Journalists to the front of the line ...

Maybe they're doing this now that you-know-who isn't around to take advantage,...

 

They've been doing this for years. And, yes, it's mostly for friends and family of journalists who will be glad to be able to hand them over when they get the inevitable "can you get me a couple tickets for..." queries.

 

Red Sox have done this in the past.

 

That's what I'm talkin' about: Damn few.

 

And by the way, those transgressions are hanging curveballs to be swatted by right-thinking bosses. If a joint is interested in a zero-tolerance ethics code.

What I don't like is the mixing and matching. That is, bosses who dictate to the staffers that you can't do this and you can't do that, but then no one says "boo" to them when they step over the line. It's so often the little guys who get in trouble for something stupid like having a campaign sign on their lawns at home. Or, in this case, taking advantage of buying a seat to a game. While EE schmoozes in the owners' suite.

I've seen a lot more SEs and MEs bring their kid or dad into a locker room wearing team apparel and even getting autographs than I have reporters, copy editors or photographers.

 

You're right, Joe. Everyone who has ever been in management loses all sense of a moral code. They also yearn for the day they can fire each and every reporter, desker and photographer. Yep, that's just how it is.
You're smarter than that.

 

App, you've got a serious logic problem when you immediately react to a difference of opinion by erroneously portraying the other person as using absolutes -- "none," "everyone," "each and every" -- when that person wasn't. That is intellectually dishonest.

I stand by my experience that says more bosses have transgressed ethically, per capita, if only because they fewer levels of supervisors to reprimand them. If a slug reporter or copy editor steps over the line, he has an ASE overseeing him, an SE, an ME, an EE and a publisher (depending on however many might actually care). An ME or an EE who does it only has to worry if the publisher catches wind and actually embraces a code of ethics to begin with. Also, they can rationalize it away with the claim of "Well, I'm not the one actually covering that person/team/event. I just work for the same newspaper."

Now it's your turn to fire away with the claim that I'm smearing EVERY ME and ALL EEs and EACH middle-management drone who EVER has drawn up a work schedule ...

 

For what it's worth -- perhaps not much, because I've been out of the writing trenches for a long, long time -- I never saw this, not once, when I was there.

 

Not saying it's right or wrong, but I would not be surprised if every major professional team does this.

 

Leave Garry Howard out of this.

 

Good one, Mizzou!

SF, I was going to say that I vividly recall three SEs or MEs who did the above in one form or another. Thanks to Mizzou, I'll bump that to four.

But I need to self-edit that "a lot more" phrasing. Even if I never have seen a reporter, copy editor or photographer do it, four isn't "a lot more" than zero.

So absolutes? Never! But hyperbole? Occasionally. :-[