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'I Covered the Braves for a newspaper that didn't exist'

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Steak Snabler, Oct 5, 2016.

  1. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I am certain there are a great many people who have attended a team's games with a media credential for an entire season and didn't produce anything that was collectively as good as this one story.

    But he blew deadline by a decade plus.
     
  2. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I was once told that if I was 15 minutes late, I may as well be 15 years late. Turns out it was true.
     
    PaperClip529, Batman, UPChip and 3 others like this.
  3. Old Time Hockey

    Old Time Hockey Active Member

    I covered a lot of stuff for papers that don't exist any more. Does that count?
     
    Padre, Ace and Steak Snabler like this.
  4. KJIM

    KJIM Well-Known Member

    I wonder if, at the time, the other journalists suspected it and/or said anything to Braves management.

    A team I covered had a pair of "reporters" who attended every game and every event, collecting a new media guide every time, scarfing food, etc. The radio guy's mic had a flag for a radio station that had gone out of business. The other "worked" for an overseas publication, his credential said, but none of us on real deadlines could find out a thing about it, though we looked.

    Team management was aware of the duo -- even referred to them with the nickname the regulars had tagged them -- but didn't seem concerned that neither's credential appeared to be legit. They were there for years and years.

    Those guys got in the way of the legit working media all the time. Wonder if here Braves management knew or suspected and they just didn't think he was worth the effort.
     
  5. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    There was a guy in L.A. who did work for a legit newspaper, but he didn't cover the Dodgers. He covered the dining room. He would show up every day right when the food service began. He would eat and gab with whoever sat with him. Then just before game time, he would fill his plate again. When he was done, he sat in a press seat, grabbed a hot dog in the sixth inning then left the stadium. Never took a note, never wrote a word.
     
    dixiehack and Alma like this.
  6. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Anybody remember the guy near NYC who had a non-existent TV show and got regularly credentialed for the Knicks? He'd charge people to hold the camera or other things so they could get in. We discussed it here years ago. He eventually got charged for something, maybe it was tax evasion by the feds.
     
  7. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    Kind of reminds me of buying the Islanders.
     
  8. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    I didn't know they had the Google machines inside Club Fed, John Spano.
     
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    His name was Mark Sabia. His outfit was "Westchester Cable Services." He was a staple around all the NY teams for a few years. He always had a guy with him holding a camera and he had a big microphone. He was the king of the black button down shirt. He showed up at Shea one year for opening day and he was arrested. The DA hit him with a bunch of felony charges, but I think it was eventually pled out as a misdemeanor. I never quite figured out what the truth was with him. I got the sense that there had once been something semi-legit there, but for years he had been covering locker rooms and clubhouses with a camera man for no real reason.
     
    Alma likes this.
  10. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    We've got plenty of those at my facility. During events we'll serve lunch at, say, 11 a.m., and there's always guys who start lining up at 10:45 or earlier. Those are the ones that, by and large, aren't doing squat. And of course they've been here for years.

    But now that I'm on "the other side," I can see kind of a dilemma. A lot of major events, mine included, like to say they credential 800 media from 35 states and 12 countries or whathaveyou. Well, if you really wanted to trim the fat and get rid of all the do-nothing gang, you could. But then maybe you've got 600 media, and at some point a high-level executive here sees the credential count and wonders what happened to cause our media count to drop by 25 percent. You could tell him/her that you've actually lost nothing in terms of coverage (and even saved a few grand in the media dining room!), but that doesn't matter. It's about being able to tout that big media count. So the credentials manager continues to hold his nose and keep the bogus guys rolling.
     
  11. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    That's interesting, playthrough.

    What stuns me about this is no one from the Braves ever thought, "What's this guy writing about us?"
     
  12. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Yeah, in the old days teams used to set out a daily clips packet and I'm pretty sure the Braves were one of them. Did anybody stop and wonder, "How come there's never anything in there from this guy?"
     
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