Sports Journalists Who Challenge the Party Line Are a Good Thing

[Captain Silver]

I stopped reading Agenda Man's articles years ago. The sun somehow shines brighter.

[HoustonRaven]

KVV was the last, most recent *true* sports journalist over at The Sun.

I respected him for two reasons. One, he wasn't afraid to say something bad about a local sports team or player. And two, it was usually right.

People like Preston know how to do the first thing. What they lack is the second thing.

I have zero problem if a sports journalist says something bad about the team. Not one. But when they say the same things over and over again and are wrong over and over again, it's obvious they're simply saying something to get clicks rather than to get it right.

[HotInHere]

Do folks not realize that there is a difference between journalism and being a columnist?

Columnists are supposed to be journalists who also include their opinions in what they write. But they are still bound by journalistic rules that dictate that when you write things AS FACTS, they need to actually BE FACTS, and verifiable facts at that.

"Harbaugh told me he wanted Hostler."
"Hostler's agent informed me that Hostler was the preferred choice of the head coach."
"I have heard some speculation by various people around the Ravens training facility that Hostler is the front-runner."

These are facts. And by listing the source, the reader can decide how much weight to add to the notion.

"Harbaugh wanted Hostler." This is written like it's a fact, but it's actually an opinion. This is bad journalism. It's a mistake Preston makes all the time. And as MarkS astutely points out in another thread, it's a mistake that Tony Lombardi has also made for the first (and hopefully last) time.

[bensmotorcyclehelmt]

Hotinhere is absolutely spot on.

There was always a reason why newspapers had dedicated coumnists and did not let these columnists write news stories- to avoid the confusion between reported facts and opinion.

When the newspapers began to tank when the internet hit a few years ago, staffs were slashed and the Sun kept only a handful of people. But they had to create new content for their website. They thought "blogging" was the wave of the future. Everyhting began to be labeled a "blog"- sports stories, opinion pieces, game previews etc. Preston's blurred lines career was off and running.

[HotInHere]

Here is what columnists should be. Note that they are presenting a strong overarching opinion in the piece. They are including facts, verifiable facts. They are not sensationalizing; just making a case to support their opinion.

Tom Boswell

I particularly like this:

Shanahan, it now seems apparent, wants to be fired. His motives can be ascertained in the future. But his targets as he leaves we probably already know: Snyder, the easy-but-always-deserving target, and Robert Griffin III, the quarterback to whom the franchise future is tied. Last season, Shanahan left RGIII in far too long against Seattle and contributed to a knee injury that may limit the ceiling on his whole career. What psychological scars and damage to reputation will he leave now as he departs?

Note how he says that bolded part. Not "Shanahan wants to be fired." Not as a fact. Also note the use of the word 'probably.'

Mitch Albom

Mitch uses quotes. Lots of quotes, in quotation marks, attributed to the guys who said them. Then he gives his opinion about those quotes.

And lastly, the GOAT. If you've never read him, just look up his old columns. You can go pretty far back -- the guy covered Babe Ruth.

Shirley Povich

Have opinion, support opnion. With facts.

[lovefootball]

Is Charm city actually MP. The MP who so wants to be the mouth piece for the Ravens and needs people to think he has information that is true. I would think MP has to stir the pot because,unlike David Steele, he is not going national. The Sun is were he will retire, if the Sun lasts that long. LOL
Hr, your first post is what I thought about the OP.

[PalladinInNC]

Columnists are supposed to be journalists who also include their opinions in what they write. But they are still bound by journalistic rules that dictate that when you write things AS FACTS, they need to actually BE FACTS, and verifiable facts at that.

"Harbaugh told me he wanted Hostler."
"Hostler's agent informed me that Hostler was the preferred choice of the head coach."
"I have heard some speculation by various people around the Ravens training facility that Hostler is the front-runner."

These are facts. And by listing the source, the reader can decide how much weight to add to the notion.

"Harbaugh wanted Hostler." This is written like it's a fact, but it's actually an opinion. This is bad journalism. It's a mistake Preston makes all the time. And as MarkS astutely points out in another thread, it's a mistake that Tony Lombardi has also made for the first (and hopefully last) time.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner!

[CharmCityCrab]

Reid is a waste of a roster spot. Thanks for the reminder, I sometimes forget about him. I'd rather have dead money and a promising rookie to try out than another year of Reid.

Well, it's either he's a waste of a roster spot or he was not evaluated well by the people we had in place last year, but it's got to be one or the other. I had some hopes when they shifted him from tackle to guard, because being a guard generally requires less athleticism and coordination than being a tackle and is more about sheer size, and he looked good in a pre-season game there, but I think that preseason game was 2-3 years ago. If you've got a veteran as big as he is who is allegedly a guard and you by-pass him to sub in a player who needs to add at least 20 lbs to play the position adequately and is basically a center, when injury strikes your starter, that tells me Reid is either no good or the coaching staff is missing his talent and keeping around for some inexplicable reason even though they think he's no good. We'll see what happens in training camp, but I think Kubiak is going to make a call that he's either better than Caldwell thought he was or he's cut.

Sorry, I don't buy this at all. The stories about the O's were substantiated by the product on the field. Preston is not an investigative journalist. He is a guy that throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. I honestly dont believe he has a crediable source inside the Ravens organization.

Well, if he is outright making things up, then that would be a problem. However, I've never seen evidence of that. If I had to guess, he's printing what Jim Hostler tells him, and of course the Ravens official website prints when Kevin Byrne tells them (or in some cases, what Kevin actually writes directly). Both sources have reasons to be biased, but neither is inherently more credible than the other. So, we get both sides between the two and can make our own judgement, or withhold judgement.

Remember, Preston does have an editor, and his editor is likely to require Preston to divulge his sources to him or in some way substantiate things behind close doors before he'll agree to run the stories. He's still in that traditional media hiearchy.

Now, Tony Lombardi doesn't have an editor and probably doesn't have the journalist training Preston has, he's essentially new media, but he's been around here a long time and seems to indicate on a different thread that he has independent sources from Preston on this story. It might be the same source telling both people the same thing, and that source could be lying or exaggerating, but it makes it less likely that it's being invented from whole cloth by Mike Preston, unless you think Tony just copies stories from the Sun and that we have two people lying about sourcing. I think there is someone with close ties to the organization who is saying what these guys are printing. Whether he's right or not is a different story (I have no idea). I just think someone is saying it, and it's not inherently less credible to me than what someone hired as a public relations director, who's job is to promote the team and make them look good, says.

The biggest story surroundind the 2012 Ravens was the near mutiny after the loss to Houston. If Preston had a crediable source, how come the national media broke that story and not him? That is exactly the kind of juicy drama he likes to run with. Yet it took weeks and Mike Silver for it to come out.

A source doesn't necessarily disclose everything. There could be a guy leaking stuff to Preston when it suits his purposes or when he feels it is somewhat juicy but doesn't hurt the team, who'd hesitate to leak something that would not suit his purposes or which he feels would hurt the team, and the 2012 mutiny might fall into the category of something that the source felt would compromise the team significantly if it went to print right away. Someone who's not a source of Preston but is closer to a national media personality, or got drunk at a bar with a national media personality or something, might feel differently, or the usual Preston source might have had to mull over whether to disclose it or not for a while and then disclosed with whomever is on hand (We don't know that he has any special loyalty to Preston, even assuming it's the same person, or just one person, which isn't necessarily the case).

Do folks not realize that there is a difference between journalism and being a columnist?

In theory, there was for a long time. However, editorialism and investigative journalism were done by the same people for a very long time before the advent of modern journalistic separation between the two, and I think the walls have been gradually breaking back down again in recent times. Ultimately, we may view editorial separation from investigative journalism as a historical aberration, depending on how things go in the world of news.

Columnists are supposed to be journalists who also include their opinions in what they write. But they are still bound by journalistic rules that dictate that when you write things AS FACTS, they need to actually BE FACTS, and verifiable facts at that.

"Harbaugh told me he wanted Hostler."
"Hostler's agent informed me that Hostler was the preferred choice of the head coach."
"I have heard some speculation by various people around the Ravens training facility that Hostler is the front-runner."

These are facts. And by listing the source, the reader can decide how much weight to add to the notion.

Woodwood and Bernstien broke Watergate using an anonymous source. I can agree with you that maybe Ravens reporters need to more explicitly state they got their information from an anonymous sources rather than stating it as fact if that's what they are doing (I think I'm over my limit at the Sun's pay wall again, otherwise I'd re-read the article ;) ), but I think anonymous sources are an important part of journalism. There are some things that the public should know that no one is going to ever say explicitly "on the record".

[Brien Jackson]

Challenging the organization is one thing. The problem is that Preston makes shit up/frames his speculation as actual reporting, and when it gets called out he hides behind an inaccurate definition of the word opinion to excuse it all. Hammering Angelos/MLB over the unfair television rights package the Nationals get is challenging authority, Preston's schtick is not. He's not challenging anything, he's just making sensational claims to get people to read/talk about him so that he can put more money in his bank account.

[Captain Offense]

I totally reject the premise of the title thread unless you add "Competent, Credible and Honorable" in front of that. There are plenty in this city who meet the first seven words of the Thread title but are underhanded, self-serving, egotistical and without quality of any kind. They could report that Kubiak was hired as the OC and I would dismiss them as a hack. Just because you rattle the cage does not give you any credibility. A broken clock is right twice a day/ a blind squirrel can find a nut does not give them "well-respected" status. A weatherman who says it is going to rain today every day is eventually going to be right but does not make him an expert.

To be fair though, in my study of history there have always been a ton of writers/reporters who have more ink than honor. That is why the ones that do are very special.

[HotInHere]

Well, if he is outright making things up, then that would be a problem. However, I've never seen evidence of that.

Well, here is some evidence of that.

Woodwood and Bernstien broke Watergate using an anonymous source. I can agree with you that maybe Ravens reporters need to more explicitly state they got their information from an anonymous sources rather than stating it as fact if that's what they are doing (I think I'm over my limit at the Sun's pay wall again, otherwise I'd re-read the article ;) ), but I think anonymous sources are an important part of journalism. There are some things that the public should know that no one is going to ever say explicitly "on the record".

I understand the quandary of anonymous sources. But remember, the anonymous source from W&B got them on to the trail, but they used other actual facts to break a verifiable story. The only sources that could actually know what transpired between Oz, Steve, and Harbs are Oz, Steve and Harbs. I doubt that if Steve did go to Harbs and tell him that he had to hire Kubiak that he did so in front of a room full of people.

So even if Preston has a "source", that source is just speculating himself. Maybe Vontae Leach is telling Preston that Hostler is Harbs guy. It doesn't mean Vontae knows; I doubt Harbs would directly say that to Vontae. So he is just speculating himself.

Add to that the fact the Preston has a history of floating narratives that fly in the face of logic (e.g. it was Brian Billick, not Ozzie Newsome, who was responsible for drafting Kyle Boller) and it all adds up to absolute crap as far as I'm concerned.

[lowrider]

I agree with the general premise of the OP. Balanced Journalism is crucial in any area of public interest. The critical point here is that columnists for the most part, write opinion pieces and don't feel the need to provide credible sources, or do thorough investigative work to support said opinions. And this is where Preston gets a bad rap.

When he writes things as fact, rather than just opinion, and then doesn't provide credible sources, people are not going to accept what he writes as gospel. He uses his title of "columnists" as a shield of sorts, to write pieces that are not always based in fact, but certainly sound they are.

Personally, I like to read his columns, but I know very well when I do, I have to take what he writes with a grain of salt many times. I view his work as entertainment, for the most part. He loves to stir the pot. I know that and I accept it for what it is. But honestly, it is refreshing to hear an opposing opinion.