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At what point should you as a reporter point out the wrong call was made?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Spartan Squad, Mar 25, 2014.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Mmmm hmmm. Yeah. I'm sure everyone will just take the reporter's word for it. He's right.

    This is really dumb to even be discussing.
     
  2. SnarkShark

    SnarkShark Well-Known Member

    Agreed. The idiocy of not reporting your own observations is baffling.
     
  3. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Only a bad reporter thrusts himself into a game story.

    You are there as an impartial observer. You cannot become a referee.

    Especially in your own game story.
     
  4. sportsed

    sportsed Member

    Here's another situation with a similar dilemma: I was standing on the sidelines while covering a high school football game between two local small-school powers with unbeaten records when, late in the fourth quarter, the visiting team scored the go-ahead touchdown. After quickly scribbling down notes about the play, I glanced up to the scoreboard to note the time of the score when I saw that the clock had continued to run. No one -- not the game officials, not the coaching staff, not even the fans in the stands -- seemed to notice.

    I could have alerted the side judge, who was standing nearby me, but didn't. Instead, I watched as valuable time ticked away, which, as memory serves, was about 20 seconds before the clock operator noticed too. The clock was never wound back, just simply stopped. The PAT was quickly converted, and there was then little more than a minute in the game as the home team faced the difficult task of trying to score against the area's best defense.

    I remember thinking that my silence had cost one team not only the game and a perfect record, but also impacted its eventual playoff seeding. Turns out that I might have done just that, but it wasn't the home team.

    Turns out, the home team rebounded to score a quick touchdown to regain the lead, and the visiting team then had to scramble to mount a last-minute drive of its own. It just about did that, reaching the red zone before time expired.

    It was the ultimate damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. Had I spoken up, I might have impacted the outcome of the game. Had I kept quite, I might have impacted the outcome of the game. In the end, I could only protect my journalistic integrity, though one way or the other I would surely be able to debate whether I had made the correct decision no matter what I had done.
     
  5. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    What is so difficult to understand about spnited's immortal words: "We are not the story. We are the story tellers."
     
  6. ColdCat

    ColdCat Well-Known Member

    I've covered two basketball games where the scoreboard showed the wrong score at the end. One a neutral site game where the designated home team scored and they put up two points for the away team, the other where a player hit a 3-pointer, the ref signaled 3 and the scoreboard op added 2. Neither ended up being a close game, but I wouldn't have said anything to the ref if it was. Coach doesn't notice, that's their problem.
    I've seen a situation similar to sportsed's. Clock operator for some reason decides to run the clock on a PAT early in the 4th. no one notices. Other team gets to the 5 before the clock runs out, loses by 4.
    Maybe Spartan can clarify how good a look he got at the play, but often when I cover high school tennis I have to take pictures too, so I'm standing on the court and often just about where a line judge would be standing.
     
  7. SnarkShark

    SnarkShark Well-Known Member

    I'm not saying you should write that a close play at first base or a block/charge foul in basketball were incorrect.

    I specifically said "egregious" for a reason. All of my examples fit into that category. If one of those plays impacted the result, and you don't report what you saw, you're not telling the true story of the game.
     
  8. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

  9. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    You should not cheer, either.
     
  10. Guy_Incognito

    Guy_Incognito Well-Known Member

    I can't find it on Google, but didn't a reporter once report a golf penalty in a major?
     
  11. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    It wasn't that long ago that MLB used sports writers as official scorers.

    Sure, they couldn't affect outcomes, but they could affect an awful lot.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure about that, but I do know Michael Bamberger of SI got Michelle Wie disqualified from her professional LPGA debut for an illegal drop a day earlier.
     
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