Last week was not a good one for sports journalism, in different places and by varying degrees.
Start with a rather bizarre situation in Oklahoma City in which a newspaper kissed up to a star basketball player. Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder is one of the great talents in the NBA. He has won four league scoring titles, including this year’s and is expected to be named Most Valuable Player in the league before the end of this month. But his play in the early part of a first round series against the Memphis Grizzlies was less than stellar, and the headline over a story and Durant’s picture following one of the games in the Oklahoman read “Mr. Unreliable.” The headline touched off a firestorm as readers complained. Durant’s teammates and his mother rushed to defend his honor. Finally, Mike Sherman, the Oklahoman’s sports editor, wrote that the headline was quote overstated and unduly harsh unquote. Sherman wrote that readers may have gotten the impression that the headline referred to Durant’s season or career or even his character.
Let’s just say it’s a sad day when a newspaper has to worry about whether it hurt a public figure’s feelings.
Though the matter with Durant is hopefully a temporary one, the lead up to this week’s NFL draft points out a more permanent problem with 21st century sports writing, namely a perceived need to make news rather than covering it. For weeks now, so called draft analysts have speculated on which player might be taken first Thursday night. There’s no inherent harm in that. There is a problem, however, when websites and magazines and TV channels try to pass their guessing off as news. These entities have permitted coaches, general managers and player agents to use them to float ideas in exchange for access, never identifying these sources by name. It’s a contemptible practice that makes reporters look like hucksters rather than fact finders.
But the biggest black eye to sports writing and broadcasting came in the course of the reporting of the Donald Sterling matter. That Sterling’s views on Blacks and Mexicans deserve scrutiny should not be up for debate. The method by which they came to the surface as well as the timing must be discussed. As we told you last week, Sterling’s statements and his actions as someone who rented properties in Los Angeles had been part of the public record for years, but had largely been glossed over in the press. Just as troubling is the idea that two websites, TMZ and Deadspin, posted the now infamous recordings without ever disclosing what steps they took, if any, to authenticate those recordings. The NBA has taken greater steps to verify the tapes than either of the websites have. Reputable outlets never pay their sources for material, yet Deadspin has admitted that it paid for a tape of Sterling. And reputable news organizations, a category that neither TMZ nor Deadspin fall into, have aired those recordings without knowing where they came from.
Seeing as how there appear to be fewer warning flags flown, sports journalism may be in for more tough weeks like this past one.