Does Rubin have a problem?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4359215

So, how does he cover the Mets now?

 

Rubin's problem is that Omar Minaya is a thin-skinned asshole who chose to behave unprofessionally in a press conference.

I agree, though, that it will probably make for an awkward environment on the beat.

 

That's why a reporter should trust no one.

 

I can't see Rubin as the Mets' beat reporter for much longer, nor do I see anyone ever believing anything that comes out of Omar's mouth again.

 

Here's a related question: Is there anything unprofessional or inappropriate about a beat writer asking one of the owners for advice on how to get a front office job?

 

Well, at least until Omar gets canned.

 

I think it's inappropriate, soliciting career advice from the people you cover.

 

The owner might also think that if he tells the reporter he'll talk him up around the league for a front office job, he'll be able to expect favorable coverage in return. The more I think about it, even if the situation didn't go any farther than Rubin admitted, he probably still has to be yanked from the beat.

 

The new beat reporter for the NYDN:

 

WFW. They are not our friends, they are not our mentors.

Hell, I wouldn't trust someone from the team I covered if they offered me a swell job at double my current money. You quit your paper, they lay you off a month later, just to get you off the beat. Frankly, if the folks I covered liked my work so much, I would feel I wasn't fully doing my job in terms of tough coverage.

This is, of course, one of the growing problems with newspapers nowadays. We still have to "have their backs" by upholding standards and ethics, even when so many clearly do not have our backs in terms of employment, pay and so on.

But I'd say, better to wait for the layoff or buyout before you sniff around the folks you cover for a job.

 

I agree that Rubin was in a fuzzy area here, but Minaya is the one who's looking like the complete ass grasping at straws. And that's pretty hard to do when it's a journalist/general manager who are at odds. Rubin, just like all beat writers, spends A LOT of time around these people. If he asked some of them what it might take to get into the player development side of baseball one day, I don't have a huge problem with that. Obviously, if he was lobbying for a job with the Mets that wouldn't be right. But could Minaya really think that Rubin thought he was going to leap from beat writer into Bernazard's old job and that would slant his coverage of this incident? That's just absurd. Even Minaya knows that. This was just a vindictive attempt at trying to even the score.