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Seattle Times and Percy Harvin

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BurnsWhenIPee, Oct 18, 2014.

  1. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    Starting a new thread because this is about the journalism side of things ...

    The Seattle Times has a pretty detailed report of all the things Percy Harvin did to make the Seahawks have to trade him, including giving a teammate a black eye before the Super Bowl, getting into another fight with a teammate this season, refusing to go back into the Cowboys game, and plenty of others.

    http://seattletimes.com/html/seahawks/2024808382_seahawks18xml.html

    Maybe readers don't notice and/or don't care, but where were these stories when the things actually happened and Harvin was a member of the team? Seems awful convenient to be able to trot out this long litany of misbehavior and explanation for why he's such a horrible person - after he's been traded.

    I'm sure the beat writer was fed plenty of this by the team since yesterday, but it doesn't make the writer look good at all. At best, he was ignorant of all this and is willing to let the team use him as a mouthpiece to explain things. At worst, he knew about it and didn't write it for fear of backlash in the locker room.
     
  2. Welcome to Beat Coverage 101.
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Unless the beat reporter knowingly sat on all this for all that time, I don't see the problem.

    A lot of people have this fantasy that the beat writer knows all and sees all. The reality is that the NFL machine is extraordinarily committed to and good at hiding this stuff.
     
  4. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    I don't think he should know ALL of it, but if he's that plugged-in now to have all the sordid details, I don't think it's asking too much for him to be plugged-in enough to have good-enough sources for him to know at least some of it at the time.
     
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    He doesnt know it now because he is plugged in. He knows it now because they want him to know it.
     
  6. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Dater's just glad ESPN didn't break the details.
     
  7. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    This thread is rather naïve. How in the world does offering a behind-the-scenes look at what led to a big trade make a reporter look bad? You'd hope he at least sought comment from Percy Harvin or his representatives, but it's pretty clear that this story is coming from the team, and it's going to this reporter because he put in the diligence required to get the inside access.
     
  8. A bit naive to assume the reporter's diligence led to the scoop.
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    There are many applicable types of diligence.
     
  10. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Not to impugn the reporter, but that's the kind of story that the beat writer at the biggest paper automatically gets when the team wants to trash its departed star. It was no great feat to disclose that Beckett and Lackey were eating fried chicken in the Red Sox clubhouse either.
     
  11. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    I bet that Bob Kravitz knew all about this.
     
  12. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I have to imagine he got this stuff because the Seahawks WANTED him to write it.
     
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