Have you ever been thrown under the bus by a team you cover?

How did you respond?

Privately? Publicly? Not at all?

Did you do more investigation to double check you were right, even though you knew you got the story right the first time?

I need some advice here. No time for jokes.

 

No offense, but you need to be more specific.

 

my vast experience has been that if you cover a team well and ultimately write a well-researched, negative but fair piece, the club and its players won't throw you under the bus. 8) 8) 8)

more specifics would be helpful, though.

 

OK, let's say the team puts it out there in public that one of your stories is no good, using some pretty mean adjectives that I can't (for anonymity's sake) repeat. Is this enough info?

 

yes, being right and standing by your story is essential. as is to keep showing up.

 

How, specifically, should one stick to one's guns though? Confront them? Write a follow-up about it, mentioning the controversy (via blog, etc)? Or is just showing up the next time and going about one's normal business enough?

 

have your managing ed or sports ed call the top management person or coach to let him know you stand by the story. and keep showing up and doing your job. it's part of being a professional.

and rest assured, the players know the deal. if you are a regular around the team, you get a rep pretty fast. players give one another a head's up about which reporters they can trust.

 

They make an innuendo that there's much more going on. Which the public of course will buy.
But based on many off the record comments prior, I stick by my story. It's pretty hard to prove a negative though, that there is absolutely nothing else going on. A real quandry now that I think about it...

 

still awfully vague. is it management throwing you under? ??? ??? ???