Fans first

[OTD]

Hope I'm not D_Bing this, from Romanesko:

From EVAN WEINER, author, "Business and Politics of Sports": Once again, baseball newspaper writers are apologizing for their failure to do any sort of investigation into the use of steroids, which under federal law became a banned drug in 1991, and other illegal performance enhancing substances. At least, the New York Times' Murray Chass gave a truthful answer as to one of the reasons that sportswriters cannot be bothered by questioning whether or not someone is taking some form of the juice when he said in the E&P article "I'm not sure that you want to spend every day being suspicious of someone. It might be the journalistic thing to do. But it is not fun."

No writer wants to be shut out, the majority of sportswriters are fans first, extensions of team's public relations departments second and journalists, maybe third.

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=letters

 

[Leo Mazzone]

I always knew I was a PR mouthpiece. Dammit.

 

[awriter]

"And baseball writers are still looking for heroes after they threw Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa under the bus. By the way, neither McGwire nor Sosa ever tested positive for performance enhancing substances, nor has Barry Bonds but in the court of public opinion, at least the sportswriter world of opinion, they are guilty as charged by the sportswriting community."

Not only are we all mouthpieces, we're hero worshippers who want nothing more than to be admitted into some athletes club, yet unfairly accuse McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. Who knew? It's shattering to read we're such lousy reporters coming from someone such as Evan Weiner, who apparently forgot that Bonds did admit to using the cream and overlooks the fact that baseball wasn't testing for steroids at the time.

 

[sartrean]

Actually, since I've been a sports writer, my opinion of athletics and athletes has deteriorated. I'm beginning to think sports is just plain evil. Before I was laid off earlier this week, I was hoping hometown football teams lose and lose every game, but now I just don't give a fork what happens.

 

[SoCalScribe]

Legit MLB beats are the furthest thing from fanboys. It's nearly impossible to cover spring training and 120-150 regular-season games a year and possibly the postseason, year after year, and still be a rah-rah idiot who gives two cents about kissing the home team's rear.

Just because the boat was missed doesn't mean everyone missed it on purpose.

 

[huntsie]

I'm neither a fan of, or an extension of the PR department of the teams I cover. I enjoy writing. I enjoy sports. I like the job and I'm pretty good at it. But it's a job.
That's just another condescending look at sports as the toy department. And it's patently ridiculous.

 

[shotglass]

Just another "deep thinker" who thinks he's above everything.

And that's giving him more thought than he deserves.

 

[Twoback]

Oh, for goodness sakes. This has gone on long enough.
Right in the middle of the McGwire/Sosa chase, the whole andro thing came up and it was widely reported and debated. No one flat ignored that it happened. SI did the Caminitti story in 2002. This thing about "ignoring the story" has been perpetuated as if it's the truth. Which it's not. No baseball writer ever watched a slugger pump dianabol into his arm and then chose not to write about it. You write what you can find out about, and there were reports about steroids in baseball before Balco blew the whole thing sky-high.
Hey, how come nobody covering Congress wrote about Foley's escapades? Because they didn't know. Period.
The clown who wrote the letter quoted in the first post doesn't know the first thing about what sportswriters do for a living.

 

[sartrean]

What about all those editors I've had over the past 15 years or so that killed any newsy I got, such as players arrested for pranks, players accused of hazing, players reprimanded for using steroids-not suspended, players given grades, players arrested for selling drugs/DUI/other substance abuse problems, coaches not following rules?

Not one weekly or twice-weekly editor I've had ever wanted to follow up on any of the little tidbits I uncovered through covering Prep sports. They always reasoned that it would just pish people off.

And two of those editors are always on Poynter's site nowadays, forking hypocrites.

 

[SF_Express]

Just another "deep thinker" who thinks he's above everything.

And that's giving him more thought than he deserves.

That sums it up exactly for me -- but of course, a guy like him is simply going to believe this proves that he's right -- that we're all toy departmenters who are being defensive about all that steroid reporting we didn't do.