Is Doyel dissing Reilly here?

Really? Then why do all the networks put microphones on the players?

 

I think that's a different situation. Networks have to ask permission for that.
Here's another one that caused a flap many years ago.
Downtrodden hockey teams plays a great game and beats the dynasty team. Writers are standing outside the locker room after the game as the giddy players are coming off the ice. They are whooping it up and guys are shouting. "Way to go boys... fuck the Oilers ... fuck Gretzky ... Gretzky's a fag."
Metro beat guy writes that hometown players called The Great One a homosexual.
What do you think about that one?

 

The issue becomes more pronounced the lower you get on the sports totem pole.

Guys in the NBA or whatever professional sport, they already live in fish bowls. They understand that--especially now in the blog era, where nothing seems out of bounds. Bill Simmons blogs about what Charles Oakley and Michael Jordan are saying to their entourages at a Vegas night club, etc. So it has become common practice for everyone with a forum.

Then you drop to colleges, where that kind of culture is lessened somewhat, but certainly pervasive as Doyel and even Reilly in his latest column "Majoring in Cyberheckling," prove.

Then you get to preps, where I really encountered the problem. The coach of a football team preaches public humility and respect for opponents to his players, even if its not what they really think (who does, really?). The players, after winning an improbable title, follow his rule.

Then, when they go back to celebrating, some of them were killing me for picking against them in the morning paper. "Who's good now?" they said, some in my general direction. Others started quoting me as I walked away.

So I made mention of their off-handed comments in my paper's blog, offering up a mea culpa to them for getting it wrong, etc. But, later, the coach called me out. He said, 'When is this stuff on or off the record? Like, can you quote me on the sidelines criticizing a call to the referees, when you know I wouldn't do it in print? Where do you draw the line? If you can quote me during a game like that, I don't want you on my sidelines during the game. That stuff's not for you to print."

I said his players knew who they were talking to, but I saw his point and, as a sports journalist, I reconsidered the problem on an ethical level. It's a head-scratcher, for sure.

 

If it bothers the team, the seat will be in the rafters soon enough.

 

A great example of what I'm saying. What happened in that situation?

 

I think that's great color, and you use it.

I'll give you another example -- same vein, more obvious. You're covering a fight, and the corner is yelling to a guy, "Body shot, body shot!" And their guy buries one into the other guy's guts and puts him down. For as long as I've covered fights, that's fair game.

Or a baseball manager barks something from the dugout and gets tossed, and whatever it was he said was loud enough to reach the press box. I think you use that, too.

There are some grey areas, but for the most part, I think the rule should be thus: If someone public says something in a public venue, when they know other people are around -- in an arena, on a sideline, during a locker room celebration -- then it's public use. If they think the situation is private -- a phone call, say, or on team plane -- then it's not.

That's how I've always seen it at least.

 

A long time ago. I think the writer had to talk to the player the next day. "I have great respect for Gretzky, he's a great hockey player, yada yada yada ..." There was a statement from the team saying, they don't condone it, etc. That sort of stuff.

 

There's a huge difference in saying the corner told the boxer to work the body than in calling somebody a fag, especially when all parties concerned know that it probably isn't true.
And it wouldn't matter if it was true.

 

I guess, in the end, you try to use good judgment on what's newsworthy before making your decision. If I'm privy to a conversation that I think deserves to be reported, I think its my duty to talk to the subject about it instead of running straight to the laptop. "Hey, listen, I heard what you said, any more comment?" Give them a chance to respond to themselves. At least, that's my first thought.

Back to the actual topic, I'll even add that Doyel was really trying to stick it to Reilly by quoting the players' conversation about how dumb the "baiting" question was.

 

That's a pretty good rule, but can also come down to interpretation. Just because you're there, doesn't mean everybody can hear it. You are, after all, on the sidelines. But I guess if you can determine that one person heard it, that counts.

By the way, I love how Dorsey said he was Goliath--who lost that Biblical battle to David (a point brought up in at least one national column this weekend, but not in Doyel's).

Great. Just great. Woulda been even funnier if Dorsey was from, say, Notre Dame or Boston College. They don't offer Theology at Memphis, I suppose.

 

That's what I was thinking. This writer made a controversy where there wasn't one. And it wasn't even a NY tabloid.