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Media Scoops, broken from "We Have An Agreement"

SteveJRogers May 07 2006 02:00 PM

]SteveJRogers Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The real question is, why are we putting all this creedence in Jon Heyman's article? This is the same guy who was convinced the last two Aprils that Roger Clemens was a sinch to be in Yankee Pinstripes because of a "handshake" agreement (which eventually became something actually written into the contract) between Roger and Drayton McLane that guarantee that if Roger requested he'd be traded back to New York, no questions asked. And don't forget he's not a reporter, he's a columnist. His source could be anyone from Omar himself to some assistant to the assistant assistant GM. And it could just be absoulte hearsay and more like just a description of what may happen down the road Bret Sabermetric Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:27 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why not just assume that everything that appears in the papers to be an out-and-out lie, unless it's in praise of the Mets? SteveJRogers Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:41 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bret Sabermetric wrote: Why not just assume that everything that appears in the papers to be an out-and-out lie, unless it's in praise of the Mets? I assume the same if it was in praise of the Mets What is your take here? To discuss everything in a paper at face value even though there isn't any tangilble difference between what Jon Heyman says and if Greg at FAFIF, would say if he heard the same thing from someone in the front office? Or even if I came on this board and said I heard the same thing. Or if Chris Russo said he heard it from a "Little Birdie" on his radio program Unless I, Heyman or Greg or Russo revealed exactly whom we heard the tidbit from I would take that tidbit with a grain of salt. Not sure if there is kernel of truth in it or not, if there is, then that would be the job of an investigative minded reporter, and that would be who I'd trust more than someone who either paid for their opinion (Russo/Heyman) or spouts their opinion (Me/Greg) and occasionally will have nuggets of information that may or may not be verified because the person spoting the nuggets doesn't reveal exactly who they got the nugget from Bret Sabermetric Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:49 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may want to open up a different thread to discuss this in, but I think there's far more latitude granted to reporters and columnists using unsourced material to based pro-Mets speculation on than there is for using anti-Mets stuff. Basically, you'd have about a third of the sportswriting if you demanded hard, multi-sourced, OTR material for every bit of Mets coverage, but you only object to it when it implies an anti-Mets stance. I think your rooting interest prevernts you from seeing this, so you think you're just objecting to unsourced material in principle, but actually the sports pages would dry up completely if you kept to the high standard you're calling for here. Fair enough, I didn't say they shouldn't print it, I'm just saying everything printed by a columnist should be taken as 100% gospel. If I were a Met beat reporter (especially Newsday's) I'd be on the phone right now with contacts in the Mets Front Office and Glavine's agent's office seeing if there is a kernnel of truth in it and/or why I haven't heard about this before (assuming that I wasn't one of those sitting on the story)

OlerudOwned May 07 2006 02:06 PM

I just don't see how this particular story has anything to do with pro-Met/anti-Met bias. The basis of Heyman's article is that Glavine's option will reportedly be picked up. The integrety of this report has what exactly to do with the censoring anti-Met items?

Bret Sabermetric May 07 2006 02:22 PM

I didn't say censoring. I said that when some columnist speculates on things that seem shall we say controversial, we jump all over it, and challenge the reporter's integrity and honesty, etc., when it's a given that unsourced material is a columnist's staple, which we accept blandly all the time, as long it's not controversial. It's just tiresome to keep reading all this "What's Heyman's proof?" bullshit. A columnist's job is to be entertaining and somewhat short of libel. But they're often more corerct in their speculations than we're willing to credit.

mlbaseballtalk May 07 2006 02:33 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I didn't say censoring. I said that when some columnist speculates on things that seem shall we say controversial, we jump all over it, and challenge the reporter's integrity and honesty, etc., when it's a given that unsourced material is a columnist's staple, which we accept blandly all the time, as long it's not controversial. It's just tiresome to keep reading all this "What's Heyman's proof?" bullshit. A columnist's job is to be entertaining and somewhat short of libel. But they're often more corerct in their speculations than we're willing to credit. I wasn't jumping down Heyman's throat, I was trying to say "why are we arguing so vociferously over something that may or may not be accurate." Just saying that its a tidbit that should be taken as a "Hmmm, thats interesting. But we'll cross that bridge when we actually get to it." untill more info really comes out on it. Whatever I guess, it looks like we both have the same opinion about the media, just I look at columnist nuggets differently

Bret Sabermetric May 07 2006 02:44 PM

Okay. No problem there.

Frayed Knot May 07 2006 10:08 PM

Heyman may get unnecessarily nasty at times but his sources are generally good and Newsday seems to break a whole lot of stories (or at least gets certain ones earlier than others) and doesn't always get as much credit because I think some tend to treat them as if a crummy suburban paper not on a par with the big city rags. Whatever the case, while he may not name the source, there is a direct quote used which means it would be more than just a bit of shoddy journalism if it were never said. IIRC, the "handshake agreement" story w/Clemens (sourced, I believe, as 'people close to Roger') was intended to illustrate that IF things went south in Houston that Clemens had McClain's word that he could get dealt to the Yanx - not that such a deal was pre-determined to happen. And it made sense for both sides also; Houston got out from under the money if they were no longer chasing a pennant and Roger would get to go somewhere he liked instead of spending his (final?) half-year pitching in meaningless games. McClain and the Astros denied any such agreement existed but that doesn't mean it didn't or just that someone in the Clemens camp didn't want people to believe it did.