Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine

Thought this was interesting. I definitely agree with RR about how long features take a year off your life, and how they turn you into zombies. But this shot at ESPN might stir the most discussion. Outside the Lines did what Reilly is talking about to me once. It was a story ESPN never, ever would have known about had I not written a lengthy magazine piece about it first. But I was writing for such a small publication at the time, they were happy to rip it off (almost word for word) without giving anyone but themselves credit.

http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/bane_of_cheerleaders_champion_of_the_little_guys.php

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

Features might beat you down a bit, but I would do anything to have that responsibility for SI.

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

Reilly is right, but he's also hypocritical. His piece last week about the guy who got shot at the strip club in Vegas was written by the AP a few weeks ago. No mention of that in his column, of course.

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

Reilly's claiming credit for the Jake Porter story? The autistic football player? Are you kidding me? That tv footage was all over television and I didn't see Reilly credit the guy holding the camera.

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

I always assumed he got his column ideas by reading lots of random newspapers searching for stories or by people emailing him local stories and saying, here's an idea.
Is that not how it works? And he doesn't give them credit (not that he would need to. Usually they aren't breaking news stories.)

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

This is wonderful. Reilly is a vulture, a pillager. Now, when it's done to him...

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

Any idea on where he got the Louisville band member idea from? I remember reading that and really liking it and seeing a story on him a week later on ESPN. Which came first?

 

Re: Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine (via The Big Lead)

I miss Steve Rushin - any word on where he ended up?

 

Here is a question I think worth debating: When does a writer ever really "own" a story? Ever? I read an interview with Gary Smith once where he talked about the fact that he got the idea to write "Someone To Lean On," the story about the developmentally disabled "assistant coach" named Radio, from reading a feature story in a newspaper about him. The story was made into a movie, and I'm sure Smith was paid something for the rights. Did he rip it off? Did he simply tell the story better, and on a bigger stage?

What if I write a story, a lengthy feature story that runs in a magazine, about an anonymous athlete, and a month after the feature runs, the athlete is contacted by HBO Real Sports, because they want to tell the story. Are they under any obligation to mention that the story was discovered by a magazine writer? What if my previously anonymous athlete contacts HBO Real Sports on his own, saying "Did you see the story Double Down did about me? Do you want to do a piece as well?

I really don't know the answers.

 

There aren't a lot of hard and fast rules on this but there is common courtesy and that is something that's been lost...

 

Before I'm accused of slandering Gary Smith, here are a couple of links that illustrate what I'm talking about with the story about Radio.

http://media.www.easttennessean.com/media/storage/paper203/news/2003/11/03/Sports/Everyone.In.South.Carolina.Town.Is.Tuning.In.To.radio-547583.shtml

http://www.benderconsult.com/radiocaption/122804VA.html

This is the transcript of a radio interview with the coach in that story after "Radio" was made into a movie. Josh Peter, who now works at Yahoo, wrote the original story about Radio.

 

I read a great article in the WSJ, I think back in February, about an article that was on the front page of the NYT which detailed the trials and tribulations of a youth soccer team in Georgia made up of refugees from all different countries.

Within 24 hrs. of that article being published in the NYT, 4 major movie studios (including Disney, of course) were vying like hell for the rights.

As I recall, the writer of the NYT story got a chunk of change. The coach of the team got a chunk of change... the kids are getting something, too.

Anyway, the WSJ article got into all kinds of nuts and bolts about when and how you can buy the rights to a story. As it turned out, the kids in the movie will be kept "generic" when and if it ever gets made. In other words, the studio (Universal I think) didn't end up getting the rights to individual kids' lives.

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Anyway, I think it's unethical to grab a story and rewrite it in the same way.

Doing a story that's already been done by a smaller outlet?... Some would call that good reporting.