Poll: Running feature stories submitted by SIDs

This is my view. If it's well-written and offered gratis, and is something we don't have the time, manpower or opportunity to chase down on our own, why not run it if you can? I understand the distaste for it from an ethical standpoint, but it's a freaking feature story. Whether you write it yourself or the SID writes it, you're not breaking the next Watergate story with it.

My bigger issue in not running it is the overall spotty quality of SID-written stories. Too many times, it's a crapshoot whether you get something useable as is, something that needs a little minor editing, or something you'd be better off writing yourself anyway.

 

You're entitled to your view even if it is wrong as fuck.

Ethics do matter. The fact that they don't matter to you says plenty. It's a conflict of interest. End of discussion.

 

Well, that escalated quickly.....

 

His type of thinking is what is wrong with journalism today. Just because it's cheap, just because it's easy, just because everyone else is doing it isn't reason to sacrifice standards. It's lazy, unethical and shameless.

 

We used to do this once a week way back in the olden days of 10 years ago when the height and width of our paper was bigger and there were a lot more pages. Didn't even matter if there was no real news to report, we'd run something every week no matter what.

What we do now is far worse though. Story-length letters to the editor and random stories written by the readers are being run in the paper and/or given prominent website play regardless of actual quality. There is so much garbage that would never see the light of day if our reporters had written them, but somehow quality control doesn't even factor in here. I don't think the editor has ever rejected running one of these.

 

Four years ago, I was right there with you. Thanks for the suggestion, Mr. SID, but we'll take it from here and do our own story.
Three years ago, after one of our three sports staffers was laid off, I was right there with you. We still have the manpower, we'll do our own.
Two years ago, when I was a staff of one for most of the year, I was right there with you. I want to do something on the guy, this would be awesome, but I'd rather be "ethical" and write it myself.
One year ago, when a staffer had come and gone and I was once again a staff of one, I was writing everything I could think of and working 60 hours a week for three months straight. I went 42 days without an off day last year and was only seeing my wife in passing. Still, I'd rather have rejected the SID story and written it myself, at least to put my own spin on it and control workflow?
Today, I've come to the conclusion that that level of angst just isn't worth it. I'm almost 40. My wife still likes to see me. My corporate masters don't want me working 60 hours a week anymore because they don't want to bust the budget. If running an SID-written story gives me four hours of my life back, and keeps The Man off my back, that's not the worst trade off in the world. Hell, I repurpose their game stories and news releases all the time for stuff AP doesn't cover. This isn't that far of a stretch from that.

Now, all that said, I fully understand the ethical dilemma it poses. For the record, I have never run an SID-written feature story and if one comes my way I'd exercise caution before running it. It certainly wouldn't be copy-paste-print, thank you very much. It's just that it's not as easy to blindly harumph, wag my finger, and say "No! No! NO!" as it was a few years ago.
Maybe that makes me a lazy, shameless, unethical prick who is a disgrace to the profession. Maybe my corporate masters have just finally beaten the resistance out of me. Maybe I'm just getting older and realize there are bigger things to worry about, and bigger fish to fry, like finishing the 15 other stories on my plate this week and making deadline seven times in a row.

 

Frankly, I'm surprised that newspapers would consider runing a feature story from an SID.

SIDs are out to provide (mostly positive) information on their teams and athletes, period. Fine. That's their job.

SIDs often would send in a gamer on how the nearby Division I team did in a big swimming/cross country/track/golf tournament, for example. They would usually note how their team and athletes did, sometimes having to put a lot of spin to make a second-to-last finish look good. They probably will mention other schools in the conference and -- if you are lucky --perhaps the overall winner.

Then you find out that the even-closer Division I school also competed and did much better. But if you just plopped the first story in the paper, you would leave the other school in your area out entirely.

So, thanks, but no thanks. I don't want a feature from you.

What if they turned in a story about a new transfer who is doing great and fail to mention that he was kicked off his previous team for a rape accusation that was in all the papers?

 

Bat, I totally understand your frustration with the business. The point I'm making is, if you sacrifice one thing in life, you'll sacrifice others. Stick to the principles you know to be the foundation of journalism. Otherwise, just join the rest of the world and say "fuck it."

The key to your whole reply is what I've quoted. Being over-worked, is nobody's fault but your own --- not your bosses. Find a new job or just do less if you don't like how much you're being asked to do. Do what you can do in a 40-50 hour week and go home. Fill the rest of your pages with big pictures and big headlines but do your own work. Once you let the SID run features for you, you've sold out.

You're right, there are bigger fish to fry in life. Sounds to me as if you are burning out. Believe me, I'm sick of the same bullshit.

 

Some of the UVa fans can refresh me on this, but I remember some years back a UVa pitcher threw a perfect game against George Washington and the GW SID buried it deep into the release. It was ridiculous.

 

Maybe so. It's also that I've learned to be flexible in this business, and the fact that we're talking about a feature story that, by definition, has about a 90 percent chance of being on the fluffy side no matter who writes it.
If you edit it to tone down or eliminate the homerism, you can turn it into a workable piece. If you know there's a more controversial angle that isn't being addressed or that you want to tackle (like Ace's rape accusation example), then you certainly reject it and do it yourself. If there's no way to clean up the homerism, you reject it and do it yourself. If there's something you know about the subject and it's a story you want to do a different way? Reject it and do it yourself.
You're maintaining the same journalistic standards, just not shutting the door on it simply because it comes from a certain writer.
If it's a fairly straightforward feature with an interesting angle and hook, the copy is clean, and it reads like something one of your staffers could have written, maybe even contains some objective criticism -- if it has everything you'd look for in a staff-written feature except the byline -- it feels like pride is getting in the way more than ethical standards.

 

That's one of the reasons I prefer to look at the box score and write our own college baseball gamers than copy and paste the SID's game story. By the time you clean everything up for style and to balance it out to include relevant stuff on both sides, you're basically writing your own story anyway.
A couple of the SIDs in our area actually do put out AP-style gamers. There's only quotes from their team, of course, but they do include key plays and stats from the other side and can largely be reprinted without a lot of editing. I want to kiss those guys.

 

Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, I would have said no way in hell. Honestly, I didn't even like running their "gamer" press releases from road games (and we usually took a lot of effort to really rewrite those as much as possible). But given the current climate of our newsroom and newsrooms across the country, I'd take a good look at the story and take out the fluff and even give them a byline. I'm just thinking about my current situation, where we just don't have the resources to put someone on writing virtually the same story. If it's a good story and it doesn't come off as cheerleading, I have no problem running it with a few edits.