'How Sports Illustrated Botched the Michael Sam Story'

What is the "public interest" in this?

 

Michael Sam was making a business decision to announce his homosexuality to ESPN and the New York Times. He hired a public relations firm to come up with and execute the strategy.

And I would support a business decision, in return, to short-circuit my competitors' role.

 

Michael Sam is gay.

The public finds this interesting.

 

Yeah.

Dick, in this case it sounds like your argument is that SI should have gotten this news out an hour earlier on a Sunday night than the Times and ESPN did.

To what purpose?

 

Exactly. The public keeps saying it's no big deal, and the media types keep blowing it up.

Naughty bits!

 

The public finds Kate Upton's tits interesting.

Would you publish photos of them against her wishes?

 

Yeah. The public totally turned away from this story when it broke. No desire to hear anything about it. OK then.

 

How you can say this, yet dispute my contention that you'd be acting solely out of self interest, is beyond me.

 

You're not helping your point here, man.

 

I'm not disputing your contention.

I'm disputing that there's anything wrong with it.

We break news. That's what we do. Now, that doesn't mean it's always appropriate to break news. It's a balancing act. I don't break Michael Sam's homosexuality in October. I don't break it in January. I break it shortly before the NYT and ESPN do, though. Self-interest? I suppose. I'd call it doing my job.

Also, this is a really fine distinction, but what you're actually breaking is the fact that he'll be announcing his homosexuality. So the headline wouldn't be, "Sam is gay." It would be, "Sam to announce that he's gay."

 

Hey, some lawyers chase ambulances, too.

Whatever it takes, right?

 

Not this one.

Regardless, I'm never really sure of your point when you go down this road. That I apparently think that the legal profession is perfect? I don't. It has lots of systemic problems, like any profession. Nothing that is not some great zinger you can spring on me.