off-shoot to pearlman rocker thread

I know what you're saying, shockey, and obviously he wasn't fired because of that story. But it's his loss, if he's going to be that petty. He knew how it worked, you had a recorder going and were taking notes. If he's going to be like that, then there's nothing you can do.

Do you just ignore the coach basically saying he's going to hand his opponents their asses on a silver platter?

 

No... I was making light of the consecutive Jets coaches in your prime who had the near-identical last name and first name.... Thought we were about to list them all on this thread

 

Only time I came close was on a news obit of a longtime local police chief. He was eventually forced out, did time for theft while in office. He went on to become a fairly beloved security guard in the same town. Anyway, we went back and forth on whether to include his crime in the story - I finally came down on the side of including it and the editor agreed.

Family was pissed. PISSED.

I'd do it the same way today, since it was a NEWS obit after all. But that's about as close as I've come to wanting a do-over.

 

Had an obit a few years ago where it mentioned the man, now living in a different state, was "predeceased by his wife." Well, a quick Google finds that he was predeceased by his wife because, the local sheriff said, he put a bullet in her head before blowing his brains out. His family and the funeral home called up bitching about that one, but we still did news-style obits then. No qualms on my end ethically, but I did not enjoy writing that one.

 

Very early in my career I was covering baseball and a star player was benched for slacking a bit in the field. The three of us who traveled were at his locker after the game and he went off on the manager and said, "Who gives a shit, he's living on borrowed time anyway."

It's the lead quote in my story. Both of the other papers, with two veteran beat writers, never used the quote.

This was pre-Internet, but my SE calls me the next morning to ask me about the quote. I end up playing the tape to him over the phone so it was clear the words "Off the record" were never uttered. My boss (the best boss I've ever had) says, "I'm sorry I doubted you, nice work..."

The PR guy calls me and says, "Player X said he never said that." I told him, "Call my SE, I played him the tape."

In the locker room that day, nobody would talk to me. The other writers wouldn't talk to me. The players wouldn't talk to me. The PR guy wouldn't even acknowledge me until he tells me the manager wants to talk to me.

The player didn't talk to me the rest of the year. Several other players didn't either. It made my life very difficult for the remaining month of an awful season.

14 years later, I know I didn't do anything wrong, but if I had to do it again, I'm not sure that quote probably wouldn't have made my gamer.

 

Shit, I don't know how you sit on that quote. I'd be worried the competition would be running it if I didn't.

 

Something sorta similar happened to me when I was covering an NBA team. The backups led a big rally back in the fourth quarter and then got replaced by the starters with about two minutes left. Team loses and player goes off on the coach in the postgame to me and a couple radio reporters.
Before the game the next day, the player comes after me in the locker room and the coach is the one restraining him.

 

You can't get in this business to be pals with coaches and players. Sometimes you are going to piss someone off to write a story that must be written. You may have to hold off until its a story that merits risking access, but you have to be willing to do it or you belong in PR.

 

My former boss once told me that if you're good, you'll make everyone you know mad at you at some point.

 

This is one of the harder parts of being a reporter.

At what point does your relationship with the athletes/coaches pay off and you print stuff that may not otherwise make the paper vs. using your judgment in leaving quotes out?

If it's just a sensational kind of quote I would say "I'm going to use that" and see what the reaction is.

Sometimes you really have to weigh whether it is worth it to burn someone.

Personally, I think many newspaper reporters are not aggressive enough. They wait for the payoff down the road that never comes.

 

I had one boss who always said, "If they're not mad at you, you're not doing your job."

Unfortunately, I had too many bosses who have said, "Why am I taking these calls? Why is someone mad at you? Why do I have to deal with this?" and don't care if you're right or not as long as they don't have to talk to anyone about it.