Oregonian taking a lot of heat from readers for this one. What do you think?

Am I reading this correctly, that if the guy had done the required paperwork update this never would have come up?

 

I get a kick out of the fact people think getting the documentation and trying to contact people now means we're "sitting on it." Were they supposed to do a BREAKING NEWS brief that day and then follow-up as news trickled in?

 

That's how I read it.

 

I'm guessing the incident and his admission would have come up because they would have been on file and would have been discovered during the background check.
The way I read it, the reporter did the normal background check which brought up the failure to file the paperwork, which led to the discovery of why the guy needed to file the paperwork.

 

Yeah, that's the aspect that really disturbs me. I think OSU really dropped the ball on this one by not doing anything about him. Maybe they were hoping no one would check until after Heimlich was in the majors, if then? But it sure sounds like no one outside of the school and law enforcement would have known if Heimlich had done the annual notice.

 

I dunno. It's a tough call. He was underage when it happened and I'm not convinced he's a danger to others, so there's not really any public interest being served by publicizing it. I wouldn't disagree too strongly with anyone who went the other way.

 

I'd like to circle back to a few things in the profile I found interesting. Had some thoughts about it...

First, the 2nd graf of the story:

A Benton County sheriff's sergeant, on a sweep to track down sex offenders who let their registrations lapse, located one at Gill Coliseum, the heart of Oregon State's bucolic campus. It was Luke Heimlich, the ace left-hander who statistically is the nation's best pitcher and is among the top prospects in next week's Major League Baseball draft.

This line is overwrought and pretentious. As you read later in the story, some cop cited Heimlich there; he doesn't actually live in the Coliseum. "Bucolic" is a ridiculous word to use anyway, but here it's a peculiar purpose pitch right out of a 48 Hours voiceover: In the heart of this sleepy campus lurks a sex offender.

****

The victim's mother said she does not keep tabs on Heimlich but knows he's one of the top players in the United States. She said her daughter was young enough that "she doesn't really remember everything that happened," but nonetheless has been ostracized from family events because most members of the Heimlich family have sided with Luke.

I read that and thought, huh? Why? Why would the family side with Luke?

 

The timing is unfortunate - considering the conviction happened five years ago when both were juveniles, but the Oregonian has a troubled history when it comes to sitting on stories of sexual misconduct of public figures. They sat on stories about former Sen. Bob Packwood and former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and got burned both times by other news outlets.
I don't know where you "draw the line" on public figures who were juvenile offenders, High school athletes? Valedictorians? Lottery winners?

Oregon State finally gets some national attention for its baseball program and it's this...

 

Finally??? Do you actually live in Oregon or is that just your name? Oregon won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007. I'd say they've had some pretty damn good attention over the years.

 

It was a sarcastic comment based mostly on them being under the radar considering the've been the no. 1 team for the last couple of months. Obviously, this is a story. I honestly don't know how I'd handle it if I was the player. If this was a family thing kept hush, hush for the victim's sake, do you bring it up? At what point, when you're being recruited? When you suddenly have some success and are being talked about as a first round pick?

 

We got similar criticism in Fort Collins when Kelly and I broke the story about CSU's internal investigation into Eustachy creating a culture of fear and intimidation. CSU was in the midst of an impressive run with only 7 players, so CSU fans were irate (no surprise, we got zero criticism from folks outside of CSU). Sitting on the story would be irresponsible. So would publishing before you have all of the pieces. As journalists, we don't set out to drop bombs, we just report the stories, whatever they are, as they come. The Oregonian did the right thing. So did the Tulsa World with the Dede Westbrook story.

 

Keep telling yourself those old trite journalism lies your college profs taught you if it helps you sleep at night. This wasn't about responsibility or doing the right thing. This was about dollar signs, clicks, etc. Anything else is bullshit. They got it first and by God they were going to tell it first.