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AP, Ben Walker and the Yankees' advance scouting report

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by cake in the rain, Jun 15, 2007.

  1. hankschu

    hankschu Member

    Similiar thing happened years ago at the Oakland Tribune. Warriors player checked out of the team hotel and left behind his playbook. Maid found it and handed it to our Warriors beat writer, thinking he was part of the team. He actually asked Don Nelson's permission to run the contents. Nelson said to go ahead because the Warriors weren't going to win or lose based on the world knowing that Clyde Drexler can't go to his left.
     
  2. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    i would be surprised if ben walker did anything unethical. he's a solid guy.

    this isn't quite the same but i was covering an NFL training camp a few years ago and in the main building where players slept and reporters worked there were several copies of some silly NFL provided guide for how to deal with the media. it contained tid bits like 'speak in cliches.' i put some of that stuff in my notebook and it moved on the wire. ESPN put some of that stuff on the sports center in the 30 seconds before the show was over, maybe in the 'did you know' segment. the PR intern yelled at me the next day but i said if it's sitting in a table in the lobby it's fair game. he didn't have any good response.
     
  3. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member


    Which would delight the 30 or so football coaches in the reading audience who could make any sense of it.
     
  4. linotype

    linotype Well-Known Member

    This whole situation sort of reminds me of what happened a few years ago in Texas:

    The Chronicle of Higher Education
    From the issue dated September 20, 1996

    SIDELINES
    U. of Texas Protects Its Football Playbook From Prying Eyes

    From the world of college football comes this weighty constitutional query: Is the playbook of a team at a state-supported institution subject to open-records statutes?

    Michael A. Kelley, an alumnus of Texas A&M University, posed this question last month in a letter to Robert M. Berdahl, president of the University of Texas at Austin, requesting photocopies of the football team's offensive plays. The request was made under the Texas Public Information Act.

    Mr. Kelley, 28, a part-time student at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the university, says he made the request simply to make a point -- that universities' athletic expenditures should be open to public scrutiny.

    Mr. Berdahl responded with a tongue-in-cheek press release: "Most Texans know of the flag that flew at the battle of Gonzales in 1835. That flag had a picture of a cannon on it, and the words, 'Come and Take It.' If we have to update that flag with a picture of the U.T. playbook, I'm prepared to do that."

    Before the state's finest legal minds could take up the issue, Mr. Kelley dropped his request, saying that it might become a liability in his job as a state legislator's assistant.

    "I didn't want anyone to think I was targeting the University of Texas," he says, though he admits preferring the Aggies of his alma mater to the Longhorns of U.T.
     
  5. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    A PR intern yelled at you? Not so sure how I'd react to something like that but it probably wouldn't be pleasant.

    We did a scouting report story this year on the "home" team, provided by the assistant of a team it had played. Home team wasn't terribly happy. Some interesting info, it made for a good story.
     
  6. HoopsMcCann

    HoopsMcCann Active Member

    years ago covering college basketball, the head coach let me in on all the scouting and let me write anything i wanted, provided it came out after the teams played --- which was better because in the story i was able to point out how and why they did what htey did in the game. anyway, it was against a conference opponent and one they could even play in the conference tournament. when i asked the the head coach, who is probably the best in-game coach i've ever seen, about allowing all this out here, he said, 'there are two types of coaches, the ones who try to out-trick people and the one who try to out-execute people. everyone knows what i'm going to do, they just can't stop it.' that's why he won nearly 500 games and had a ring
     
  7. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    moddy, i figured the kid was just doing his job. and so was i, as i explained to him. maybe the kid learned something and if ever gets to be a PR director will understand that if players leave a publication out in the open in the same area that media congregate, it's fair game.
     
  8. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    He ought to learn - real fucking early - not to yell at writers. I wouldn't stand for that from a real PR person let alone an intern. And I have nothing against interns. I was one myself for a long time. Still.
     
  9. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    The SID on my beat yells at writers on occasion. Of course, the former football coach used to yell at him every day, so maybe he has a lot of rage to get out of his system.
     
  10. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    I had an SID do it years ago and he was quite surprised when I yelled back, made it clear that it was unacceptable for him to even thinking about yelling at me and went straight to the AD and explained why. The AD assured me it would never happen again and it didn't. The SID wasn't in the business much longer and has actually gone on to make a terrific living in private business. We talked about it all later, him apologizing well after it was over or an apology was necessary. He said that was the day that made him realize he wasn't cut out for that business. Coaches and administrators up his ass all the time. He takes it out on one of us (in this case me).
     
  11. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    Walk into an NBA locker room before a game and you'll see all kinds of plays diagrammed on the chalkboards. Most of us can't make much sense out of it, anyway.
     
  12. Joe Bloggs

    Joe Bloggs Member

    If there is a god, then the Diamondbacks will refuse to credential Ben Walker to Chase Field. And maybe some other teams could follow suit too.
     
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