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Hiccup on teen mom feature ...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by MCappy, Mar 7, 2011.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    You have a potential career-maker dropped into your lap, and you want to just walk away?

    Is this about sympathy for the subject? Or your discomfort with pursuing the piece?
     
  2. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    There's more to journalism than "making a career" for yourself.....
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I know, I know. Journalists pursue a "calling" and are above such trifling matters.

    In all seriousness, "career-maker" is just shorthand for "momentous story." The bottom line is that these stories don't come along that often. Great journalists close the deal.
     
  4. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    The more I think about this, the more I believe the uncle is the story.

    An adult rapes and impregnates a child family member? How can a newspaper sit on that?
     
  5. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    No, Dick, you don't know. It's not a "calling" for me. It's something I do because I'm damned good at it and I make money from it.

    Who or what defines a "great journalist," anyway? Usually it's other journalists, because the public at large generally doesn't give a shit. You're right in that a "momentous story" may not come along all that often, but who really cares in the grand scheme of things when you're talking about somebody's life, especially that of an innocent child?

    Where's the value in this story as you see it, Dick? What can it possibly tell us that we as readers absolutely need to know? Not want to know because we'll be tickled by the details. Do readers really need to know that the father of this high school kid's baby is her own uncle? I don't necessarily believe so. If the story is about how this girl blocks out the chaos when she pitches, then it stands on its own. MCappy thought it would before he found out about the uncle, so what has changed? We don't necessarily need every last gory detail about that chaos.

    I'm sure that at least a few people in her community already know the truth, but why brand her for life because we mistakenly think this is a detail fit for mass consumption? Further to that, why brand the child? MCappy can leave the kid's name out of the story all he wants, but that story will still exist forever and it won't take much to put two and two together if anybody cares to try.

    MCappy, you may be less of a journalist in the eyes of someone like Dick if you pull back on this, but think for a second about why that even matters. What's more important to you - being a "better" journalist, which as I've said is all subjective anyway, or being a better human being?
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Why write any story then?

    Just cover bake sales and spelling bees.

    I'm not saying that you for sure end up going with the piece in the end. I'm not saying that you don't take other factors into consideration.

    But I am saying that you don't pull back before you've even learned some more.
     
  7. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    It's news if it's separate coverage of the court case that sends the uncle to prison, assuming there's an actual justice system in place there, although it may well be there's a publication ban to protect the identities of the girl and her daughter.

    I think the only way the uncle angle gets into a profile of the girl as an athlete is if he's so obviously a part of the picture - showing up at the field with the toddler to watch the girl pitch, for instance - that it can't possibly be ignored. Even then, there's a huge "yuck" factor for me and most likely I would not proceed with the story at all.
     
  8. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I think we can all agree this is more than a hiccup in a teen mom story.
     
  9. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    maybe they do. in this instance, the question becomes: is your goal to be a 'great journo?' or a human being with a conscience?

    if you apt for the latter, which i would, don't let dick whitman or anyone else make you feel as if this means you can NEVER be considered a great journo. heck, i'd bet dollars to donuts that almpst anyone you'd consider 'great journo' has opted not to run with a potentially 'career altering' story or withheld some piece of info that would titillate but isn't worth the potential consequences.

    i like to think i was a first-rate beat reporter who kicked everyone's butt, more often than not. does that mean everything i knew made it into print? heck, no. and i'l go to my grave knowing what i held back and what i didn't.

    what i didn't hold back is a body of work i'd like to believe speaks for itself. if the info i 'held back' would keep someone from considering me a 'great journo,' i'm good with that.

    no one ever knows what stories you DIDN'T choose to report, only the ones you did. this notion that you cannot have a 'moral compass' and be a 'great journo' is b.s.

    and if anyone believes that it does, fine with me. i can think of far worse epiphets than, 'he could've been a great journo if he just hadn't tried so hard to be a good person instead,' yeah, i'm good with that.
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The "innocent child" is 18.

    And you're dead wrong if you don't think the public cares about great journalism.
     
  11. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Guy admits to being a troll in the first post. Everyone buys what he's selling anyway.
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Yeah, except I never said any of that.

    I think that there is an argument to be made for not running the story.

    I think that if you choose not to even pursue it, though, that decision better come after some serious soul-searching. Because a journalist's first instinct should be that there is nothing shameful about presenting the truth. Of course I backed off stories out of empathy. Suicide-related stories come to mind, first and foremost. Obviously incest would be up there.

    Perhaps I'm bothered by a sense that what is being labeled "sympathy" is really "paternalism."
     
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