Friday, January 13, 2006

Campaigns against writers

Part of me doesn't even want to dignify it by noting, but it is being discussed in the sports media, and I'm certainly not worried about the Globe listening, so what the heck. A site called bostonsportsmedia.com is trying to drum up a campaign to get veteran scribe Ron Borges fired. It will fail, of course. When those things start actually being taken seriously, this business has devolved into a place I don't particularly want to be.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

They were right on every point what's your issue?

Anonymous said...

I can tell by the tone of your post that you don't often deign to read emails from the great unwashed, but I'll give it a try anyway.

Sadly, it is evident that you did not read the article that details Ron Borges' ethical problems. Or, perhaps, you read it and decided to circle the wagons anyway.

Maybe if you find time in your schedule you'll be able to read the article and respond to some of the concerns that the editors of the Boston Globe seem unwilling to address.

Among the issues are:

1) Borges' physical assault on another reporter who wrote something Ron didn't like. (I seem to recall a number of instances where athletes who attack reporters are taken to task quite aggressively by the press, Why aren't the same rules in place for reporters who assault reporters?)

2) Borges revealing to the public personal information about a player that was told to him in an "off the record" conversation.

3) Borges (who covers the Patriots) saying that he would have beaten the coach up for his lunch money, that he would not want the coach to marry his daughter, and then saying that he personally knows that the coach is out at night "doing things" that he couldn't tell anybody about. This same Borges then goes to write at the Globe each day as its primary analyst of the coach's approach to the game. How can anyone with such a personal hatred against the main subject of his analysis hope to offer anything approaching a fair account?

-- and these are just a few of his problems....

I might add, that I recall during the NYTimes Jason Blair nightmare that his Editors, after learning that many subjects of Blair's reporting knew he was a fraud and a liar, publicly commented that they wished the subjects of Blair's unethical stories had been more aggressive in informing the NYTime's editors.

Well, here you go. Nobody at the Globe will ever be able to say about Borges' ethical lapses, "We didn't know".

Have fun circling the wagons!

RR

chris said...

Borges and Shaughnessy are the reasons I no longer read the Globe sports. I used to be a Globe snob but now if I buy a paper its the Herald.

Shaughnessy and Borges are pretictable and have turned off many readers like me. However, then have tenure and are seemingly immoveable by management. The bottom line is that Shaughnessy and Borges have turned many "customers" away from the Globe than they have attracted.

I'll read Ryan, Edes and Snow on-line but I doubt I'll ever pay for another Boston Globe. Bottom line - Borges should be fired because he's bad for business.

SWE_BLOGGER said...

Sorry I'm late to this, but I'm not used to a lively (if this can be considered that) discussion on a blog that is still very much a work in progress.

My answer to all of it is simple. I have no interest in outsiders who try to interfere with the management of a newspaper or its sports department. Because if papers start caving to outside interests, then the business is in even more trouble than it is now.

If somebody violates newspaper policy, then it's up to the newspaper to deal with it -- and not because somebody on the outside says so.

chris said...

Heh heh

"I have no interest in outsiders who try to interfere with the management of a newspaper or its sports department"

Couldn't almost every pro team say the same thing about columnists who call for the firing of a coach or GM? People are always saying that sports teams are businesses - isn't the same true of newspapers and isn't this a bit of a double standard?

SWE_BLOGGER said...

Chris, for some reason, your comment shows up on the post page, but not on the live page. Maybe this will kick it out there.

I don't think it's a good analogy. Newspapers and columnists are paid to observe and comment on the community -- and to be effective, they need to be able to do that without worrying that they're going to get fired whenever they express an opinion somebody disagrees with.

Coaches and GMs are highly visible, highly paid people on public institutions (college or pro) who are held accountable at some point for wins and losses and success. And when columnists comment on them, it's usually reflecting opinion or debate within that community. And these people make a lot of money -- a lot more than almost all columnists -- to produce on the field or on the court.

Heck, I'll even give you that it IS a double standard. But it's an appropriate one.

SWE_BLOGGER said...

bump