Browns beat writer booted over tweet

BLOGS!!!!!

 

Yes, if you call one of your main coverage figures "pathetic" in a public way, you are absolutely disqualified from doing that beat. Not only does it cash in any notion that the information you bring a reader can be fully trusted, it's just unprofessional, whether it's the journalism profession or dozens of other professions. It's sad that popping off can be seen as edgy or somesuch shit.

And alphabets, of course everyone has individual beliefs that shape their lives, but that doesn't mean you can't subsume that to doing your job, whether it's being an evenhanded reporter or a doctor who will do his best to make sure everyone he treats gets better, whether he likes the person or not.

Basic professionalism. Has it been lost, for crissakes?

 

Christ, he made a mistake. He wasn't doing this to seem edgy. He was offering an honest opinion in what he mistakenly thought was a private manner.

I know other reporters who have done the same. They meant to send a DM or an IM or a text message or something else and it ends up as a tweet. It happens. It's just unfortunate that this inadvertent tweet contained something inflammatory.

To throw an entire career away for one mistake? Crazy. Especially for a guy who has covered the team (very well) for maybe 25, 30 years?

I wonder if the bosses didn't have it in for him before this, and this situation gave them a convenient excuse.

 

Doesn't matter. It's the same as when someone inserts silly type into a story in print. It hits the street, the perpetrator is gone, even if the person had a spotless record. It's that big of a mistake, and why people don't realize that Twitter is the equivalent of a paper hitting the street, and you have to be careful, even more so with the IM possibility; a responsible journalist makes sure his communication system doesn't allow that to happen.

 

So a writer that speaks honestly with his readers can't be fully "trusted"? Instead writers should hide their biases? Not the way I'd prefer to be treated as a reader. To the extent his belief effects his coverage, it will do so whether disclosed or not. The only way to fairly judge his coverage is to know about.

Doctor:making people better=/=journalist:evenhandedness. Making people better is a end, not a means. Evenhandedness is a means (albeit, in my opinion, a misguided one as most journalists conceptualize it), not a end.

 

Yep, you put your biases aside. It's professionalism. What the reporter thinks doesn't matter. The facts matter. It's about the news, not the reporter. I frankly could give a good goddamn what a reporter thinks. I care that he brings me the facts and all sides, and does it in a compelling way.

What should the guy's lede be: "The pathetic Browns owner Randy Lerner announced that he is looking for minority-share owners. About fucking time."

 

Just make sure you don't do that when you're working at The Plain Dealer.

 

Welcome to 1988.

Hey, that's what we all learned in JO school, but the world just isn't like that anymore.

 

How is the new style of journalism working out?

 

Here's the problem: He IS biased. Maybe he can set it aside, maybe he can't. Since, as a reader, I can't look into his head, I'm best off having all available information and evaluating his coverage from there.

Further, I'm not even sure I'm willing to cede this as bias. I want not just facts, but an accurate portrayal of the "truth". Maybe Lerner is, truly, pathetic. Perhaps he could have used more professional language. And perhaps you'd like to see more proof (show, don't tell). But bringing "all sides" doesn't mean giving them equal weight if they don't deserve it. Pathetic is different only in degrees from saying someone is fast, slow, tall, short, smart, dumb, etc. Would you suggest a beat writer can't call someone fast unless he has a quote from someone saying so? Or will you admit there are some circumstances when a writer can synthesize facts and draw a conclusion for the reader?

 

Do you really think calling someone fast is equivalent to calling someone pathetic?

 

No longer cover the Browns but get to keep your job? Sounds more like a promotion!

Ba-dum, bum.