Vinny Del Negro-John Paxson spat

Exactly.

I keep reading how important access is -- including access to the clubhouse.

You're supposed to be our eyes & ears. If you don't tell us what you see & hear, what's the point?

This didn't happen in an area where the participants could expect privacy.

Anyone who defends the writer who buried this story should also defend the Tiger sycophants, who only wrote pro-Tiger stories.

 

K.C. Johnson is probably my favorite writer at the Trib because he's very good at what he does and is pretty much always right. Whenever there is a trade rumor or something like that I always go to the Trib to see if it's a legit.

So with that being said, I am very, very miffed that he sat on the story, especially given his excellent track record.

He responds, albeit without saying a whole lot, in the first couple questions of his latest mailbag.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/ct-spt-0415-web-ask-kc-bulls-chicago--20100414,0,6766965.story

 

He just digs a deeper hole with that mailbag.

American Media at least got a cover story & photo with Tiger for sitting on the pancake waitress story.

I'd hope Johnson at least got something in return for sitting on this, but it sounds like he didn't.

 

I'm still very unclear as to why he didn't. As someone who consistently breaks news on that beat and is, as another poster already said, one of the best if not the best NBA beat writer out there, I don't understand it at all.

It's a big, important story and I don't get why it would be held.

 

No disrespect to any of the writers involved here....but I want to understand Johnson's comment that he held Vinnie's career in his hands, and therefore decided to not run the story. Management has control over his career, and management already knows the story, right? Am I missing something?

And: Why not just do a joint interview, tell one story, set the record straight, and move on? Heat of the moment, everyone wants to win, every family fights, cliche cliche....done.

 

A hack comment by K.C. to say that he holds a coach's career in his hands. Time to reevaluate a career, because it looks like someone just wants to either be liked or just doesn't care. I don't care who you are or what you've done in the past, you're job as a beat reporter is to break news that no one else gets and not sit just there and play with yourself.

 

How did he hold Vinny's career in his hands? Isn't it a foregone conclusion that he's getting fired after the season?

 

Not that this changes people's opinion, but the "life in hands" quote stems from Sager quoting KC as saying that. Not quite the same thing as him explaining himself as such. I would imagine he said something along those lines to Sager, but the context might have been lost.

 

So what's worse, knowing about the incident and not reporting the story or missing the incident completely?

Judging from views here, the former is worse. Because no one is calling out the Sun-Times for its Bulls coverage and whiff on this scoop.

I say props to Adrian W. at Yahoo! and boo to the two Bulls beat guys for different reasons. This is a beat person's worst nightmare, getting scooped by national media two weeks after an incident. It's hard to know which is worse, Johnson's misguided sitting on the story or his competition's failure to get it at all. Sounds like Johnson figured Del Negro soon would be fired and he could fold the incident into a big analysis or perspective piece without burning his source.

BTW, I don't believe the spin job coming out a day later that Del Negro was the aggressor. That was posted on ESPNChicago.com, and the ESPN radio sports station is the Bulls flagship. Really seems like blatant attempt to polish Paxson's image over Del Negro's. Besides, it would discredit the Yahoo! piece, and Adrian W. is upper echelon.

 

Another discussion for another time, perhaps - and I agree with you as well - but this is the kind of questioning these ESPN folks are going to have to face (theoretically; probably not in the present age) with regards to these sites and partnerships.

 

I'm not in K.C.'s head and have never played at his level, but I just wonder what the point is of covering a team if you're not going to give your readers an honest picture of what is actually going on. I don't think the incident itself is truly earth-shattering news -- though the job definitely defines it as such -- but it's incredibly important overall to describe as fully as possible for your readers what's really going on in the Bulls hierarchy.

It sucks to be the Sun-Times guy(s) and be left behind on this, but isn't it worse that K.C. basically doesn't think it's his job to report that the coach and executive VP have such a bad relationship that they came to blows? It's great to be "humane" to Vinny when possible and not cause an unnecessary media frenzy, but your allegiance isn't to him. It's to your readers -- and they need you there not to just relay cute anecdotes and analyze playoff odds but to uncover and report important news that fully explains the circumstances behind the scenes that are determining the entire direction of the franchise.

 

Johnson isn't even in the league of Windhorst, D'Alessandro, Beck, Quick and Bresnahan, in my opinion.

He's good, but second-team good.