When is it an EXCLUSIVE?

[HoosierLoser]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this?

 

[Monkey]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this? 

Email your executive editor and publisher and explain the situation. Tell them if they don't contact their equals at the competition rag, you will.

 

[DyePack]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this? 

Email your executive editor and publisher and explain the situation. Tell them if they don't contact their equals at the competition rag, you will.

Anything resembling an ultimatum to the publisher probably won't go down well.

 

[Monkey]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this? 

Email your executive editor and publisher and explain the situation. Tell them if they don't contact their equals at the competition rag, you will.

Anything resembling an ultimatum to the publisher probably won't go down well.

Maybe my wording was a little strong, but give your superiors a chance to fight your fight. If they don't, lace 'em up yourself.

 

[DyePack]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this? 

Email your executive editor and publisher and explain the situation. Tell them if they don't contact their equals at the competition rag, you will.

Anything resembling an ultimatum to the publisher probably won't go down well.

Maybe my wording was a little strong, but give your superiors a chance to fight your fight. If they don't, lace 'em up yourself.

I guess. I do recall an incident once where a staffer sent out an e-mail with cc's to practically the entire company. One important fact was terribly skewered. So someone else sent a correction to the earlier e-mail with the intention being to correct the fact.

The publisher was either in the cc's or the bcc's, and a bunch of stupid bullshirt followed.

 

[Starman]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this?

Email your executive editor and publisher and explain the situation. Tell them if they don't contact their equals at the competition rag, you will.

Anything resembling an ultimatum to the publisher probably won't go down well.

Don't ever, ever ever "tell" the EE and the Publisher anything in an email, or more than likely, very shortly they will tell you something: "get out."

 

[txsportsscribe]

saw a story last week where the 800-pound gorilla metro had, "the big city news reported," on a story that ran first in our little rag 2-3 days earlier. the writer in question thinks doing story research or pounding the beat to find a story consists of picking up smaller papers and running from there like he has the scoop.

 

[da man]

saw a story last week where the 800-pound gorilla metro had, "the big city news reported," on a story that ran first in our little rag 2-3 days earlier. the writer in question thinks doing story research or pounding the beat to find a story consists of picking up smaller papers and running from there like he has the scoop.

Major metros do that all the time. I once wrote a big piece that prominently featured an important previously unreported fact regarding a big story in our area. A couple weeks later, the nearby big city paper reported the same fact under the headline: ``Now it can be told.''

AP does that, too, though probably not on purpose. I remember writing a huge, four-story package saying that the nearby big city was going to make a bid for its first Super Bowl. It ran in a double truck complete with charts, graphs, a rundown on how the Super Bowl bid process works -- the whole nine yards. Three days later, big city paper runs a story saying that the city is going to bid for the Super Bowl. That evening, AP sends out a story -- ``Big city will make a bid for Super Bowl (INSERT ROMAN NUMERAL HERE), the Big City Daily reported.''

Apparently, it's not a story until it runs in a major metro paper.

 

[WSKY]

Our good neighbors across the river had an EXCLUSIVE front page story the other day. Unfortunately our beat reporter for the professional sports team, as was another beat reporter, were all part of the same print media-only interview.

The major metro newspaper had NEWSPAPER NAME EXCLUSIVE in the first paragraph of the story. No mention of the other two newspapers in the interview. The story read like the new team owner was sitting with their reporters only.

Their story even had questions our writer asked. Our writer mentioned that beat writers from two other newspapers were in this interview in his story.

What's the deal with EXCLUSIVE? I hope the sports editor, who comes on this board once in a great moon, can explain this one.

I was a little pissed when I saw it the next day, and I didn't even write the story. Our beat writer says "it's the same shirt, all the time."

How would you react to seeing something like this?


Don't they call it a news conference?

 

[HoosierLoser]

Not when his 'Air-ness' is running the show. Print-media only.

 

[PEteacher]

With all respect to the small-town scribes, it's NOT a story until a major metro paper runs it.

Honestly, I don't understand why any small time paper would try to cover any major event. No one reads the Pudunk Press for a story on the MLB team. No one. They read it for Podunk High and the Podunk kid drafted by NFL team.

Every time I see a job posting where a tiny paper says they're within the coverage area of this NBA team, that major racetrack, this PGA tour event and that D-I college, I say, blah. That coverage is SOLELY for the writers and editors. And that's failing what we're meant to do. I often question whether some of your are in it for purely selfish reasons or for what newspaper journalism should be about (community service). If you really were in the field for humanitarian reasons, and you work at a small paper, instead of covering the NBA team home game, you'd find another compelling story of a soccer player at Podunk High. The Major Metro has that NBA game taken care of.

If the Davis Enterprise was first to report that Mike Bibby, for example, ran a huge whorehouse and updated it promptly daily, and two weeks later the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story verbatim of the Davis Enterprise' original piece, plagerizing every quote and detail, and the story ended up being true and becomes a huge national phenomenom that gets attention from Congress, guess who gets credit? Guess who SportsCenter attributes their reporting to? Guess who wins the Pulitzer? Guess who the journalism movie is made about?

I can tell you with 100 percent certainty it won't be the Davis Enterprise.

Each product serves its purpose. I can't stand how all these small-town writers try to change this against the best interest of readers.

And before you rip me, realize this: The clip that'll help you move up IS that compelling feature of the Podunk High soccer player, not your NBA gamer.

 

[JME]

If you really were in the field for humanitarian reasons

For me, it was either sports writer or that social worker job in Compton, and I figured writing sports would be more of a humanitarian effort.

If the Davis Enterprise was first to report that Mike Bibby, for example, ran a huge whorehouse and updated it promptly daily, and two weeks later the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story verbatim of the Davis Enterprise' original piece, plagerizing every quote and detail, and the story ended up being true and becomes a huge national phenomenom that gets attention from Congress, guess who gets credit? Guess who SportsCenter attributes their reporting to? Guess who wins the Pulitzer? Guess who the journalism movie is made about?

I can tell you with 100 percent certainty it won't be the Davis Enterprise.

BS. A story like that would go national immediately and the credit would be given to Davis. Not sure what you're talking about here.