Solid Crouse Angle On Bears/ Saints

[Boom_70]

Wow, you guys are absolutely brutal. Yes, she could have talked to some of the Bears who go there, explore the host angle a little more, or someone else. But this is hardly the worst thing to hit a newspaper page, and ought to be taken for what it's worth. It's not suppposed to get you pumped to watch the game, and it's definitely not perfect. But there's no need to crucify.

Not crucifying at all. Its a worthy story 2 days before the NFC championship.

 

[miamiheraldchick]

The restaurant feature might have been OK on game day, when Metro sections inevitably look for features about fans watching The Big Game. That way, you could probably find some displaced Saints fans rooting for their boys. It wouldn't be great but it would be OK. As opposed to what ran.

The line that says you feel like you're in New Orleans when you enter the restaurant is baloney.

 

[Blitz]

I've bean hard on her for soft coverage of the Jets, but leading into Sundays NFC Championship, Karen has a solid story on game in today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/sports/football/19chicago.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

that was great, boom. you really had me there for a sec.

Oh, I see now.
And right you are, Boom.

 

[Boom_70]

I like the idea, the more color in the NYT the better, I like Wall Street Journal color pieces too. But if you're going to do it, do a little more than find a Cajun restaurant and talk to the owner. The senators' story is much better, I agree.

Or send Bill Grimes to do the food angle and let Karen talk to Tank Johnson's arms dealer.

Well no quotes from his arms dealer but a good Tank Johnson story from Karen as part of her continuing "Bad Boys of The NFL" series. Tank does not seem so bad after reading this story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/sports/football/21johnson.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

 

[jgmacg]

What's your point, Boom?

Do you post these because you think they don't serve the NYT readership?

Do you post these because you think they contain factual errors (as pointed out above by 21), and therefore present an opportunity to discuss the nuts and bolts of reporting and information gathering and story construction?

Do you post these because you think they represent an opportunity to talk about craft? If so, what are your thoughts on the specific mechanics and techniques Crouse employs?

Do you post these because you're disappointed there isn't a better New York angle in each case? Even though New York has no team in the playoffs?

Do you post these as a dissatisfied reader? If so, why are you dissatisfied? Insufficient Xs and Os? Even though on each of the days these ran, there were several other playoff Xs and Os stories in the same section? Four of them today, for example, with additional sidebars and so forth?

Honestly curious.

 

[suburbanite]

I can't speak for Boom, but I suspect in posting this particular link, he's trying to point out that maybe doing a warm and fuzzy piece on a guy who had more ammunition in his pad than the typical Iraqi insurgent isn't such a good idea.

While all of the allegations and legal stuff was included, check out some of these observations/quotes:

Under the terms of his confinement, Johnson cannot drive. Most days he receives a ride from teammates. Sometimes he uses a car service. Dennis Kiaupa, a cabdriver for a company based in Gurnee, has had Johnson as a passenger.

“I’ve had other football players as clients,” he said, “and Tank’s one of the best in terms of politeness.”

Upon closer inspection, there is a softer side to Johnson. Two framed photographs of his daughters adorn a shelf of his locker, next to a bottle of baby oil. In front of his locker Wednesday was a box of orange roses from a friend in Detroit, Katarina Brown. She said in a telephone interview that Johnson had talked to her high school students by speakerphone and encouraged them to study hard and stay out of trouble.

And for the ending. . .

How deep is their trust? Long snapper Patrick Mannelly, who has a 1-year-old daughter, was asked how he would feel about leaving her at Johnson’s house for a play date.

“Knowing Tank as I do in the locker room,” he said, “I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

 

[Ike Broflovski]

I'm going to cut Karen some slack here. That's not easy to parachute into a place and try to profile a troubled person by talking to total strangers. What would you expect the long snapper to say: "Yeah, I'd love Tank to show my kid how to fire an Uzi." Of course, the teammates will close ranks.

That's the problem that I have with a lot of stories like this -- they're spins. I don't think Karen should have been assigned the story at all: what is she going to find out in two or three days that fleshes out the story? I don't think it makes a difference what her affiliation is.

Not surprisingly, the story, as Suburbanite said, is cast with a warm-and-fuzzy glow. I really hate that about a lot of newspaper editors. If the Bears make it into the Super Bowl, I can see thousands of them sitting in their offices, saying, "Let's do OUR Tank Johnson story," and coming up with . . . nothing new.

 

[Boom_70]

Karen's work seems better suited for the styles section or Ladies Home Journal. In her previous life she must have been the writer who writes the lead ins for NBC Olympian bios.

Everything Karen does now seems to be about redemption, but it never seems to fully explain the reasons behind player needing redemption in first place. Most have been self induced.

Stories come off as very predictable . Why not scour around Tank's neighborhood and learn about his last night disturbaces?

It seemed like lobbing soft balls at Jets worked well

MY she is is trying to insure further access to the Bears

 

[dooley_womack1]

I can't speak for Boom, but I suspect in posting this particular link, he's trying to point out that maybe doing a warm and fuzzy piece on a guy who had more ammunition in his pad than the typical Iraqi insurgent isn't such a good idea.

While all of the allegations and legal stuff was included, check out some of these observations/quotes:

Under the terms of his confinement, Johnson cannot drive. Most days he receives a ride from teammates. Sometimes he uses a car service. Dennis Kiaupa, a cabdriver for a company based in Gurnee, has had Johnson as a passenger.

“I’ve had other football players as clients,” he said, “and Tank’s one of the best in terms of politeness.”

Upon closer inspection, there is a softer side to Johnson. Two framed photographs of his daughters adorn a shelf of his locker, next to a bottle of baby oil. In front of his locker Wednesday was a box of orange roses from a friend in Detroit, Katarina Brown. She said in a telephone interview that Johnson had talked to her high school students by speakerphone and encouraged them to study hard and stay out of trouble.

And for the ending. . .

How deep is their trust? Long snapper Patrick Mannelly, who has a 1-year-old daughter, was asked how he would feel about leaving her at Johnson’s house for a play date.

“Knowing Tank as I do in the locker room,” he said, “I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

The first two things you quote: You mean you wouldn't want your reporter to be that observant to report little details like that? I can imagine it's easier to be observant when you don't assume the subject is guilty until proven innocent.

The third thing: You do make a point; you wouldn't expect a teammate to trash Tank.

 

[spnited]

I could give you an answer, jgmacg, as to why Boob Boom posts this stuff, but I'm not getting into his idoicy.

The real problem here is people -- the Bears, the NFL, the NY Times --continue to make this criminal out to be a nice guy at heart.

Fact: He was on probation for a previous guilty plea on a weapons charge and was found to have a ****ing arsenal in his house.
You or I would have had probation revoked and been tossed in jail until the next trial. Tank Johnson gets to play football, with NO repercussions from the team or the league other than sitting out 2 games....whoop-de-damn-doo!

Fact: AFTER the latest weapons arrest and a supposed "lecture" from the team owner, he is out at a club where his "bodyguard" gets killed. And he gets another free pass.

And now, everybody is trying to tell me what a sweetheart Tank Johnson really is? He should be in jail awaiting trial, not playing in an NFC championship game and having people try to convince us that he's just a misunderstood nice guy.

HE IS A ****ING CRIMINAL!

 

[dooley_womack1]

So the only stories that should be written about Tank Johnson should be columns about how he should be locked up? That a reporter should not look at all aspects of a subject? I trust you don't tell your reporters to only find stuff that supports your worldview.

 

[suburbanite]

My problem is that many of her stories lately seem to have the same spin. They read like cover stories in ESPN Magazine about misunderstood athletes.

As for the observations, Dooley, I'll bet if he had a copy of Guns & Ammo in his locker she wouldn't have mentioned it. . .

Although I do agree with Ike--the story probably shouldn't have been assigned in the first place.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Well, that's a nice slam on her integrity. I'm guessing most any reporter worth his/her salt would have mentioned the magazine thing. And she or any enterprising reporter has every right to get all the facts about someone instead of reflexively joining the pack of sanctimony. And are you saying that only Bears beat reporters can write about Tank Johnson?

 

[spnited]

What I'm saying, Dools, is do not write this story that ends up trying to be warm and fuzzy about a guy who should be in jail.

Serious question: If you were on probation from a previous guilty plea to an illegal weapons charge and were arrested again with a small arsenal in your home, do you think you'd be walking the streets?

 

[suburbanite]

Well, that's a nice slam on her integrity. I'm guessing most any reporter worth his/her salt would have mentioned the magazine thing. And she or any enterprising reporter has every right to get all the facts about someone instead of reflexively joining the pack of sanctimony. And are you saying that only Bears beat reporters can write about Tank Johnson?

Dooley, Here's a Justin Miller feature she wrote last month. It's a great read and well-written. But she paints him as a big happy-go-lucky kid and ignores the two arrests at Clemson that caused him to fall from the first to second round. I'm not saying those arrests should be a scarlet letter on him for the rest of his life, but they probably deserve mentioning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/sports/football/14jets.html?ex=1323752400&en=c4d39e3ef40f8838&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Look, Karen is not the first writer to try to show Tank's other side. Here's one by Mike Downey, Chicago columnist, veteran sports writer, former tabloid guy -- and all right, Downey is not exactly in his prime. But if he had been all that off-base, someone at the Trib likely would have talked him out of it, right?

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/football/16487142.htm

 

[daemon]

Upon closer inspection, there is a softer side to Johnson. Two framed photographs of his daughters adorn a shelf of his locker, next to a bottle of baby oil. In front of his locker Wednesday was a box of orange roses from a friend in Detroit, Katarina Brown. She said in a telephone interview that Johnson had talked to her high school students by speakerphone and encouraged them to study hard and stay out of trouble.

There is a subtle art at doing these kind of stories. Like someone said, it's impossible to parachute in and judge a man's character in order to write a definitive profile.

Crouse is right to note the framed photographs of Johnson's daughters, and the orange roses.

But she is wrong to use these details to come to the conclusion that "there is a softer side to Johnson."

Two photographs and roses in a locker that a player knows will be viewed by the media does not serve as sufficient evidence of Johnson's soft side.

I think an empathetic, talented writer like Crouse could have brought a lot to this story by examining the paradox those photos represent: if the guy cares so much about his kids, why did he let them live in a hosue with automatic weapons and marijuana?

There's a story there. I'd guess Mr. Johnson is a 25-year-old guy who doesn't really know how to be a good parent.

Just because Johnson cares a lot about his kids doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for endangering those kids.

They aren't mutually exclusive, yet Crouse makes it seem that way.

 

[spnited]

Wonderful... keep making excuses for this criminal.


"What's happened to me," Johnson says, "could have happened to any man."

BULL****!



How about one simple question that does not seem to have been answered:
Tank, what the **** do you need all those guns and all that ammo for?

Or maybe:
Tank, considering you were already on probation for a weapons charge, why do you still have all these unregistered weapons?

 

[shockey]

Wonderful... keep making excuses for this criminal.


"What's happened to me," Johnson says, "could have happened to any man."

BULL****!



How about one simple question that does not seem to have been answered:
Tank, what the **** do you need all those guns and all that ammo for?

Or maybe:
Tank, considering you were already on probation for a weapons charge, why do you still have all these unregistered weapons?

hey, she addressed it, spnited, my friend. she explained that tank is a gun-lover and now has to live in a world that will no longer let him go to a shooting range. poor baby!

yikes!!

 

[dooley_womack1]

Wonderful... keep making excuses for this criminal.


"What's happened to me," Johnson says, "could have happened to any man."

BULL****!



How about one simple question that does not seem to have been answered:
Tank, what the **** do you need all those guns and all that ammo for?

Or maybe:
Tank, considering you were already on probation for a weapons charge, why do you still have all these unregistered weapons?

Um, where is the criminal trial or plea bargain that clinches Tank Johnson being guilty of these things? Going into a story wanting to crucify someone is far worse than going into a story looking for a different side to someone.