Agreed that it definitely has to be written with context. Thought Bianchi's column made some good points, though I hope his idea of protecting players from "offending quotes" went no further than cleaning up grammar and language as he mentioned.
But I do think these quotes had to be reported as something someone's peers were saying about him. Agreed in some ways that they had much in common with a guy spouting off on a bar stool, but these still are prominent players or ex-players providing insight about the game's culture, if not Cutler. Dave, I'm sure you would not seek out quotes from prominent players asking if they thought Elway was a "choking dog." But I wonder if you would ignore phone calls from them saying as much. That's what this amounts to, to some degree.
Granted, in a column, you could then rightly rip these guys for their knee-jerk reactions, noting just why their opinions were flawed. In a news story, you could make the points with less opinion, simply by lining facts up between the players' words -- as Bianchi did in his column by pointing out Jones-Drew wasn't accurate in his statements about playing out the season with an injury. Even if Jones-Drew had played out the season, it would still be easy to just write a couple of lines pointing out the obvious: The players had made their comments from their computers or cell phones and not the Bears' locker or training room, which was the only place the true extent of Cutler's injury could be revealed. This way you do your job by getting out the quotes everyone's talking about -- but do it better than your massive fellow tweeters by providing professional insight and context instead of adding a couple more exclamation points in the latest regurgitation of someone else's words.
Of course, we should aim to go several steps further and do actual reporting. You could try tweeting your questions to the players involved if you have no other recourse, asking them what you would in person -- what makes you feel knowledgeable enough about this specific situation to comment on it? They might not respond at all, of course. But maybe one will say say something like, "Oh, I was just speculating." Suddenly, you have the context you needed.
This lack of basic reporting, I think, is based on more than one factor.
Sure, maybe journalists are just being lazy and irresponsible. But maybe they're also overburdened with work after another round of layoffs and cries for speed from their editors who have lost sight of the time needed to actually report. Also, more editors than before could be apt to crave the inflammatory stuff, because an even-keel, fair story is less likely to stand out and get a click and they're being pushed to get those at all costs.
I'm sure, too, some of the folks out there on bigger beats don't have as much experience as some of their predecessors and so they learn on the fly. Or maybe, since they're growing up in the social media culture, some think to some degree it's fine reporting to just take strong quotes and throw them out there, because people can see them and go from there. They might not yet have (and maybe given the culture won't feel the need to find) the nuance that we are gatekeepers of context, if not content.
The biggest problem? It's been said many times before, but it's the immediacy of the media climate we're currently in at this point. It often doesn't leave us time to do the basic thing required for any type of responsible journalism:
Think.
