On Raul Ibanez, and media accountability
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On Raul Ibanez, and media accountability
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
I have a little brother. At this point in time in our lives, he isn't much littler than me. He did two tours of duty in Iraq. I did a tours of duty in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and Hernando County, Fla. He carried a gun. The closest I have come to risking my life is driving up Roosevelt Boulevard. So the metaphor I am about to relay does not hold true today.
But 15 years ago, he was the little brother, and I was the big brother. Little brothers are in an unenviable position. They come out of the womb with a chip on their shoulder. They want badly to be accepted in the same manner as the older brother. Yet thanks to the difference in years -- two, in our case, which in early childhood might as well be a decade -- they never really can. Not only the basketball court, not in the classroom, and not in social circles. Ours were the typical little brother/big brother squabbles -- a fight during a video game, or on the school bus, or in the backyard. And every now and then, when I would run to mom or dad with a complaint, or react to typical little brother antagonism, I would be met with this advice: You are older. Act older. By reacting, you only legitimize. Ignore it, and it will go away.
I have spent much of the previous couple of days in deep internal deliberation about what by now has become the well-known situation of Raul Ibanez, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a blogger whom I will not identify. And I relay the previous life experience because I think it illustrates what I believe to be the latest in a serious mishandling of the blogosphere by the mainstream media.
As you all now know, Blogger X recently self-published a treatise on Ibanez's power surge to start this season. In it, the blogger stated that, thanks to the Steroid Era, performance-enhancing drugs must be considered as a potential cause of Ibanez's club record home run pace. Now, forget the fact that this deductive reasoning is flawed at a fundamental level. After all, the blogger is not raising the possibility that Ibanez has been on performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career. Only the possibility that performance-enhancing drugs are the new variable that has caused his home run total to jump this season. The suggestion, that a 37-year-old athlete with a wife and children and a better grasp on his own mortality than he had when he was a 24-year-old athlete struggling through the minor leagues, would choose to start using performance-enhancing drugs AFTER signing a three-year, $31.5 million contract that will very likely be the last big deal of his career, does not make sense when it comes to basic logic. All of that is besides the point.
The point is that most bloggers are not trained in such analysis, and thus can not be expected to produce rational examinations of professional sports. Most bloggers have not spent years in college studying the craft of writing, reporting and analyzing. Most bloggers have not spent years embedded in the world of athletic competition, interacting with athletes and trainers and coaches, learning the people and their sports, learning their motivations, and their insecurities, and their foibles, and their strengths. Most bloggers view the athletic arena through two-dimensional objects -- television, newspapers, the Internet, radio -- and thus have a two-dimensional perspective, much like a person viewing a museum exhibit about another culture and attempting to relay his observations in the manner of a person who has spent years living in that culture. This, in a nutshell, is the blogosphere.
Like the little brother, it would like to gain a foothold in the world of the older brother, to be accepted like the older brother, rather than being content within it's own world. I'm sure there is a sociologist who can apply some scientific term to what I am describing. But I am not a sociologist, only a sports writer.
On its own, the blogosphere is not a bad thing. But it can become a bad thing when the older brother reacts, when for a moment he forgets that he is older, and more mature, and bound by expectations of accountability that the little brother does not always face.
And this brings us to the firestorm.
When the Philadelphia Inquirer, who shares a little piece of cyber space with this humble sports writer, chose to publish a column about Blogger X's treatise, it forgot the basic distinction that sets professional media outlets apart from amateur bloggers. Even though the column attempted to excoriate the blogger, in doing so, it placed itself on the same level of that blogger. It told readers that the Blogger was worth reading, and reacting to, and that his thoughts deserved a legitimate place in public discourse. Yesterday, I watched an episode of Outside the Lines on ESPN that featured both the Blogger and the author of the Inquirer column. The professional writer lectured the Blogger on the need for accountability, given the blurring of the lines between professional and amateur opinion and analysis.
Therein lies the fallacy. Bloggers are not bound by standards of accountability. They are not professionals. They can not be expected to abide by the same rules that make professionals professional. Bloggers are not the ones blurring the lines. Professional media outlets who give credence to those bloggers are the ones who blur the lines.
Ignore it, and it will go away.
In this day and age, when opinions can be dispersed to the masses for the price of an Internet connection, publications such as ours need to be even more careful of what they put in print. Accountability is our bedrock. It is what makes the words that we publish worth reading. We need to be a refuge in a world of misinformation, a place where people can turn to separate the fact from the bullcrap. If it appears in our pages, we deem it significant enough for our readers to take notice, to consider, and ponder, and accept or reject.
The professionals are the only ones who have the power to blur the lines. We have spent generations building our brands, and to respond to every hair-brained blog post, and every Internet rumor, and every conspiracy theory that amateur pundits put forth, is to cheapen that brand, and erode the public trust behind it.
Forget the steroid witch hunt. Forget the question about whether Blogger X should have raised the questions that he did without any concrete basis.
We are the older brother. And we must act like it.
Manny just signed a 2 year, $45 million contract and that did not stop him from cheating.— dagipe- Gonzo should have never written the article. It was irresponsible reporting, and was clearly written to garner this exact type of media frenzy. It was sensationalist journalism at its worst.— Frank Lloyd Wrong
- Scholes -- it isn't about "Advanced Baseball Studies." Is about the study of a trade, and non-fiction writing is a trade. Just because you can unclog a drain doesn't make you a professional plummer. And just like Bill James spent years honing the skills that make him such an expert on statistical analysis, professional journalists and writers spend years learning the nuances of the craft. You might think that sounds self-righteous. Believe me, it isn't. There is a lot more that goes into a professional piece of reporting or analysis than meets the eye, just like there is a lot more that goes into what you do for a living than meets the eye.
- part of the problem is that distribution of information is no longer tightly controlled. this has led to the near demise of the print media while publisers rail against free distribution. bloggers are also unemployed or laid off sportwriters or, as we see on this site, people who live in mom's basement yelling at howard eskin.— natedog
- I'm sorry David, but this is the typical response from an elitist member of a dying entity. Which media outlet "broke" the Mitchell report names that mistakenly named Pujols? That would be KTVI which is not a blog. Who hired Jayson Blair? That would be the New York Times, which is not a blog. I can't count how many times in recent years mainstream media articles/reports stating that a coach has been named at sports team, only to be erroneous. Even take the no sports news. How many outlets mistakenly called Florida for Mr. Gore well before the results were actually able to be called? Those were mainstream networks and websites run by newspapers. It isn't just blogs who have erred repeatedly. The fact is that mainstream journalism has lost the trust of the consumer more than a lot of people who are part of the business care to admit. The line of "professionalism" as you say is long gone. Mainstream people like to boast of their integrity because of editorial review. Well when the review puts out as many erroneous stories as they have lately what exactly does that buy you? Nothing. This blogger was completely wrong too. But the complete need for "professional" media people to always preach from the pulpit about blogs when something goes wrong is naive. A look in the mirror at your "mainstream" profession is the first place you should start.— Tech_Triumph
You hit a homer here, bro! I couldn't have said it better, that is why I don't try to.- Excellent piece, Murph. Folks like the blogger believe every conspiracy theory, doubt Obama's birthright and enjoy the illusion that solid citizens like Ibanez are fakes, while convincing themselves of their own righteousness regardless of the factual situation, To me, its like watching Sean Hannity patting himself on the back while excoriating those who dare to disagree. I am sure your brother, your parents, your readers and Mr. Ibanez are impressed with your candor and your logic. Congratulations.— mick314
- Couldn't agree more, Murph...nice article. Bloggers are out of control. Blogging might as well be called BSing. These people usually have no qualifications to comment on their subject matter. They are just spouting off. Any idiot can be a "blogger".— JimG
- There are two things to consider about Ibanez before sleazy assertions of juicing are leveled. First, a small wrinkled head. Second, a pleasant disposition. Compare that with the muscled heads of Bonds and Clemens, the obese head of Lou Dobbs, and the angry "roid" rage of those super angry three.— hwatt
- Interesting discussion here, as always. Just want to clarify a couple things. First, I don't necesarrily have a problem with bloggers. The ability to publish information and opinion is not a sacred birthright held by professional media outlets. Just like it is not a television pundit's birthright to be able to talk about sports and politics. My point is, unless a the infromation and opinion comes from a source that has established a certain level of credibility, it should be regarded just like any conversation in a bar, not as a legitimate part of public discourse that should be highlighted and reacted to by an entity that, ostensibly, has established a certain level of credibility. Second, this isn't about whether Ibanez has used performance-enhancing drugs. It's about the handling of the inevitable speculation that, unfortunately, the Steroid Era has wrought.
- And, yes, I realize I mis-spelled necessarily.
- I appreciate your comments that Gonzo certainly owes some form of accountability for bringing a non-issue to the spotlight and help villainize (at least in the short term) a seemingly innocent ballplayer. However, I find your comments about bloggers a bit myopic and pretentious. As a writer for entertainmentagentsblog.com, I take my blogging accounts seriously in order to present well researched, accurate, cogent thoughts involving the entertainment law industry. To eschew all bloggers as "little brothers" is miscast and missing the point. In fact, I did not find "JROD"'s comments nearly as outrageous as Gonzo mischaracterized them to appear. Shouldn't we let the reader decide what merits intelligent and reliable information? If there is no basis for an author's argument, then who cares how flammable it may seem. Frankly, I'm curious how many read "JROD"'s post. Although I disagree with his conclusion, it was well written and certainly not ill-intentioned. Last time I checked, this Big Brother (Philly.com) isn't exactly the beacon of journalistic perfection.— e4stringer
- Dave, I write a blog but still agree, for the most part, with what you're saying here. Blogs provide a platform for anyone to write anything, which has a lot of pros and a lot of cons. That works out well because you get passionate fans, who care just as much as the readers, writing. On the flip side, anyone can post anything, and have no accountability for it... that’s a scary concept. The only thing I think you did wrong here is jumble all blogs together. There's so many different types. Sure, some try to be stay-at-home beat writers and rely on other people's accounts of what's happening, but most bloggers just do it because they care. And because they want to talk with other people that care. I am always willing to stand behind what I write, and while I wish I was a part of the mainstream media I realize that that's not realistic at the moment and accept my responsibility as a blogger. Terminating blogs all together or ignoring them won't do any good. They're here, probably to stay, and pretending they don't exist or treating them like red-headed step children is irresponsible. At least that's what I think.— shayrod
- Ibanez has to get a thicker skin. The same malarky was being said about Ryan Howard, as recently as last year, and the fact that it was said was reported in the "big brother" media. Howard just ignored it, refused to respond to it, and it went away. Maybe it's different in Seattle, but Ibanez has been around long enough to know that the media, including the sports media, love a controversy. It sells papers and air time. It gives the writers and commentators something to discuss besides scores and standings and balls and strikes, etc., which I guess even for the most dedicated professional can get a bit dull. But, I just hate it when sports coverage begins to look like a soap opera or a gossip column or the supermarket tabloids. I mean, what do I care if A-Rod is going out with Madonna, or if Manny has made the appropriate apology to the Dodgers for getting caught for taking the drugs that got them to the NCLS last season? That stuff sounds too much like checking out the latest adventures of Britney, Lindsay, and Paris. Which brings Perris to mind, which leads me to ask: Now that she's been fired from her job as Miss California, will Carrie have to pay Donald Trump back for the boob job he bought her?— PHANPHOREVER
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