What Lee Jenkins' LeBron scoop says about our industry

Well, it's not the biggest scoop ever in the history of SI. As was pointed out, this was what people expected to happen.

But, when everyone is citing anonymous sources and speculating when the announcement is going to be made and SI has the letter from the man himself, it's pretty huge.

This is what it comes down to these days. In order to get a story like this, you're either going to have to cite anonymous sources and make everyone think you're guessing or making it up, or you work with the athlete with how the news comes out. That happened with Jason Collins, that happened with Michael Sam.

As one friend told me, "All LeBron did was pick which writer he wanted to break the story." I do think it may have been more about whether he was going to do it on ESPN, SI, CBS Sports, his own website or whatever, but when countless reporters are chasing the story, it does say a lot that he picked Jenkins.

Weingarten said he wanted to do it in a way to create the most fanfare, and I don't agree with this on any level. While choosing SI was a strategic move, it was the polar opposite of what he did in 2010.

 

Right. And the notion that this was SI's biggest scoop (I know Weingarten wasn't saying that) is a joke considering the investigative journalism that has run in the magazine over the years.

 

Here's the meat of Weingarten's critique against the piece:

<i>"What happened here was a perversion of journalism into PR. LeBron James had an announcement to make, and he wanted to make it with the greatest possible fanfare. He is a smart man about these things. So he correctly calculated that the best way to do it was to maximize the sense of mystery, which he did, and then have a controlled release through one large media source. This is an old trick. You get mass coverage of the event, and then mass coverage of the mass coverage, because you have an added storyline of "wow, what a scoop!" All of us -- media, and readers both -- fell for it. We all became his publicists. Shame on we, us, and you.

A "scoop" that is worthy of calling a "scoop" is when someone learns and tells us about something that the public needs to know and that someone else doesn't WANT the public to know. A true disclosure, often obtained through ferreting. There are occasionally great sports scoops, and they're not always in the New York Times or Washington Post. Tim Elfrink of the alt-weekly Miami New Times got a true scoop when he broke the Biogenesis scandal. Sara Ganim of the teensy Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot News newspaper got a true scoop when she broke the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

What just happened with Sports Illustrated? LeBron James had a story everyone knew was coming, any day now. Nothing unexpected; there was even speculation that he'd do exactly what he did -- return home. He decided to give this story to one guy (he knew and trusted this guy, and had good reason -- Jenkins had writ a rigorously uncritical 2013 SI piece nominating LeBron for SI's Sportsman of the Year). Then, SI accepts LeBron's suggestion that the story would be written in the first person, which became the ultimate journalistic punt. Give this story to me, says SI to LeBron, and, sure, we'll abandon all skepticism in return.

The story was ghost written to be by LeBron James, meaning it didn't have to be at all objective. It was an essay, not journalism, see? Because it was in his voice, it could be cloying and self-serving, which it was, mending fences, dripping with gratuitous praise of everyone, putting LeBron's decision in the most noble possible light. It was a PR release, only better than most, because it went through the computer of a professional journalist; it was a PR release with some classy writing -- expert PR editing provided free of charge by Sports Illustrated."</i>

So, Yankee Fan, I suppose there's a two-time Pulitzer winner who completely agrees with you.

 

Because Jenkins offered to let LeBron say it in his words. If you don't make that offer, LeBron doesn't pick him.

 

Victory!

Had coffee with Pulitzer winner Rick Tulsky the same afternoon this news broke. Should have asked him his opinion.

 

For a two-time Pulitzer winner, Weingarten seems to have very little idea what magazines do or what a good 75-80 percent of sports journalism looks like.

His comparison of the James story to the Sandusky story is so beyond-the-pale ridiculous that whatever out-of-touch idea he's trying to convey is completely lost.

 

It's always easy to be righteous about journalism after the fact, and about someone else's story.

I'm betting SI would do this same deal 100 times out of 100

 

It's a good thing this site has arbiters deciding what is good journalism. We'd be lost without them.

 

The initial post asked what the scoop said about (your) industry.

Are there limits to such a thing?

If Paterno had approached Joe Posnanski after the Sanduski scandal broke, should Posnanski have sat with Paterno, and helped the old man bang out a self serving essay?

It would have been a big "scoop" right?

Or does the gravity of the situation mean that Posnanski couldn't have sat with the man, helped him tell his story "in his own words", and given him final approval?

 

You don't think that this thread fits into your criteria of good discussion for young journalists

 

I'm actually enjoying the heck out of this thread. Hell at least we're talking journalism again here.

 

Posnanski could have done that, and then he could've owned the fact that he helped whitewash criminal negligence and countless instances of child rape, in turn becoming complicit in the biggest coverup of criminal activity in sports history.

This story has none of that. Regardless of any other factor, at the end of the day, it is just a story of a basketball player deciding where he wants to play basketball.