quote:
Originally posted by SKeep:
What makes the whole issue problematic is, everyone has their own definition for right/wrong, good/bad, and certainly for whether or not something is appropriate. It’s a lot like the glass being half full or half empty. I personally find generally, that as long as something is truthful, I just accept it and get on with my life. But its not too difficult to tell when something, even if truthful, is written/said with the intention to be hurtful, and that’s when its personally offensive.
Good points.
There can never be a universal rule that will cover or apply to all situations. The key is to be
reasonable imho. Our local newspapers are pretty good about reporting things. If someone makes an error, the error is reported but the players name usually is not. In a high profile playoff game, information concerning that type of information is often reported because it sometimes has a big impact on that game and other playoff games thereafter. If a pitcher is roughed up, they tend to focus the story on the success of the offense rather than the pitcher's "misdeeds." Sometimes, the mistake someone makes is the whole story to a game so it must be reported. Other times it is unnecessary. For example, sometimes a pitcher makes a perfect pitch but for whatever reason the hitter lucks one over the second baseman's head for the game winning hit. Two ways to write that story. One is to say "hitter's name" won the game. Another way to write it is to say "pitcher's name" bl-ew it. The latter technique is completely irresponsible imho. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the other team and to assign blame is thus not reasonable imho.
To answer justbb's initial question about off-field incidents, again I believe the reasonableness test needs to be applied. For the two situations he described (shaking hands, heated words between coach and player) seems unreasonable to me for stuff like that to be reported imho. To extend a hypothetical, if the scuffle between a coach or the player got so heated that either one or both were tossed from the game and that impacted the outcome of the game, then something like that ought to be reported.
Here was a real world scenario from our highschool that happened many years back. The coach walked to the mound and was about to remove a pitcher and the pitcher had a tantrum and threw his glove at the coach. In the paper the next day after the team lost, the glove incident was reported and some people questioned whether that was fair game or not. IMHO, in this situation it was because the incident seemed to change the whole complexion of the game thereafter. Everyone there also witnessed the event so no secrets or otherwise were being told. Again, I think it is hard to come up with a universal rule for all situations but I don't think it is too much to ask for people (the media) to be reasonable.