Tom Verducci PEDs column: Should SI be disclosing?

[Armchair_QB]

Would this be a good time to point out that, despite all of his faults, Verducci's assessment isn't wrong?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Would this be a good time to point out that, despite all of his faults, Verducci's assessment isn't wrong?

Not at all. I pointed it out in the initial post on the thread. But when you're writing paens every few days to the greatness that is MLB, readers have a right to know that you are an employee of ... MLB!

 

[Armchair_QB]

Would this be a good time to point out that, despite all of his faults, Verducci's assessment isn't wrong?

Not at all. I pointed it out in the initial post on the thread. But when you're writing paens every few days to the greatness that is MLB, readers have a right to know that you are an employee of ... MLB!

I completely agree with you on that point.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Funny, the thing that most caught my eye was the graphic where they had Melky Cabrera's name on a sticky-note with a photo of Eduardo Nunez next to it (I think it was him, def. wasn't the Melk Man).

It was Nunez. SI ran a correction the next week.

As far as a confict of interest goes, it's gotten to a point where it's not surprising anymore, because corporate doesn't seem to care. Whether it's NBC spending weeks on silly features hyping up the Olympics that they're just coincidentally televising, or the Podunk News writing cutesy a feature about the new business in town which just happened to run an ad that week, it's getting tougher to get upset when conflicts of interest arise.

I just want the business to not act all hypocritical when their employees decide to do their own conflicts of interest.

 

[Tarheel316]

Tom Verducci is the lead baseball writer at Sports Illustrated, the venerable beacon of hard-hitting sports journalism. Through the years, as we all know, SI has broken countless stories that others would have never thought of looking into or, even if they had, touched. When George Dohrmann won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the University of Minnesota, Sports Illustrated went out and hired him, to its credit.

Tom Verducci is also an on-air contributor to MLB Network. Here is his bio:

http://mlb.mlb.com/network/personalities/?id=5521394

MLB Network is "primarily owned" by Major League Baseball. It should be noted that it is also partially owned by Time Warner, which also owns Sports Illustrated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_Network

The point to all this:

In this week's Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci wrote the lead Scorecard item, SI's answer to the New Yorker's Talk of the Town. It's a good piece. The primary purpose of the piece is comparing the PED testing systems in MLB and the National Football League. Baseball comes out the winner, and Verducci even quotes Roger Goodell acknowledging such. Like I said, it's a good piece.

The question: In a piece like this, in which Verducci is lifting up Major League Baseball at the expense of another professional league, is Sports Illustrated ethically obligated to acknowledge somewhere that Verducci is also an employee of MLB Network and, by extension, an employee of Major League Baseball? Because it does not.

Frankly, to me, it seems ludicrous that this isn't disclosed. Here is a Major League Baseball employee - who I don't believe should even be contributing to both entities in this capacity - taking out another major professional sports league on a very important issue. And nowhere does Sports Illustrated, long-time pride of the toy department, disclose his potential other interests in doing so.

Am I wrong? Am I right? I throw the question to the gallery.

I believe you are correct.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Can't wait to read his take on this.

 

[henryhenry]

is this the first thread on verducci's conflict?

seems like it would have been aired out already.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Didn't Verducci write the Caminiti piece back when he was one of the first players to admit to using PEDs?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Didn't Verducci write the Caminiti piece back when he was one of the first players to admit to using PEDs?

Yeah, he seemed much more willing to take on the game back when MLB wasn't supplying him his beer money.

 

[Joe Lapointe]

As our business continues to splinter and morph, more people are going to be working for more than one employer. Some will work part-time here, part-time there. The potential for conflicts will grow. That is NOT to say that this reporter in particular is violating ethical standards -- mine or anyone's. Who makes the "rules" for conflict-of-interest? A guy who owns a local team and a local paper? There was a time in this business when teams paid for newspaper reporters' hotels and food and transportation. There was a time (not all that long ago!) when teams sent lavish Christmas gifts to sports reporters. There was a time back in Chicago when I actually had to take a crisp $100 bill out of my pocket at Christmas and insist to the team PR guy that I would not be able to accept his gift. For a while there, it seemed as if everyone agreed on what was ethical, even those who didn't abide by those standards. As Sinatra once sang: " . . . and the skies have got so cloudy, when they used to be so clear. And there used to be a ballpark here."

 

[Dick Whitman]

As our business continues to splinter and morph, more people are going to be working for more than one employer. Some will work part-time here, part-time there. The potential for conflicts will grow. That is NOT to say that this reporter in particular is violating ethical standards -- mine or anyone's. Who makes the "rules" for conflict-of-interest? A guy who owns a local team and a local paper? There was a time in this business when teams paid for newspaper reporters' hotels and food and transportation. There was a time (not all that long ago!) when teams sent lavish Christmas gifts to sports reporters. There was a time back in Chicago when I actually had to take a crisp $100 bill out of my pocket at Christmas and insist to the team PR guy that I would not be able to accept his gift. For a while there, it seemed as if everyone agreed on what was ethical, even those who didn't abide by those standards. As Sinatra once sang: " . . . and the skies have got so cloudy, when they used to be so clear. And there used to be a ballpark here."

I don't know. Working for the league you cover for the most prestigious brand in sports journalism seems fairly cut-and-dry to me. Particularly when you are using your position at that brand to launch broad sides against other, competing leagues.

 

[Joe Lapointe]

You make a fair point. 20 or even 10 years ago, such a deal would not go. But things have changed. People work on free-lance contracts. They are accountable only to themselves. Everything is blended now and lots of people are compromised. I love watching games on ESPN and I like the writing on their web site. But is an ESPN columnist going to seriously go after a "partner" of ESPN -- which is just about every sport except hockey? As for football -- and PEDs -- are we to believe human beings are naturally 325 pounds and physically fit with little body fat?