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="Frayed Knot"]]
]He didn't misrepresent himself or get the info under false pretenses (things journos often do to get an in)
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I can't let this one stand. As a professional "journo" on decent-sized newspapers for 20 years, I have never once misrepresented myself or get info under false pretenses. An ethical reporter does not do this.
There have been times when I have been working on a story, get to the secne and either find the story is not what we thought it was, or stumble on a different story while on the original assignment.
But we don't lie or misrepresent. We'd get fired. And I'd rather have a long-term job than one story that will be forgotten by the time the editors go into the next day's news meeting.
(jumps off soapbox)
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soupcan
Aug 06 2007 11:09 AM
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Okay then metsguy, in your opinion as an experienced journalist, was the writer who outed the Boss acting ethically or not when he decided to run with the story?
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Vic Sage
Aug 06 2007 11:14 AM
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metsguyinmichigan wrote:
...But we don't lie or misrepresent. We'd get fired. |
Investigative journos who go undercover for stories [like 60 minutes-type hidden camera reports] have to lie and misrepresent. they don't get fired. They get promotions, raises, bonuses and syndication opportunities.
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metsguyinmichigan
Aug 06 2007 11:23 AM
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Vic Sage wrote:
| ="metsguyinmichigan"]...But we don't lie or misrepresent. We'd get fired. |
Investigative journos who go undercover for stories [like 60 minutes-type hidden camera reports] have to lie and misrepresent. they don't get fired. They get promotions, raises, bonuses and syndication opportunities. |
Now don't confuse "info-tainment" like 60 minutes -- or most of your TV news -- with journalism.
In all honesty, I've never had to go "undercover," nor do I ever remember a colleague going undercover. If anything, we bend over backward to make sure people know who we are and why we are there.
I'll have to go back and read the Steinbrenner piece. But if he was saying he was looking to do a story about Joan and was actually looking to see George, that's unethical.
If he was doing a story about Joan, and in the course of doing it came across George and was aghast at his appearance and needed to write about it, then that's OK.
We are supposed to be all about accuracy, and our word has to be golden. The reason we have bylines is not so people can say, "Hey Dave, Nice story." They're supposed to be like an affidavit, where I'm saying "Everything here is true, and I stand behind it with my name." So if we lie to get a story, then everything in the story is immediately suspect.
(Jumps off soapbox again, out of breath)
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metirish
Aug 06 2007 11:35 AM
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metsguy,I believe you when you say that you don't do any underhanded shite to get a story but certainly you also know that plenty of others do.
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Frayed Knot
Aug 06 2007 11:47 AM
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| ]I can't let this one stand. As a professional "journo" on decent-sized newspapers for 20 years, I have never once misrepresented myself or get info under false pretenses. An ethical reporter does not do this |
Now you see I wasn't saying that as an insult to journalists; I think it's sometimes a neccesary part of their job (see Vic's answer).
After all, it's not like Woodward & Bernstein got to the bottom of their story by going up to WH or campaign employees and saying; 'Yeah, we'd like all the records you have slush fund activities because we're working on a story that your entire organization stinks to high heavens'. Nor to I believe that the 'Game of Shadows' duo were pre-announcing their final intentions every step along the way in building the steroids story.
And isn't it a good thing that they didn't?
There are certainly different tactics one would use in one circumstance that wouldn't be kosher in another, and my only point in bringing it up here is that I don't think Lidz took unethical steps to get his story or went nearly as far as some would depending on the type of journalism involved and the subject of the story being persued.
The magazine piece Lidz wrote was mostly speculation about the future chain of command in Yankeeland and it would be leaving out a very important part of the story if he had, in effect, covered up his first-hand observations about George.
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soupcan
Aug 06 2007 12:02 PM
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Frayed Knot wrote:
The magazine piece Lidz wrote was mostly speculation about the future chain of command in Yankeeland and it would be leaving out a very important part of the story if he had, in effect, covered up his first-hand observations about George. |
He opens the article saying that he had been unsuccessful in his attempts to interview George about the Yankee chain of command and then gains entry into his house by saying he is doing a story about George's wife.
He was not there doing an unrelated story and came upon the 'scoop' of George's ill health by accident. He went there to interview George about George and gained entry by misrepresenting why he was there.
I'm not a journalist, I don't know what the ethical barometer is in these instances. It sounds fishy to me but if that's the way these things are done then I guess sick old men need to be careful who they let into their houses.
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Frayed Knot
Aug 06 2007 12:14 PM
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I think you're misinterpreting it.
From the article:
“Great to see you, George,” McEwen says. He introduces me as a writer working on a story and asks about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan."
In other words; this McEwen character introduces who Lidz is ... and then breaks the ice by asking George about Joan, presumably about how she's doing, etc. since he certainly knows her.
That's how I see it at least.
Now Lidz doesn't get to George without McEwen's help and clearly turned to him for that help, but I don't see anywhere that he lied about what he was up to in order to take advantage of an elderly and perhaps confused man.
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Edgy DC
Aug 06 2007 12:15 PM
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]I seek out Tom McEwen, the onetime sports editor of the Tampa Tribune. He and Steinbrenner have been golfing buddies since 1973, the year the Boss bought the Yankees and moved his family from Cleveland to Tampa, Florida. But they haven’t talked to or seen each other in more than a year. “I’ve heard all the speculation,” McEwen says. “I hope he’s okay.”
The 84-year-old McEwen doesn’t get around much anymore himself. Circulation problems in both legs have confined him to a wheelchair. Still, he offers to accompany me to Steinbrenner’s home, which borders the Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in downtown Tampa. “I don’t care if George gets mad,” he says. “At this age, what can he do to me?” So on a bright, cloudless day in June, we pull up to the Steinbrenner compound, a stucco palace with thick white columns. |
Seems to me that (1) McEwan is taking responsiblity for any breach of propriety here, and (2) he had concerns of his own for his friend, felt Steinbrenner would be better served by the truth (which the corporation is apparently not offering up) and trusted this journalist to publish that truth in a responsible manner, which he did.
Another thing here is that I think soup is inadvertantly misreading
| ]“Great to see you, George,” McEwen says. He introduces me as a writer working on a story and asks about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan. |
as
| ]“Great to see you, George,” McEwen says. He introduces me as a writer working on a story... about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan. |
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Edgy DC
Aug 06 2007 12:16 PM
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Scooped.
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soupcan
Aug 06 2007 12:17 PM
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="Frayed Knot"]I think you're misinterpreting it.
From the article:
“Great to see you, George,” McEwen says. He introduces me as a writer working on a story and asks about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan."
In other words; this McEwen character introduces who Lidz is ... and then breaks the ice by asking George about Joan, presumably about how she's doing, etc. since he certainly knows her.
That's how I see it at least. |
You are correct - I misread that as 'He introduces me as a writer working on a story about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan.'
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metsguyinmichigan
Aug 06 2007 12:27 PM
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="soupcan"]="Frayed Knot"]I think you're misinterpreting it.
From the article:
“Great to see you, George,” McEwen says. He introduces me as a writer working on a story and asks about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan."
In other words; this McEwen character introduces who Lidz is ... and then breaks the ice by asking George about Joan, presumably about how she's doing, etc. since he certainly knows her.
That's how I see it at least. |
You are correct - I misread that as 'He introduces me as a writer working on a story about Steinbrenner’s wife, Joan.' |
There you go. Sounds legit to me.
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G-Fafif
Aug 06 2007 01:22 PM
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If one can use the monolithic term "the media" for the purpose of this conversation, it's then accurate to say the media have been played like suckers by Steinbrenner for 35 years. They decided long ago that every burp this man manufactured was news, and if he didn't burp, that that was bigger news. This went way beyond covering a baseball team or the transactions the general manager might make. The media were the ones who stalked Steinbrenner coming into and going out of Yankee Stadium. They're the ones who raised his profile and the profile of his previously dormant franchise, that kept his and the Yankees' profile insanely high during what should have been their non-descript middling or worse years between dynasties. Steinbrenner indulged them and led them in their chase every step of the way. I believe this, as much as any on-field success, is why they are the financial juggernaut they are. George Steinbrenner understood there was no such thing as bad publicity.
Then the media (staying monolithic for a moment longer) write or say things like "can you believe how much attention this guy gets? It's crazy!" It's a variation on the media saying/writing, "New York is a tough place to play what with the way the media covers sports," as if it were an organic phenomenon that had no willing practitioners. I don't remember sports in New York being treated in nearly as circuslike or zooish a fashion before Steinbrenner implicitly or explicitly invited the media to pump up the importance of every little utterance he made. He has attracted more attention to himself since 1973 than the ownerships of every other professional sports team in New York combined.
So it's no wonder that it's come to this, the need for a writer to wheedle a way in to see if George is really still George, to make a big deal that an old man reportedly in a declining state is indeed an old man in a declining state. He created them as much as they perpetuated him.
Regarding McEwen, I remember him well from my college days in Tampa. He was a laughable columnist in that way that the main guy in a small market can be, puffing up everybody or everything that ever happened there beyond reason, but a legitimate champion of promoting the Bay Area sporting scene (banged the drums hard to get an NFL expansion franchise, for example) and by all counts an honorable sort.
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metsguyinmichigan
Aug 09 2007 12:38 PM
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From Jon Heyman:
"• I called for a moratorium on hounding George Steinbrenner a little more than a year ago, and I am calling for the same now. Quite obviously, Franz Lidz, formerly of SI, wasn't listening. Journalistically speaking, I don't believe Lidz of Portfolio magazine did anything wrong by going to Steinbrenner's house to interview him and finding the Boss to be in and out. But now, please, it's time to leave Steinbrenner, a fading septuagenarian, alone."
A) Why should anyone give even a baby rat's ass about a moratorium called by Jon Heyman?
B) If, in fact, Steinbrenner is a "fading septuagenarian" then at least let the team acknowledge it. The fans -- and the taxpayers footing a big chunk of the bill for the stadium the fading one is getting -- should be allowed to know if the guy is healthy or a fugure head. Heyman himself makes reference to Steinbrenner making decisions on the manager. Is the guy with it or not?
The bottom line is that if the guy is battling dementia, the team needs to be honest about it.
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