By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
What can journalists do better?
“Preparation. Having some journalistic and quality standards. I can’t remember the last time I had a(n) interview where I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of questioning and knowledge of the interviewer. When something has to be written/taped quickly about the day’s/week’s events, media has no choice but to talk out of their [rear ends] because having an uninformed opinion and winging it is always better than choosing not to participate. Being left out means you probably lose your job. Worse still, media lives off the brands they built for themselves in the pre-blog/Twitter/Facebook era. If you were a good reporter in 2002, fans probably think you still are, and treat your opinions as facts.”
Mark Cuban… with 3 minor edits to remove the specific references to sports reporting.
He made the comment in response to the title question, put to him by Dan LeBatard, sportswriter at the Miami Herald.
The piece LeBatard wrote is getting a lot of play in sportswriting circles. But we in entertainment media should be looking at it too.
He’s getting flack because of the first half of the story, in which he kinda throws sportswriters overboard a bit too callously. Then again, he’s not wrong. “Talent” has to answer a lot of stupid questions and there is absolutely a tendency in today’s media to blow stuff up into an ISSUE at the drop of a minor epithet. He is right that smart players end up not saying what they think… and we all lose when that happens. We only hear from the flacks and the big mouths who just want to heat themselves talk.
At the end, LeBatard also does a riff about fear amongst sports reporters… fairly high end guys toiling on national television…
Stephen A. Smith, ESPN’s Chris Broussard and I all reported early that LeBron James was coming to Miami.
As the moment arrived, all of us were terrified. Smith says he never wants to cover a story like that again. Broussard looked haunted on national TV.
And I, allegedly a grown man, wanted to curl up in a ball and hide somewhere. Just out of fear of being wrong and ridiculed.
This wasn’t in the action, mind you.
This wasn’t taking a big shot in Game 7. We were on the periphery of the arena, near the doer of deeds.
And we’re the same guys who accuse athletes of being soft in big moments.
Maybe I’m offering this because speaking out loud about these issues seems to bore or irritate some people. But I hear it, privately, all the time. And I find it an unpleasant atmosphere in which to do my work, which I am fortunate to be able to continue doing in spite of the current wave of unfortunate ideas about the profession.
I think there are a number of issues there, not the least of which to be considered is the fact that Cuban