What Lee Jenkins' LeBron scoop says about our industry

OK. Does anyone believe they sat down together, and those words ever fell out of James' mouth? Or did Jenkins "craft" it?

 

I wouldn't expect a national profile writer to take on that story. That aspect of the daily grind is what a beat writer gets paid for.

 

Lee Jenkins joined Sports Illustrated and SI.com as a senior writer in September 2007 and he has written more than 100 features for the magazine and more than 30 cover stories across every major sport. Since 2010 his primary beat has been the NBA.

 

Take a look at the archive: http://www.si.com/author/lee-jenkins

Jenkins not not exclusively write features.

 

I say this as respectfully as possible: You understand how this works as well as I understand fixing high end espresso machines.

Jenkins asked a ton of questions. LeBron gave answers. Jenkins, like any journalist on any story, chose which parts to quote, which ones to leave out. He didn't put a single word in LeBron's mouth.

This is not my organization, nor do I know Lee other than on Twitter, but I'm 100 percent confident this is the case.

 

No offense taken, but it's not even what is being claimed in any of the "behind the scenes" stories of how this came together.

Yes, SI presented it as an "as told to Lee Jenkins", but that's now how AdAge or Plain Dealer described what transpired.

Here's AdAge:

Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Lee Jenkins helped Mr. James write the essay, titled "I'm Coming Home," which is poised to be the biggest traffic event in the history of the magazine, according to its top editors.

http://adage.com/article/media/sports-illustrated-lebron-james-exclusive/294096/

Jenkins "helped" James write it.

Now, between Jenkins and James, who do you think is the better writer, and contributed more of the wording?

This is ghost writing.

 

Do I think Jenkins and James passed an SI laptop back and forth like they're in some TV sitcom writers room? No. I don't believe James "wrote" anything. That's not how these pieces, which are pretty common in magazines (Esquire does an entire issue every year called WHAT I LEARNED with this concept). If Ad Age wrote it that way, I'm guessing they are confused or unfamiliar with the practice.

 

Whom do you trust?

 

So, the Plain Dealer says Jenkins "crafted" and "executed" it, and AdAge says Jenkins "helped" him write it.

Now, we have an excellent basketball player and en excellent writer working together on what's being called a "first person essay".

I know who I think contributed more of the wording. And, no, I do not believe LeBron ever said, "before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled."

Now, if you believe he did, then we can agree to disagree. But, I can't even imagine the question or conversation that would have led those words to come out of James' mouth.

Jenkins ghost wrote an essay for James. Now, maybe that's ok. Maybe that's not a journalistic error. But, let's call it what it is.

And, we should also acknowledge that SI cooperated with AdAge on the behind the scenes look. This is the official "how it happened" account.

OutSports got the official behind the scenes story of Michael Sam's coming out:

http://www.outsports.com/2014/2/9/5396036/michael-sam-gay-football-player-missouri-nfl-draft

AdAge got it for this story. I don't know why we would assume they got it wrong.

 

When you write a feature on anyone, its about crafting a story around what he or she said. Putting the quotes in a way that tells a story while not changing the content of what was said.

I absolutely think those words came out of his mouth. They may not be verbatim word for word and line for line in the order that he said them like a Q&A would be, but that's never how a piece like this is written.

 

Pretty sure Jenkins said these were the words that came from LeBron and he then put them together. So I can trust him or anonymous message boarder. Tough call, IMO.

 

The entire PR industry relies on the gullibility of people like you.