Topic: When you're right -- and then you're wrong

recruiting is a whole different animal. you're dealing with 17- and 18-year-old kids. even giving a hard and fast commitment means nothing now that he can "decommit" which is a word i never heard until i had to start covering recruiting. i'm not even sure if it's in the dictionary. god how i hated covering recruiting.

 

If the source was bullshitting you, of course, you don't use him or her again. While it's tempting to out that person the next day, there's a good chance trustworthy people will be reluctant to talk to you if you do that. In which case, you lose.

 

Well, that's a tack that has its own challenge, and I think it helps define the difference between "reporter" and "writer." Your example is a reporter's way of handling it, but writers are taught to use decisive, declarative sentences, and they get criticized when they don't. Worse, the equivocations are edited out so the story reads more decisively. When you start throwing equivocations in there, whether you're right for doing it or not, someone is going to step up and say, "hey, grow a pair. Write what you mean and dispense with the provisos." Clearly, as this situation points out, we write decisively at our own peril, but we do the opposite at our own peril, too.

 

There's more peril in turning a story into something it's not than in letting it be what it is. Just as you have to resist some of the pressure to be "first," you have to resist the urge to sexy it up.

I could post on here in about 12 hours and say, "The sunrise here is beautiful." Of course, it would still be dark, but in a few hours I could say I was right. My post would have sounded a lot better than "I expect the sunrise here today to be beautiful," but it would have been premature. So would "The sunrise here this morning will be beautiful."

Oh, and ...

Source: "Coach Smith is all but signed, sealed and delivered. We expect to name him tomorrow. We agreed in principle. Expect a press conference at about 1 o'clock."

Writer's first lede: "State U sources said late Thursday coach Bill Smith agreed in principle to a contract and is expected to sign it today. School officials plan a news conference."

Editor: "Can't we say Smith is taking the job?"

Writer: "Well ..."

Editor: "Isn't that what we're really saying here?"

Writer: "Well, no it's not ..."

Editor: "Let me see your notes."

(later)

New lede: "State U officials expect to hold a news conference today to announce Bill Smith agreed to a contract to coach the Tigers and will sign it today."

Headline: Smith taking State job

Online bulletin headline: State hires Smith!

 

You're right JD. I wasn't suggesting that we take the "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" approach. I was pointing out that in addition to the pressure of getting it first, we often have to fight a battle over how it's worded, as well.

Here's an example: I've done a number of high school coach hiring stories in which I got the information from both the coach and the school, but it won't become official until the next school board meeting when personnel decisions are approved. That might be three weeks away, and none of us is going to sit on that story that long. I always throw a pending board approval in there, and about half the time it has been cut out. That's a scary place to be if your name is on the story. Not exactly the same thing as the Bama/Rodriguez situation, but the bottom line is you better be right, and if you're not, the way your copy is written better give you an out.

 

I guess the consensus that we take from all this is that until the contract is signed, we need to be a little more careful about using mitigating language to give ourselves an out for either outright lying or "changes of heart."

 

This thread is educational to me on a couple different levels ...

As for moi, and my mindset during coaching searches (you mean, there is one going on right now in Alabama? Really?), I approach it thusly: I trust about three people -- my two writers who are/would be assigned to tracking it, and the one person they are/would be relying on for "unidentified source" information. You just have to do it that way. Here in the home of Podunk U., there are so many unqualified "sources" leaking misinformation out of Podunk U.'s sparkly new football building, it would make me uncomfortable if some of those doofuses (doofi?) would want to tell me the sun was rising in the East tomorrow.

I am also blessed, frankly, that the two reporters I have who are/would be chasing this are armed with enough common sense not to go listening to every cockamamie "source" out there. Also, that my bosses share this overriding philosophy: Be accurate first, and first if you can, but don't sacrifice the accuracy for the "*BREAKING NEWZ*". I'll let the folks down the road feel like they got lied to all day long, and let readers decide whether they can get trusted information from said outlet or my outlet.

rb