Rick Reilly interview from Gelf Magazine

Historically, SI has been the worst practioner of this, although as ESPN has grown they are equally as bad. Once knew a guy who worked as SI and one of his job duties was to look for feature stories in other publications, primarily newspapers, that they could - ahem - assign and re-write.

 

But again, I ask, does a writer own the non-fiction tale that he or she discovers and pens?

Or do the subjects?

Should someone like Gary Smith admit in a story that Josh Peter of the Anderson-Independent Mail first reported on Radio? Even if Smith has told the story with considerably more research and richness?

What I was frustrated about with my Outside the Lines experience was that it seemed, at least to me, that the producer and on-air talent made little attempt to tell the story in a different way at all. It was, in many respects, a scene for scene retelling of my magazine story. Maybe that was coincidence, maybe not.

Reilly's story about the wrestler who killed his abusive father (which I posted here) was one that ESPN and the Boston Globe had already written about. Reilly ended up talking to the kid who hadn't previous done interviews (I believe). Did he tell the story in a different enough way to call it his own, or was he ripping off newspapers the same way he claims ESPN he's been ripped off?

 

The portion of the interview where Riles says when some thing amazing happens to people it's a Rick Reilly story almost made me puke in the waste basket right next to my desk. Get over yourself dude. Yes your the back page columnist for the biggest sports publication in the world, but if I said your name to my 80-year-old grandma she'd have no clue and ask if you were a friend of mine. She would however know Mike Royko, who Riles compares himself to (joke), because he was a real columnist, whose work and name will stand the test of time. You Riles??? Not so much. Now go ask Sammy Sosa to go piss in a cup. Hack job.

 

Pot: "Black."
Kettle: :'(

 

It has happened to me as well.
I write for a niche publication and the AP or one of the large dailies will see a story I did and write their own version.
It sucks, but I don't know what you could do about it.

Oh, and in the case of the NYTimes and the soccer team. The NYT got its story idea from the AJC, who had done an article weeks earlier.
So it goes.

 

Not true. Warren St. John, the NYT writer, had been on that story for months before the AJC story ran. He was working on it as a book project.

 

Then my apologies to Warren St. John.

 

Warren St. John was the one who got the $$$ from Universal.

 

Most of the money is going to the kids (and their families) in the story. Some of the money goes to the Times. What remains goes to Mr. St. John.

 

Now I thought the kids were getting less because the coach told Universal the movie script could not get into individual kids stories. Reason being - the coach did want some kids-- the ones with more compelling backstories-- to get rich and the other kids to get next to nothing.

 

The movie studio is paying for the right to use the 'Fugees story. They aren't necessarily paying to remain faithful to Warren's version of the 'Fugees story. So they're paying the people involved in the program, regardless of how deeply the screenplay does - or doesn't - go into individual stories. Even if the studio changes everything about them, including fictionalizing the characters and events entirely, the studio still has to pay for the right to use the concept.

 

Here is the WSJ story that you're talking about Lugs. It wasn't about the coach wanting some kids to benefit and others not to. I'm not sure if that's what you're saying.

And Mr. jgmacg is correct about St. John. He heard about the team from a source he'd met while writing Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, and was working on a book about the team and the kids when the AJC heard about it and did a story. He wanted to take a leave from The Times to do the book, the Times said, "Why don't you do it for us first, then take a leave" so that's why the story ran in the Times first. The part where the confusion arises is that St. John used a quote (a bit incorrectly as it tuns out) from the AJC as the kicking off point for his story. So the AJC had written about the controversy of the mayor of the Atlanta suburb saying the baseball fields could not be used for soccer, but by no means had they written about the refugee angle of it all.

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/public/article/SB117012620751391988-W6kfa5hXs3dn_X5yHOuqU6bYMCc_20080129.html?mod=blogs


Lastly, you may read St. John's story if you like, which appeared on our narrative writing thread a couple months ago.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/38772/