i'm without speech

While you make good points in several areas, I will have to disagree overall. I just don't find it exhilerating to beat someone on a story by 20 minutes. Maybe you do but to me, in the new information age, I don't. It's not even a scoop in my opinion. It's like having a conversation with someone and saying "I said it first".

I think the whole Glaze article was shameless self promotion, and I couldn't really give a crap how he got his "big scoop" much less want to know the details of his cellphone running out of battery life or his foot massage. It was so bad I quit about half way into it.

The only time I feel that exhileration is when I break a story that no one has anywhere in the world and it makes it big. That's a very rare occurance. It used to be common for the newspaper business but people like to talk and it hardly happens any more. It used to be what gave us credibility but now because we're the turtle and the internet is the hare, we're way behind and can't keep up.

Ragu nailed it. Great, Glaze got the story 9 minutes faster than the next guy the source called. Whooped-De-Doo-Dah. Maybe I'm being pescimistic but it hardly seemed like such a big scoop to me. Sure it was a big story but everyone in the country knew it was going to be the Jets or the Bucs. Great, he found out it was the Jets first and put it up on this website faster than anyone else.

Give him a Pulitzer for such fine reporting. Whatever.

 

This was much bigger than any of the stories you mentioned...

 

This is where I disagree. How do you know the same source called other outlets after Glazer? It seemed like forever until ESPN got a story up on its site. Even longer for Michael Smith to "confirm" the deal. Glazer breaking the story forced everyone else to react.

Smith was saying earlier the same day that the Jets weren't a possibility. I'm not convinced this deal was even on ESPN's radar. I agree, if ESPN had a confirming source -- and a legitimate one -- and had the story up a bit behind Glazer, then that's no big deal. But for how big this story was, and for how many resources ESPN devoted to it, this was an ass-kicking.

 

As much as I hate the self-congratulatory column, this was one of the biggest ass-kickings in recent memory. While ESPN will sometimes credit newspapers, they almost never credit SI, Sportsline or Fox Sports. For them to do that here was a clear admission of defeat.

I was watching ESPN almost all night that night and Mort was on talking about the trade to the Bucs within the hour of the trade to the Jets.

 

You're WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Just kidding.)

 

The information age is definitely changing "scoops." Outlets on my beat stand there every day at practice with their recorders in one hand and blackberries in the other, posting the important things people say as they're saying them and acting like it's a scoop.

It's not a fucking scoop to be the first person posting quotes from print-only interview sessions. It's just not.

Congratulations, Mavis Beacon, but it's not a scoop.

 

Big Ragu, you are right this time. It's a different age, and the way information circulates nobody gives a crap who got the "scoop" first.

You want to know where I heard it first? On ESPN. That's right. I wasn't reading FOX.com and Jay Glazer's ugly mug to read it. I was sitting on my couch when ESPN cut into a segment to say the deal was done. Did I care where they got their information? No. What I did care about is that they brought me the information, and if they did mention FOX.com or "the Glazemeister" I didn't even process it much less think 'wow, that guy SCOOPED them!' ... My mind was too busy thinking about the impact of Favre to the Jets and I was listening to ESPN give me the details.

That said, SF, I totally understand your thoughts about good reporting, scoops, etc. But those days are long gone. We live in a time when a single text message can send out information to hundreds of people in a milisecond. The only time I really consider anything a scoop any more is when one source has it the morning I wake up, whether it be a newspaper or a TV station, and all the other sources are just finding out. I wish it were different but times have changed.

No Scoop for You, Mr. Glaze!