So if Torre stays...(a journalism question)

...would this be a good example of why readers don't trust the media?

Not pointing fingers at all, but just about any fan could announce that Torre would be fired.

Is there anything good about racing to go public with a story that everyone else runs with as well...and then having it be untrue??

 

You're going to be wrong sometimes.
Happens.

 

but I see what 21 means? why report it if you don't have all the facts. that's our job. to find all the facts. anything else is betraying the public.

 

I wrote a column on this subject once. In the rush to be first, the media has given up on being right (as F_B just illustrated). Just keep putting out rumors, reported as fact, and the one time in 10 that you're right, you can say, "Look, I scooped everyone on this!" and try to impress editors at bigger papers.

The problem is, I don't think the general public even cares who gets a story first, especially with the internet. (If the Daily News gets a story first, every major outlet has it 10 minutes after it's printed because they just put it online, saying "The Daily News is reporting ...") The public does, however, care when we're wrong.

Obviously, I work damned hard to make sure I don't get scooped, but I think as an industry, in general, there is more emphasis on being first, accuracy be damned.

 

Besides echoing FB's point, I'd add that the number of incorrect stories based on sources inside the Yankees in the past 30 years would create a volume of work longer than any encyclopedia.

 

When we quote sources and refuse to attribute them, aren't we supposed to be quoting "reliable" sources? If the sources are not reliable, why are we quoting them?

 

It's the nasty part of a competitive business, 21. The News and Post worry so much about what the other guy is going to write, they will jump on anything for a back page headline. I'm guessing the News got a call from one of George's Tampa "experts" and told them to put in the paper that Joe will be fired. Yes, it was a way to take the back page away from the Mets sweeping the Dogers and it was also a way to get a discussion started about Torre.

Is it good journalism? In the tabloid world, yes. In my world, and probably yours, no. But that is why I'm always the voice of reason on this board, not jumping to believe everything printed, especially by the NY tabloids.

 

I think the News and the Post probably were right ... at the time they reported it.

 

I'm thinking specifically of how the sports fan perceives this.

Last week it was the TO debacle. Suicide, not suicide, maybe suicide, blame the publicist.

I agree, we're going to be wrong sometimes, and we all understand how stories fall apart despite the best reporting. But the fan/reader/viewer/listener has no idea how that happens--since we are not the story--and in the end, we just look burned.

 

It seems -- especially in the newspaper world, where we often are chasing more immediate forms of media -- that being current has become king and so, instead of reporting actual decisions, we've started reporting states of mind, as in, "Steinbrenner would fire Torre today were he to make the decision." It's the whole "first rough draft of history" thing run amok. We don't stick to people's actions and what they say, we've also started to report their moods, which opens a whole new line of stupidity.

It's like the Shaun Alexander ESPN Mobile commercials ... we're dying to be such insiders that we actually KNOW what's going on inside the guy's head and we'll go ahead and report that. It's freaking stupid, but I have a feeling it's what the market demands, well ahead of actual accuracy. People seem to like the build-up more than the actual goods anymore.

 

Agreed. I think Steinbrenner blew a gasket when they lost, told everybody in earshot he was going to fire Torre, then thought better of it a day or two later.

Just a guess... one I wouldn't print, dammit

 

I tend to agree with bigpern's post: I don't think people *care* who gets it first. And furthermore, I don't think it matters anymore, either.

It was one thing in newspapers when you got the story in your edition a day before anyone else, and the competition had to wait 12 or 24 hours to get a folo in theirs.

But now, everyone and their brother can get a folo two hours after you post your story on the Internet, and half of them strip you of your scoop by printing, "According to published reports," ... then, less than a day later, the circumstances have already changed so that whatever you "scooped" isn't the story anymore.

It just reeks of tabloidism.

I don't think serious readers care much about our "competition" -- they just want the damn news. And if we get it wrong, they'll just go somewhere where it's right.

And if we're all "wrong," such as in the T.O. debacle ... well ...

I think the Internet has changed the game of "scooping," especially for those of us in print: Now, finally, it's better to be right than first. Being first doesn't help us nearly as much as it once did.