are accountable only to themselves. Everything is blended now and lots of people are compromised. I love watching games on ESPN and I like the writing on their web site. But is an ESPN columnist going to seriously go after a "partner" of ESPN -- which is just about every sport except hockey? As for football -- and PEDs -- are we to believe human beings are naturally 325 pounds and physically fit with little body fat?