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

I'm failing to see your point.

Egregiously bad officiating calls are news. Period.

 

Nothing like arguing against a point nobody is making. We're not talking about close calls. We're talking about calls that are obviously wrong. Like the examples I listed.

For an example, please tell us how you would have handled those.

 

Of all your examples, the only one worth bothering with and writing about is the basketball one because of the scene it caused. If you only knew how ridiculous you sound by declaring flat-out that you're right and the umpire was wrong on a play at the plate.

In the tennis example you have the added bonus of essentially calling one player a cheater, again with no proof other than what you "clearly" saw. Mmmm hmmmm.

 

The ball wasn't even at the catcher yet when he touched the plate. He ruled he didn't touch the plate. I saw him touch the plate. Both coaches said he touched the plate. Everyone in the stadium saw he touched the plate.

The hockey high stick knocked the best player out of the game. Stick hit his throat and cut him. The team that committed the infraction went on to score three unanswered goals to win.

The football player didn't just barely step out. It wasn't his toe, it wasn't half of his foot. His entire foot was out and there was a few inches of white in between.

If you can't trust your own eyes, you might as well just sit in the office and take agate scores, because you are of no value.

 

It's fun to be young and idealistic and always right. I used to be that.

 

Enlighten me, then. How would you have handled all of those scenarios?

 

I don't even acknowledge that they are "scenarios" to be "handled." You thought the ump blew a call. Congratulations, you're like 10 million fanbois and moms.

If you want to talk to someone about the high-sticking that put the kid out of the game, if he wants to call out the refs, that's fine. The other stuff is just nonsense unless you can put the video on the Web next to your story.

 

Jesus. The idiocy of your statement is almost too much to comprehend.

By reporting what happened, I'm a fanboy? I hope you never cover a protest or anything where you would have to use observations to craft a story. Sorry, can't report on the violence during this protest because the mayor or police commissioner didn't comment on it.

 

Good analogy!

Piss and vinegar are so humorous to see in the kids. But, really, I swear to you, a violent political protest and a self-officiated high school tennis match are in fact different circumstances.

 

My favorite part of this board is when supposedly older guys with no known credentials talk down to others, assuming they are young, naive and dumb because they disagree with them.

Don't like the protest analogy? I didn't say it was equivalent to a tennis match. What I did, oh wise oracle of sports reporting, is present an extreme example of your ridiculous line of thinking that reporters shouldn't report what they see.

 

You observe and report the actions of those involved. Instead of writing than an official chunked a call, write that an official's decision prompted [whatever reaction it prompted -- manager and coach getting ejected after arguing about it, player having to be restrained while arguing the call, etc.].

Reporting on the actions of those involved in a story ... not really difficult or complex.

In the situations described, how do you know there weren't other missed calls, or that you didn't miss something equally heinous?

 

That can be said about any observation in the process of covering a game or any news event. You report what you observe. If you didn't observe it, you can't report it.

You don't have to say "the official blew the call." For example, on the basketball scenario, you can say "Coach X was ejected after contesting a basket that was counted by the referees, even though the ball clearly did not go through the hoop."

Are we not in the interest of telling the truth? Pussyfooting around it, like we didn't know what actually happened is gutless and counterproductive to reporting the truth. Actually reporting what happened is being "objective," not the other way around.