O/U number of days before the Seattle Times folds?

O/U number of days before the Seattle Times folds?

As if that has anything to do with anything. This was a serious column and can't be answered by snark and non sequiturs. This is not one of your Murray Chass or Bill Conlin rants.

I like Geoff Baker, but man, he and I saw two different interviews. Seriously, I've found Geoff to be reasonable and insightful, so I don't see how we could come away with such vastly differing interpretations of what we saw.

You should have training to be a journalist. Or experience. I'm glad to see Geoff address that, because most columnists love to get on their high horse about J-school, but that's rarely a standard for a profession.

Yours truly,

King Ludd

Is this the same Geoff Baker that wrote about the "White Jays" in the Toronto Star a few years ago?

Is this the same Geoff Baker that wrote about the "White Jays" in the Toronto Star a few years ago?

It is, although (re)reading that article ("Whitest Team in the Majors") now I can't imagine why it causes the fury it apparently did. I don't agree with the fundamental premise--that a diverse city like Toronto ought to, or at the very least will draw better, have a diverse team--but it's not even an "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" implication of racism about Riccardi.

As for this, Baker is right, you can't just let every Tom, Dick and Blogger into the clubhouse. But I do think you can do it without a theoretical training program, you'd just need to try and pick the established ones, guys with a history of solid writing and not noisy, slanderous accusations.

Actually, one of the biggest problems with sports "journalism" is clubhouse access. By depending on access to the clubhouse, it severely limits the types of stories their willing to write, as writing the wrong thing will get you kicked out. I agree with Baker in that you should have some kind of training to be a journalist, but the entire world of sports reporting would likely be better if their papers would ban them from the sports box and the clubhouse.

By depending on access to the clubhouse, it severely limits the types of stories their willing to write, as writing the wrong thing will get you kicked out.

Unless your TJ Simers!

Anyway, Baker's argument would carry more heft is so many of his colleagues weren't hacks. He should really hold some of these lectures for them.

But I do think you can do it without a theoretical training program, you'd just need to try and pick the established ones, guys with a history of solid writing and not noisy, slanderous accusations.

This sounds right to me. Blez from SB Nation is getting access to a lot of baseball people now and I think that came from the years of building a respectable blog. Bloggers shouldn't expect instant access, but if they build an audience (the most important part, really) and write with integrity, there's no reason they shouldn't earn some kind of credential eventually if that's what they want.

On White Jays: It was inflammatory because it mentions race at all. That is what it is.

On this article: I would argue that in this era, there are pros and cons on both sides.
1. Professionals are still more likely to have access.
2. Professionals are still slightly more likely to be investigative, but don't do much of that anymore either.
3. Professionals are not immune from it, but are slightly less likely to be attention trolls.
For me, all of these are equal to or maybe less than:
4. Blog ads do not dictate content to a large degree yet. I hope this remains. Otherwise you get the most common brand of print "journalist"
we have these days who does a half-assed job investigating and mostly just reprints paraphrased press releases.

Major note: My perspective is likely warped from being in Chicago.

"Unless your TJ Simers!"

Unless my TJ Simers what?

Unless my TJ Simers what?

D'oh. Foiled by poor grammar again. In my defense I think I have the swine flu today.

Why would bloggers need clubhouse access? The best thing about bloggers is that they aren't clubhouse insiders like journalists are.

My TJ Simers in the sumertime.

Why would bloggers need clubhouse access? The best thing about bloggers is that they aren't clubhouse insiders like journalists are.

There's that. I do enjoy the long Billy Beane interviews at AN, but I assume those don't take place in the clubhouse. That's a different kind of access. Those pictures you see of reporters gathered around a semi-naked athlete after a game always look surreal to me.

Why would bloggers need clubhouse access? The best thing about bloggers is that they aren't clubhouse insiders like journalists are.

Indeed. I don't watch Sportscenter or the games, so I've been following the NBA and NHL finals through wire reports. Not much in the way of game recaps. It's basically a few stats and some postgame quotes. I'd like to know more.

Why would bloggers need clubhouse access? The best thing about bloggers is that they aren't clubhouse insiders like journalists are.

I feel like mainstream journalism has sold the public something -- "we have access to the clubhouse!" -- and no one has ever stopped to consider whether this thing has any value. I have almost zero interest in hearing (for instance) what Jermaine Dye or Jim Thome thinks about a White Sox victory or a White Sox loss. Rarely do they say anything interesting (and I don't blame them for that -- I don't view "saying interesting things" are their job).

BTW, being a journalist is not hard. For almost 5 years I've written a blog about a very specific area of law. I link to some articles, but most of what I do is original content. And I do things like "investigative reporting" and interviews as well. Journalists are like teachers -- they act as though there are a ton of special skills you need in order to do the job well. In actuality, all you need is (a) knowledge of your subject area and (b) common sense.

Right - if bloggers start doing the same thing that sportswriters do, that would sort of defeat the purpose of blogging. Covering a beat and blogging are two different things.

Baker sees bloggers as sportswriter wannabes, and maybe some of them are. But I'd say a majority are not - they're just writing about something they're interested in. You don't need to interview Tom Cruise to critique one of his movies, and you don't need to hang out with Dustin Pedroia to have some insight on the Red Sox.

BTW, being a journalist is not hard. For almost 5 years I've written a blog about a very specific area of law.

I suspect most aspects of being a lawyer are not hard, if you've got some training in archival research. You do a literature review, then you base an argument on what you find. How hard is that?

But the same applies to journalism, in a way. It isn't hard, but you do need a certain amount of training in how to perform certain tasks. If you don't know the questions to ask, and can't write very well, it's probably not a good field to enter.

I think the public would realize the value, or relative minor number it may be, of clubhouse access just from paying attention to what they already ##### about: sideline football reporters. That's the ultimate access, and look what it brings the viewer.

Getting back to this column, Baker makes a number of interesting points.

Is he right on all his points? Of course not.

He does tell an interesting story of taking down someone, and accepting the consequences of affecting a man's livelihood.

Ig I were a name blogger, say Calcaterra (even if his wife is the more famous), I would be standing and loudly asking "Oh, so now we have power? You've spent years shitting on everything we do with our unimportant little web diaries, but when it's convenient, we should have to abide by strict journalistic standards because our voices are heard across the globe?"

Journos need to pick a side.

How can Baker never mention that fact that a "journalist" was the one who made the issue public and brought it to Ibanez's intention? If not for a "journalist", this wouldn't be an issue.

On another issue, we need for journalists to have access. How else do people know if Papi is saying he is hurt, or find out from the pitching coach how a pitcher has changed his mechanics? The fact that a lot of the information they publish is trite shouldn't blind us to what they do provide.

And access may corrupt the beat writers, who end up playing favorites and pulling punches, butthe writers who should be held accountable and not just thrown to the side.

Yes, as several people have said, it all depends on what you're writing. Much of what appears on blogs is opinion, and you hardly need ever to have been in an MLB clubhouse to have an opinion about baseball. Including an opinion about steroid use – frankly, any ballplayer in this day and age who gets bent out of shape by somebody wondering if he's done steroids is kind of like a guy hanging on a street corner outside a bar getting outraged by someone wondering if he's had a beer.

Nor, in fact, do you need to be a trained sportswriter to expose Tim Johnson's lack of a military record. You just need to get the story right, as The Smoking Gun got the Jim Frey Million-Little-Pieces story right, or as any blogger dutifully comparing yellowcake uranium stories from different news outlets has done.

Now if you want to write about whether Joe Girardi has the respect of the guys in his clubhouse, I suppose access is helpful. That seems to me the least interesting kind of story about sports that you could possibly write, but there's a market for it, and the trained sportswriter follows the rules of his profession and produces the expected product, and some of those stories are certainly well-written and well-sourced.

A blogger who wants access, frankly, should have a rationale about why he's going to use it intelligently. Talking with the star of the game, or the manager, is futile: those interviews are basically pooled from formulaic questions (the PR people even type up the quotes for distribution; you don't need access to write those stories).

And bloggers who think they're going to get to the bottom of some steroid story by charging around a clubhouse asking tough questions are insane.

The cool thing would be for a blogger to define an area of study: defensive positioning, let's say. Use access to chat with the 21 or 22 guys that no other reporter is talking to after the game. Get their impressions not of the winning hit or the starting pitcher's stuff, but of why they were playing the hitter where they were when they started a double play in the fifth. There are lots of interesting stories that don't get told because they don't fit the formula of the game story or the human-interest column.

Bob, Pearlman noted his investigative reporter background, not sports reporting, for the Johnson thing. Though now that I think about it, what investigative journalism goes into that? Aren't military service records, as in "did this dude serve and if so, for what years" public record?

The cool thing would be for a blogger to define an area of study: defensive positioning, let's say. Use access to chat with the 21 or 22 guys that no other reporter is talking to after the game. Get their impressions not of the winning hit or the starting pitcher's stuff, but of why they were playing the hitter where they were when they started a double play in the fifth. There are lots of interesting stories that don't get told because they don't fit the formula of the game story or the human-interest column.

When Dr Z was first covering football, he spent his time postgame talking to the O-line. I think this was after the game where Green Bay won their first title under Lombardi. He was interested, but his editor wasn't. If there were blogs back then, he could have posted his work anyways.

He does tell an interesting story of taking down someone, and accepting the consequences of affecting a man's livelihood.

It's interesting, though, that the knives only come out when it's a blogger who does this stuff. When Selena Roberts writes a trash piece, other journalists just mutter about how books have a different standard than newspapers (as if blogs don't). When Murray Chass writes about bacne, there's not a peep. Because they're part of the in crowd, and this blogger isn't. It has nothing to do with unfairly trashing a player - sportswriters do that all the time. It has everything to do with them gleefully jumping on a blogger, because he's the "enemy".

The cool thing would be for a blogger to define an area of study: defensive positioning, let's say. Use access to chat with the 21 or 22 guys that no other reporter is talking to after the game. Get their impressions not of the winning hit or the starting pitcher's stuff, but of why they were playing the hitter where they were when they started a double play in the fifth. There are lots of interesting stories that don't get told because they don't fit the formula of the game story or the human-interest column.

That's a great idea. The problem with access isn't that it's not a valuable tool, but that it's mainly used to plug a series of mindless quotes into the cliches of the game story.

The reducto ad absurdum of this is the post-game interview of the guy who just got the game winning hit----"Tell us what were you feeling when.....?"---"I got a good pitch to hit and I'm just glad we won....", repeat five times, cut to commercial. But if you're going to do anything much beyond numbers crunching or an opinionated game description, at some point you have to be able to talk to the players, because the players provide you with the sort of perspective that only a player can provide.

Why would bloggers need clubhouse access?

What if they want it? The article notes some bloggers have tried to gain clubhouse access.

Getting clubhouse access doesn't mean a person or blog is guaranteed to write nothing but and only standard boilerplate post-game quotes without any context. It can just add an extra element to what they can do. If an established blogger thinks it can help out what he's doing or widen/expand his (or her) repertoire or has some specific idea what questions to be asked or something . . . why shouldn't they try to get clubhouse access?

There's not much point in getting clubhouse access for its own sake, but if someone has a reason why not?

But if you're going to do anything much beyond numbers crunching or an opinionated game description, at some point you have to be able to talk to the players, because the players provide you with the sort of perspective that only a player can provide.

Okay, but do you need to talk to them right after the game?

Journalists need clubhouse access because they need quotes for specific game stories. If you're doing something more in-depth, you can talk to the players, coaches, etc. in a more relaxed setting, like Athletics Nation does with those Beane interviews. You don't need to talk to the guys while they're changing.

Ig I were a name blogger, say Calcaterra (even if his wife is the more famous), I would be standing and loudly asking "Oh, so now we have power? You've spent years shitting on everything we do with our unimportant little web diaries, but when it's convenient, we should have to abide by strict journalistic standards because our voices are heard across the globe?"

No can do, Jeff. Baker has made me see the light. He and I are on the same, rigid page.

(sorry for the blog whoring).

You don't need to talk to the guys while they're changing.

I wonder if a reporter has ever said, "Aw, come on Nick Swisher. Dry your feet, man. You're going to get a nasty fungus!"

I’d like to see some kind of formal training involved. Some bloggers are highly passionate and dedicated and might be considered “journalists’’ had they ever obtained some type of formal training. Heck, in the right circumstance, I might even hold the journalism classes for them, my past experience as a college lecturer being of use in this case.

This is preposterous. I take it he has a problem with people who didn't get engineering degrees inventing things, or people who didn't go to culinary school becoming executive chefs.

Snark of comment #30 aside, I think this all boils down to whether you're reporting or opining.

There is, I think, a real skill -- a teachable, trainable skill -- to reporting. Not the parroting quotes thing after a game, really, but the idea of checking sources, cross checking, etc, before throwing a new piece of information out there as news. I've had people give me juicy tips before and I've been tempted to "break" something. Cursory checking, however, has revealed the tip to be nothing more than someone else's speculation that wasn't based on anything. How tempting would it have been to simply run it as "EXCLUSIVE!!! SHYSTERBALL BREAKS STORY!!"? How easy? Answer: very easy, and very tempting, and the only reason I didn't is because I'm a big fraidy cat worried about getting sued or something. How many bloggers have we seen get tripped up by stories that don't pan out. It's at the very least embarassing and credibility-killing, but if the item is sufficiently hot, it could get you in legal trouble.

None of this is to say that what Morris was doing fell into this category. Indeed, quite the opposite. He was engaging in a kind of speculation far tamer than scores of other reportes have done re: PEDs. But I will grant the general point that you gotta be careful and you had better be right when you throw stuff out there. And that goes for MSM reporters just like it does for the bloggers (I'm still waiting for Baker, Robo, et al. to jump on all of the MSM speculation about Sammy Sosa). Straight opining? Sorry, reporters, it takes nothing more than a brain to do that, and by that measure most bloggers I know are far more qualified than most mainstream columnists.

Maybe insisting on bloggers being held to high standards with respect to reporting news will cause me to lose points with a certain Shiite strain of blogger out there, but it makes no sense to me to proceed otherwise.

Clubhouse access isn't what bloggers should be shooting for. The press box is where they ought to be. Buzz says that the press box is a special place that gives a special view of the game that allows people to better understand it than if you're sitting anywhere else in the park.

How can Baker never mention that fact that a "journalist" was the one who made the issue public and brought it to Ibanez's intention? If not for a "journalist", this wouldn't be an issue.

This is what I don't understand. What do Baker, Rosenthal, Gonzalez, and the other tsk tskers propose we do about this problem? Everybody who posts on the Interwebs swears to uphold strong journalistic standards? Clearly not realistic. Government-imposed standards for Internet posting? Clearly not Constitutional. Host-imposed standards for Internet posting? Clearly not realistic, probably not Constitutional. Libel and defamation laws are loosened to go after these awful bloggers, and perhaps the hosts that give them access online? Yeah, that wouldn't rebound on the mainstream media much. Not to mention, even if you got around realistic and Constitutional problems for any or all of these ideas, I still don't know if any could possibly be broad enough to lead to a sanction against Jerod Morris for what he posted.

The only rational way to deal with this "problem" is for mainstream media to agree that the new media expands their ethics to the point where they cannot just cite reports to Internet crap that they wouldn't themselves print, even if it is only for the purpose of shredding the blogger in an editorial. Of course, then the Inquirer would lose all of the great free publicity it got this week I guess.

Can you imagine if hard news media acted this way? George Will writing this Sunday's editorial on "Gee, a lot of people are emailing me, asking if I've seen this guy online who's spouting off that President Obama is owned by the Jews. Geez, you know, that's a terrible thing to say ... there oughta be a law. What a cretin. Bye."

No can do, Jeff. Baker has made me see the light. He and I are on the same, rigid page.

I'd like to nominate the following for the Geoff Baker Rigidity Awards:

Then, along comes Bavasi to run the 2004 Mariners. All of a sudden, a 90-plus win playoff contender from 2003 plummets to a 99-loss season. The offense drops off a cliff. Is there a connection between those drops and the stiffer drug testing? We'll probably never know for certain. All I know is, Bavasi inherited a team that -- for whatever reason -- fell off the planet. I've never heard him complain about it. But I have heard other GMs talk about how much tougher it became to sign free agents and plan your team around the past performance of hitters starting with that spring of 2004.

It's one thing to name Sosa or Bret Boone, but an entire team? That's quite the piece of work.

Journalists need clubhouse access because they need quotes for specific game stories. If you're doing something more in-depth, you can talk to the players, coaches, etc. in a more relaxed setting, like Athletics Nation does with those Beane interviews. You don't need to talk to the guys while they're changing.

Most of this goes on before the game, doesn't it? Postgame is for questions specifically about the game. Pre-game is for more general stuff.

Cripple: who wrote that (please be Baker, please be Baker), and do you have a link?

Here's the link.

It is Baker, on his blog (posted 7 FEB 2009).

Thanks Ryan. And here I thought I wouldn't have any other posts on this subject . . .

This is preposterous. I take it he has a problem with people who didn't get engineering degrees inventing things, or people who didn't go to culinary school becoming executive chefs.

I have a huge problem with people who didn't get engineering degrees inventing things. Otherwise, you get things like the Christmas Bullet. Two airplanes, two flights, two dead pilots...

Thanks Ryan. And here I thought I wouldn't have any other posts on this subject . . .

No problem. After Baker's performance during his time in Toronto, I'm always happy to do what I can to help point out what a douche he is. I suspect that GHC has a similar motivation.

I have a huge problem with people who didn't get engineering degrees inventing things. Otherwise, you get things like the Christmas Bullet. Two airplanes, two flights, two dead pilots...

Nice. I'd never heard of that before.

Actually, if anything, I'm grateful for Baker's stint at The Star. If Toronto's baseball writers weren't so bad, I never would've looked elsewhere (the internet/Bill James' abstracts) for good baseball writing

And I probably dislike Baker more for his stint in Seattle than for what he did in Toronto. In Toronto, he was easier to ignore.

I have a huge problem with people who didn't get engineering degrees inventing things. Otherwise, you get things like the Christmas Bullet. Two airplanes, two flights, two dead pilots...

For an airplane sure, but that's a very extreme example. For things that don't risk death when you try them out, people without engineering degrees shouldn't be barred.

You know, time to head over to USS Mariner to see how the folks are taking Baker's offer to instruct them on proper journalistic technique...

You know, time to head over to USS Mariner to see how the folks are taking Baker's offer to instruct them on proper journalistic technique...

Yeah, that Dave Cameron is a laid back guy. I'm sure he's taking things in stride.

Yeah, that Dave Cameron is a laid back guy. I'm sure he's taking things in stride.

Not a peep!

It's still early. Give them time.

As if that has anything to do with anything. This was a serious column and can't be answered by snark and non sequiturs. This is not one of your Murray Chass or Bill Conlin rants.

Have you learned nothing? Anything can be answered by snark and non sequiturs.

In any case, I think the notion that one needs "formal training" to be a journalist is pretty mockable. I mean, it's understandable; everyone wants to defend his or her guild. Lawyers do it too, although at least they pretend that they're doing it for the benefit of their clients. But journalists? Is there some high standard for entry into the profession that enables him to argue that bloggers as a class are unqualified?

It's still early. Give them time.

If anything, I'd expect DMZ to react more negatively than Dave, due to personality and the fact that Dave's got a legitimate press gig (Wall Street Journal, IIRC). Both have been - to my knowledge - fairly positive on Baker before. When they disagree with him, they tend to qualify their criticism with "we don't think he's a bad person/writer" bits.

I just read the original post and the interview with the blogger, the Inquirer guy, and Rosenthal. This whole blowup rests mostly on the Inquirer writer.

This is the blogger's conclusion

"Personally, I am withholding judgment until we see a full seasons’ worth of stats. Many players put together terrific runs of 150-250 ABs in the midst of otherwise normal or just slightly above average (based on their career numbers) seasons. Ibanez’s terrific 219 AB run since Opening Day is just magnified right now because it came at the start of the season."

But all Gonzalez gets across is:
"Maybe the 37-year-old Ibanez trained differently this off-season with the pressure of joining the Phillies' great lineup and is in the best shape he's ever been in. And maybe that training included. . . . Well, you know where that one was going, but I'd prefer to leave it as unstated speculation."

He completely misrepresents the premise of the article, its conclusion, and the steps he took to reach his conclusion.

And what the blogger was doing is no different than what other writers were doing in articles discussed here.

In any case, I think the notion that one needs "formal training" to be a journalist is pretty mockable.

It is beyond mockable, especially in sports journalism -- it is one of those unintentionally hysterical things that makes one do a double take to check for sarcasm.

A journalism degree (BA/BS -- sports journalism is a profession is which most do not have a Masters) is about 40 hours of journalism classes. Most of those hours are comprised of introductory classes to various aspects of journalism and an ethics/law class. The rest are in the student's emphasis, and if a student is looking how to learn to be a good writer in those classes, well, he is ######.

I think to be a GOOD journalist takes training, but that training is mostly in the form of on-the-job training. I don't think we should go nuts and dismiss the profession altogether. I'm impressed by how familiar good journalists can get with a variety of subjects in order to relate the subtleties of, say, the derivatives market or stem-cell research or Afghani politics to a general audience that is most likely starting out with zero knowledge of the subject.

I think to be a GOOD journalist takes training, but that training is mostly in the form of on-the-job training.

Yes, a journalist learns important, if not invaluable things, on the job (obligatory which teams have the best buffets and which bars have the best happy hour reference). However, his writing craft better be fined tuned before the job, and most journalism classes aren't about that.

However, his writing craft better be fined tuned before the job, and most journalism classes aren't about that.

Wouldn't the school newspaper be more important for this? And, of course, there is the school of thought that you can either write or you can't...

Wouldn't the school newspaper be more important for this?

That's what Aaron Gleeman wanted to do, IIRC. But the paper wouldn't hire him so he did his blog. Wound up working for NBC, although the pictures of him blogging on his laptop while still in bed didn't help dispel any blogger stereotypes.

Wouldn't the school newspaper be more important for this?

Depends on the school newspaper, and the role the writer is allowed to have on that paper.

That's what Aaron Gleeman wanted to do, IIRC. But the paper wouldn't hire him so he did his blog. Wound up working for NBC, although the pictures of him blogging on his laptop while still in bed didn't help dispel any blogger stereotypes.

This is true, but it's also worth noting that I've done a handful of photo shoots and in every single instance the journalist and/or photographer involved immediately requested some variation of me in bed typing a laptop. They are absolutely obsessed with that notion. I may not be dispelling any blogger sterotypes--which is fine, since I quite enjoy blogging from bed and am not exactly photogenic without some kind of staged setup--but the people "covering" bloggers are also going out of their way to push the same stereotypes.

And just for the record, I think this whole Ibanez thing (and Baker's subsequent piece) is absurd. The blogger did nothing that hundreds of mainstream media members haven't done during the past couple years and Baker's treatise on how to properly be a journalist misses the point that, you know, not everyone is trying to be a journalist. Some people just want to be writers or fans or bloggers or message board posters, and the high-and-mighty stance professional journalists like Baker so often take seems to completely miss that point.

This is true, but it's also worth noting that I've done a handful of photo shoots and in every single instance the journalist and/or photographer involved immediately requested some variation of me in bed typing a laptop.

I can actually understand this. It's the most distinctive photo shot they have to go with, and thus the most likely to get the reader's attention.

If you had a photo of yourself wearing nothing but a loincloth and using peanut butter in your hair as mousse, they'd probably go with that one all the time instead.

Or a flannel shirt.

If you had a photo of yourself wearing nothing but a loincloth and using peanut butter in your hair as mousse,

Oh, gosh, thanks for that image, Chris ...

If you had a photo of yourself wearing nothing but a loincloth and using peanut butter in your hair as mousse, they'd probably go with that one all the time instead.

Nightmare fuel. Thanks Chris.

Nightmare fuel. Thanks Chris.

What? You guys don't like peanut butter?

Baker, in a later post:

When I talk about "training" I don't mean everyone should go to journalism school. Many of my colleagues haven't and I'd worked for two papers professionally before attending one. A good journalism school is great. But those who didn't go, now working in the pro media, usually have "on-the-job'' training where they are supervised by editors and other bosses. They build their body of work slowly, moving from one type of story to something more complex.

Writing a story about steroids and whether or not you can rule out steroids in his case would never be a task given to a raw reporter. Even to a veteran one in most cases. If you were going to tackle an issue like this, it's probably something a most senior writer, with years of experience at navigating legal and ethical issues, would be given. Even then, there would be a ton of oversight.

And that's the problem I had here in a nutshell. The oversight was lacking. The ethical discussion beforehand seemed to be lacking. The experience was lacking. This was essentially a one-man show, as many blogs are. And as we move forward, those one-man shows risk setting off more mines as they try to navigate a difficult area -- journalism -- without much of a track record to fall back on. So, no, this isn't a call to abolish blogs. It's a call for more thought, sensitivity and self-policing.

Hope that isn't too big a snip...

I still don't get it. The blogger was just hypothecating and it was clear he was. He was writing a "news" story or pretending to be a journalist. This isn't anything like the PETE ROSE TO BE REINSTATED fiasco or even the gray area of Halo's Heaven posting the address to the parents of the guy who killed Nick Adenhart (which, ironically, they got from a newspaper).

If you were going to tackle an issue like this, it's probably something a most senior writer, with years of experience at navigating legal and ethical issues, would be given. Even then, there would be a ton of oversight.

That is complete horsesh1t. It seems like at least once a week, some half assed MSM article on steroids is posted here that obvioulsy had very little oversight.

Probably worth noting that the whole process he describes -- a long ladder, layers of editors, etc. -- is the kind of thing that leads to newspapers with giant bloated budgets that are now being slashed.

As if that has anything to do with anything. This was a serious column and can't be answered by snark and non sequiturs. This is not one of your Murray Chass or Bill Conlin rants.

Have you learned nothing? Anything can be answered by snark and non sequiturs.

In any case, I think the notion that one needs "formal training" to be a journalist is pretty mockable. I mean, it's understandable; everyone wants to defend his or her guild. Lawyers do it too, although at least they pretend that they're doing it for the benefit of their clients. But journalists? Is there some high standard for entry into the profession that enables him to argue that bloggers as a class are unqualified?

Of course not, other than a purely self-imposed one, which can just as easily be maintained by anyone with integrity, including a blogger. The serious point that Baker makes is about the willingness to back up one's opinions, not his evidently romantic idea about what "formal training" might do for prospective journalists. And while it takes a lot more than "subject knowledge and common sense" to be a good reporter, whatever it takes you certainly don't need formal training to acquire.

I think it's worth point out that there is still something of a difference between reporting on politics or business and sportswriting. Generally speaking, I've seen sportswriters get away with idle speculation that, frankly, would not fly in other areas of journalism. Not to say that non-sports journalists don't opine on things, or frequently report on poorly-sourced or speculative stories, but sportswriters take it to a level that generally exceeds the norms of most of journalism (print, anyway. TV is a different animal).

Also, the whole "clubhouse access" thing is a total crock because, frankly, most athletes are crap communicators. Even though press conferences throughout the world are staged affairs rife with canned, meaningless, lines, sometimes you'll get an actual kernel of news in there - especially if there's something they want to tell you. Athletes and coaches tend to give out boilerplate even when they don't have to, even when they don't want to, because most of them suck at explaining things.

Generally speaking, I've seen sportswriters get away with idle speculation that, frankly, would not fly in other areas of journalism.

It's important to note the distinction between columnists and reporters here. Columnists, in sports as well as in other areas, can get away with things that wouldn't be appropriate in news stories.

If you're William Safire, you can write that the First Lady is about to be indicted, or that Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, and you're still treated as an eminence. But if you're Judy Miller and you write that kind of thing in a news story, you run the risk of getting fired.

It's important to note the distinction between columnists and reporters here. Columnists, in sports as well as in other areas, can get away with things that wouldn't be appropriate in news stories.

If you're William Safire, you can write that the First Lady is about to be indicted, or that Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, and you're still treated as an eminence. But if you're Judy Miller and you write that kind of thing in a news story, you run the risk of getting fired.

True. But I think the sports/not-sports distinction holds even for the lower standards of opinion columns. William Safire has said some dumb, unverifiable stuff, but typically there's some kind of cogent argument behind it. The argument could be totally bogus, but at least it's there. Compare that to the average steroid column, which is basically "Player X hit home runs, so he took steroids." There's usually a little bit more logic standing behind the claims in an op-ed column. Not always, but usually.

Also, the distinction between opining and reporting is less clear on the sports pages.

This is true, but it's also worth noting that I've done a handful of photo shoots and in every single instance the journalist and/or photographer involved immediately requested some variation of me in bed typing a laptop.

They didn't ask you to sit in a basement in your underwear, with your mother in the background delivering hot-pockets?

Anyway, Baker's argument would carry more heft is so many of his colleagues weren't hacks. He should really hold some of these lectures for them

agreed, that is the first thing I thought of while reading his article, he may have higher standards, but that doesn't mean his colleagues have the same standard. Backne and unconfirmed innuendo has allowed one of his colleagues to color Piazza as a roider.

Backne and unconfirmed innuendo has allowed one of his colleagues to color Piazza as a roider.

The backne thing confirms Baker's point, not yours. Murray Chass wanted to write about Piazza's backne at the New York Times, but the standards of a professional editor prohibited him from doing so. It was only once he became a loose-cannon, unedited blogger that we were treated to BackneFest '09.

73. Posted: June 12, 2009 at 03:28 PM (#3216503)

. . . um .. . . .. .

does post #73 look the same for anyone else, or do I accidently have someone on ignore?

The backne thing confirms Baker's point, not yours. Murray Chass wanted to write about Piazza's backne at the New York Times, but the standards of a professional editor prohibited him from doing so. It was only once he became a loose-cannon, unedited blogger that we were treated to BackneFest '09.

Ok, then I go to Selena Roberts, the post by Baker in 36(although that is a Baker blog) and the link by Calcaterra in post 30.

And the more I read the bloggers original post the more I realize that he didn't really say anything other than imply a bunch of possiblilities.(I was against him originally based upon just a snippet I read, reading the whole thing and the guy doesn't seem nearly as bad as the snippet made him look)

does post #73 look the same for anyone else, or do I accidently have someone on ignore?

It's just Shock. He's renamed himself to '_', which is a change from earlier this week, when he was "#### #### ####" and "Rob Dribble."

does post #73 look the same for anyone else, or do I accidently have someone on ignore?

depends on what you mean, the guys screen name is _ (basically a space with the underline that is automatic for all names)

Journalists are like teachers -- they act as though there are a ton of special skills you need in order to do the job well. In actuality, all you need is (a) knowledge of your subject area and (b) common sense.

I'm not sure whether this represents a subtle dig on the lack of common sense in the world, a misunderstanding of how hard it is to teach well, or is indicative of my misunderstanding of how low one should set the bar when one says "s/he teaches well.". To teach? Sure, I'll accept that anyone can "teach" if they know their subject reasonably well and are not totally out of touch with generally accepted behavior. But to teach well? I think you underestimate how difficult that is. "Common sense" appears inaptly named given that many schools do not have a lot of teachers who do their job especially well. It's like saying anyone can be a really good public speaker or anyone can be a really good actor -- if that's the case, how come so few people are either?

Also, the whole "clubhouse access" thing is a total crock because, frankly, most athletes are crap communicators.

This sentiment vastly overstates the case. Even if a lot of clubhouse information in the cumulative is regurgitated ########, there is still information to be gleaned. And the writers who can understand the sport will get the insight. Ask the catcher about a certain pitch. Ask a manager about a change. There is stuff there. Maybe it isn't important every night.

Also, the whole "clubhouse access" thing is a total crock because, frankly, most athletes are crap communicators. Even though press conferences throughout the world are staged affairs rife with canned, meaningless, lines, sometimes you'll get an actual kernel of news in there - especially if there's something they want to tell you. Athletes and coaches tend to give out boilerplate even when they don't have to, even when they don't want to, because most of them suck at explaining things.

I think that's because they just ask bad questions. The "how do you feel" nonsense is ########, and it produces ######## answers time and time again. But when I'm writing a game story, I like to ask questions about specific plays. If a wide receiver (I'm normally put on football games, so this is where I'm coming from) can give me a quote about how a touchdown play developed, or, one of my favorites, an offensive lineman can tell me how a running back got his hole on a big run, I think there's value in that. It's not the most earth shattering stuff, obviously, but I think it's at least mildly interesting, and way more informative than knowing some guy feels great because his team won. Well, yeah, he feels great, duh.

I'd also argue the majority of people who want to work as a journalist could use a little bit of basic training. I was managing editor of our school's newspaper last semester, and we got a ton of fine writers from the English department coming in that simply couldn't put together anything remotely appropriate for a newspaper. They don't understand the importance or utility of finding sources, citing sources, or basic journalistic structure. You get these stories with huge long paragraphs and winding, elaborate language without any quotes at all, and it's just not journalism. No, journalism isn't medicine or anything like that, but to do it properly an understanding of the profession is, in fact, necessary. And that doesn't mean you need to go to J-school or anything, just get an on-the-job type training somewhere.

Now, I'd also argue most bloggers out there get that. Or, at least, the good ones. And their daily blogging and writing is, in a lot of ways, on the job training. The majority of bloggers I see out there know how to write a good story. It doesn't take any kind of expertise to take the next step to find and throw quotes in. Like I said, I think most bloggers understand journalism, and that's what I'm talking about with basic training here.

I ALSO think a lot of what the MSM guys do is getting shortchanged here. Reporting is a skill. Anyone can write, yeah, but reporting is a pretty difficult thing to do. Some might think, "I could do what Peter Gammons or Ken Rosenthal do if I had their sources" but building up sources and cultivating those are, like, 80% of what a reporter does. If bloggers want to be columnists, I agree there's not a lot separating them from the guys you read in newspapers, but if they want to be reporters, it takes a lot of skill, and, yes, probably a deal of training, to be able to report well. And access is important to that.

edit: And if you can combine the two skills well, writing and reporting, then you have something special, like, say, a Joe Posnanski (my favorite, at least). That, of course, is incredibly difficult to do.

I definitely agree that there is a GIGO effect here. Also, reporters ask too many set-up questions to get their desired quote (eg. "What is it like having such a great leader like Jeter in the clubhouse?")

Although, some of these "how was it" questions produce interesting quotes. I love hearing what hitters have to say about facing certain pitchers. Especially if that hitter just went 0-for-5 with 5 K's or something.

we got a ton of fine writers from the English department

Well, I'm surprised. English departments in British universities produce the dregs of the publishing trade in Britain. When hiring, I would put the cv of anyone with an English degree straight in the 'no' pile unless there was some sign they actually could, y'know, write.

Language students and history students were the best recruits for editing jobs.

Studying literature is not the same as knowing how to write.

Maybe insisting on bloggers being held to high standards with respect to reporting news will cause me to lose points with a certain Shiite strain of blogger out there, but it makes no sense to me to proceed otherwise.

Just to be clear, so I don't misunderstand, can you specify what derogatory character trait you are equating with the word "Shiite" here?

Journalists are like teachers -- they act as though there are a ton of special skills you need in order to do the job well. In actuality, all you need is (a) knowledge of your subject area and (b) common sense.

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone pissed on teachers in this thread.

I have explained this maybe 10 times at BTF now, but:

Teaching, like almost every job, requires more specialized knowledge than people who don't do it realize.

That said, it is not gall bladder surgery or whatever; it is still a soft skills job, which means anybody can stand up there and explain something to a group of people if they know something about the topic. If you are speaking to highly motivated adults, that can "work" to a degree, but even so, to get them to retain it, apply it, etc. you need to know some stuff, and that doesn't even get into teaching kids/teens/special ed/ESL etc.

One of my gigs is adult teacher training, and almost everybody realizes after they start that it is "harder than they thought." Some college and uni teachers don't know jackshit about running interesting, interactive classes, so I am doing a little training at that level now as well.

I'd also argue the majority of people who want to work as a journalist could use a little bit of basic training. I was managing editor of our school's newspaper last semester, and we got a ton of fine writers from the English department coming in that simply couldn't put together anything remotely appropriate for a newspaper. They don't understand the importance or utility of finding sources, citing sources, or basic journalistic structure. You get these stories with huge long paragraphs and winding, elaborate language without any quotes at all, and it's just not journalism. No, journalism isn't medicine or anything like that, but to do it properly an understanding of the profession is, in fact, necessary. And that doesn't mean you need to go to J-school or anything, just get an on-the-job type training somewhere.

I worked on my high school (sports editor) and college paper (wrote a few stories) back in the day, and I think this is well-put. Journalism strikes me as a craft in some respects, a talent in others, and a soft skills/interpersonal/experiencial job in still others.

Baker is a pretty good writer, and makes some OK points, but the "look someone in the eye" stuff doesn't work too well for me.

"By depending on access to the clubhouse, it severely limits the types of stories their willing to write, as writing the wrong thing will get you kicked out."

No it doesn't, if you know what you are doing (and the 'kicked out' part isn't true regardless).

You have to be ACCURATE.

You would be amazed at the amount of continuing cooperation you can get from people who wince repeatedly at your articles if ..... you don't have an agenda, and they realize that, and you get the facts right. All of that takes a LOT of skill, frankly - more than I guess a lot of people here realize.

Teaching is probably a fair parallel, in the sense that the quality varies wildly, and with tougher-to-benchmark quality than many other jobs (how many cars did you sell this month and for what profit, etc).

I've found that the best way to write a hard-hitting column is to discuss the angle beforehand with the subject. If you're confident in that angle, you shouldn't be afraid to let it be challenged by the subject himself. In fact, if he can talk you out of it, that might be an even BETTER column.

That's not the classic approach in sports journalism, though. The "show up the next day after you rip someone" mantra has been around for many decades, and it's a good next-best approach imo. Columnists sometimes "hit and run" from sport to sport, and that can be a legitimate source of criticism by athletes/coaches.

I just think it's even better to hit the subject with that same "look him in the eye" approach before it even hits print/Web.

Just to be clear, so I don't misunderstand, can you specify what derogatory character trait you are equating with the word "Shiite" here?

Apologies. That was uncalled for. It's bad holdover phrase that at one time some people (myself included) thought was a clever synonym for "extremist," usually applied to U.S. politicians of a particular stripe (see here for an example).

I fully realize that it's insensitive and ignorant, but sometimes I autopilot things like that.

Sorry.

I may be overly sensitive to things like that. Comes with a lifetime of hearing people brag how they \"#####\" someone down.

Bah. Phrases like that need to die, and me mindlessly parroting them doesn't help matters.

I've found that the best way to write a hard-hitting column is to discuss the angle beforehand with the subject. If you're confident in that angle, you shouldn't be afraid to let it be challenged by the subject himself. In fact, if he can talk you out of it, that might be an even BETTER column.

That's not the classic approach in sports journalism, though. The "show up the next day after you rip someone" mantra has been around for many decades, and it's a good next-best approach imo. Columnists sometimes "hit and run" from sport to sport, and that can be a legitimate source of criticism by athletes/coaches.

I just think it's even better to hit the subject with that same "look him in the eye" approach before it even hits print/Web.

Excellent points, Howie.

Many elite-level columnists don't go to games very often. Bill Conlin and Lupica do most of their writing from home.