Browns beat writer booted over tweet

The difference is the joke headlines are just that, jokes. This is, apparently, Grossi's opinion of Lerner. If it were just a joke and not his real opinion of Lerner, that would change my argument, but I have seen no indications that's the case.

Don't you think what a report thinks influences what he reports?

 

But calling someone "pathetic" isn't critical coverage; it's shallow and insulting at the same time.

 

If you're refuse to write something that will offend your sources, you're not going to be much good as a reporter, either.

 

Completely agree. I have much more trouble with a reporter saying learning more about a team isn't his job than I do a reporter developing an opinion about a team he should be an expert on.

 

The best revenge is making $80k and doing a really, really half-assed job of covering preps or whatever they assign you. That's what I'd do.

 

I'm sure that's what BB Bobcat meant.

All he's trying to say is that it's a good idea not to insult people who you have to deal with on a regular basis. It's simple, really. It's not a matter of holding back or sugarcoating the truth. It's a matter of holding back your opinions so you don't get on the wrong side of a crucial source for something as trivial as a dumb tweet.

 

Grossi did a poor job of fleshing out his opinion (ignoring for a moment, whether he meant it for mass consumption). I guess, I just don't think that's what most people had a problem with. If he had conveyed the same thought in several tweets -- with examples and a more in-depth explanation -- would those who objects to what he did change their mind?

 

But there's the problem. There's what got him demoted. He issued that opinion without backing it up factually. If he provides examples, I doubt this thread exists. Lerner can bitch until he's blue in the fact then, and the reporter's just doing what he does -- presenting an opinion backed by something.

 

Read Mike Reiss' Patriots blog on ESPNBoston.com and then try to tell me this whole objective, unbiased style you call "1988" is a lost art.

 

Based on this thread (and many others), I'm wondering exactly what screwed-up brand of journalism is being taught in J-schools these days.

If all of you obviously young blogger boys who have posted in this thread are sincerely curious about the role objectivity -- or at the very least, the appearance thereof -- plays in the pursuit of journalistic excellence, then you have been taught this craft by a total fucking moron. You should ask for your tuition dollars back, forthwith.

It's all about credibility with your "customers," you know, the readers. If you are a beat reporter and the people who read your reporting know up front that you think a certain subject is "pathetic" or "a dumbass" or any other insulting descriptive term, it will color their perceptions of you and cause them to disregard your work as inherently biased. In a competitive environment like an NFL beat, that can be enough to tilt the advantage to your rival paper, radio station, website or TV affiliate.

What's really sad, though, is that anyone who is working as a journalist should know this already. A veteran reporter like Grossi certainly should've. Intentional or not, he fucked up in a very public way and he's paying for it.

 

If beat writers started to call NFL owners pathetic, or insert their own opinion without providing any support, how many more readers would that draw in, and how much more revenue would the paper earn?

 

I think there's a big difference between fairly reporting something that a source won't like, and flat-out insulting him for no good reason. Honestly, I think most sources get that too. I believe a source would understand a little better when you are reasonably doing your job by reporting negative things than when you are just taking gratuitous shots.