WHOA! .... Bill Conlin resigns amid child molestation investigation

Good read from Bob Ford of the Inky:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/136037713.html?cmpid=125219969

 

Earth to Nancy Phillips, Inquirer Staff Writer:

1. Good story on deadline on the fifth accuser.

2. Bill Conlin is not a "Hall of Fame sportswriter." No one is.

 

I thought the column was an unreadable, pointless mess. He thought he should write about it, didn't quite know what to say, and decided to just fling things out in the hope they all somehow merged.

 

I'm guessing he's not thinking very cogently these days.

 

Or maybe what he's doing isn't journalism at all. Discuss.

 

In that Deadspin article, I was struck by how AJ -- as related in the story -- didn't seem struck by a conflict of interest in seeming to try to help Conlin see if a story could be squashed.

I think most journalists in that position would be at least a little torn between helping someone you admire and wanting to get the story out or at least stay out of it.

AJ doesn't seem like it ever occurred to him, though he did get the story.

Conlin -- for a guy in the business for decades -- comes off as clueless about how things work. That's possibly a result of being a coddled columnist.

 

Quite remarkable how little of their phone conversation Daulerio remembers.

 

It was a difficult piece for Bob Ford to write. I thought he did as best as he could considering how close he is to the situation.

 

Yeah, it's amazing that with this story, the Internet suddenly became a place that threw the old rules and decorum to the wind.

 

Bill's arrogance is believable and disappointing..

 

I was thinking this morning that what Daulerio does isn't any kind of "reinvention." It's simply a return to the 19th century methods that predate the rules and standards journalism created for itself in the 20th.

 

In the 19th century, reporters flat out made up stories, and papers supported political parties and the reporters would openly laud one political party and destroy the other to a fault... Daulerio, in this case, is a guy who was approached by Conlin, went back and forth with him a bit (and yes, did find out some info for him, which also helped Daulerio's reporting), and in the end published crushing emails that further hurt the reputation of someone Daulerio considered a work-related acquaintance.

There haven't been too many examples of a story like this featuring one of our colleagues. Did Daulerio go about in this most traditional way? No, he's not traditional. But to somehow compare his reporting method to 19th century yellow journalism -- that's way off.