Thirst to be First

Whenever there is a story which entails one person or entity making a choice from numerous options, media consumers have a mirror to see the media's soul. The impatience and intense pressure to break the story makes media members forget some basic tenets and do stupid things. Just like hungry dogs waiting outside the butcher's shop for the scraps to be thrown out the back door, the media begin to nip at and attempt to out do one another.

As a journalism student at Indiana University, we studied the situations where this would arise such as: selection of vice presidential candidate, announcement of a jury verdict, political appointments and even the outcome of elections.

I have never been a fan of being "serious" all the time, so I was naturally pulled towards sports journalism which is affectionately knows as the "toy department" of most news rooms because of the lack of serious topics. Rarely do you see sports media members taking unnecessary risks. During his 3 minute sportscast each night, Fred Cowgill will not make an educated guess as to the final score of a ballgame that is still in progress. No, he will simply show the score as of the time of the broadcast and time remaining. Its an easy decision. The risk of being wrong is too high and the reward of being right is too small to justify. The selection of a coach at a major program is one of the few times when sports journalists attempt to outdo their competition.

Every sports journalist wants to be the one who breaks the story of who UK hires as its next mens basketball coach. He or she wants to be the one who gets to walk proudly around the press box at the next big game. Unfortunately, that thirst to be first caused many people to make mistakes Monday evening, and some of these same people are trying to take cover behind legalese and cheap excuses.

Lets take a look at the motley crew of sports media involved in this story.

(1) Darrell Bird: the general manager of The Cats' Pause magazine and website posted a link on the website Monday evening under a headline that read, "Blockbuster Deal Done?" When clicked, the reader was taken to the premium message board where Bird went on to give very specific details of the contract that was "reportedly brokered" between UK and Donovan's agent. In the effort of full disclosure, you were only taken to that premium message board if you had already paid the monthly fee to view the "premium" content. If you were free surfing Monday night, you were taken to a page of the site that would allow you to sign up and pay for access to the "premium" content.
When confronted with the lack of sources for the report, Bird hid behind the fact that "everyone knows" that message boards deal with rumors and not fact. Please, don't insult the intelligence of your audience. First, you put the headline and link on the front page of your website. When double-clicked, the reader was taken to the premium message board and a discussion regarding Donovan and UK reaching an agreement. The vast majority of people viewing your website never know of this thread if you don't put the "bait" on the front page. Second, why not explicitly say in the tease that it is an unsubstantiated rumor.
I don't know Darrell personally but he seems harmless on that Insight Red and Blue show, that is if you can actually sit through an entire episode without falling asleep. Regardless, Bird holds a very high position in many UK fans hearts. He is their eyes and ears inside the beloved program. What he says carries weight with his readers. They don't know if they are simply reading RUMORS or FACTS unless he tells them so. That is the least he can do for his "premium" subscribers.

(2) Wave TV-3: Kent Taylor is one of the funniest and pleasant members of the local media. However, he made a mistake on Monday. He reported that a deal between Donovan and UK had been struck. He did preface the report with a statement something like "Cats Pause is reporting that ..." In terms of journalistic integrity, Taylor earns points with me by naming the original source of the report and giving proper attribution. However, Taylor should not have given this "story" any life unless he could confirm the authenticity from either his own sources or Daryl Bird himself. The attribution to the Cats Pause is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card for me. What shocked me even more was Taylor this evening on 840's SportsTalk show saying that he was not attesting to the veracity of the report but rather was simply reporting what another media outlet was reporting. If you take Taylor literally, then what value does Wave TV-3 offer its viewers? I guess nothing original. Taylor might as well just do a google search for "Kentuckiana Sports" each night and read the first three items that pop out.
Taylor is better than that. I believe he knows that he jumped the gun on the story and should have verified it with his own sources before reporting it.

(3) WLEX TV (Lexington): apparently, their sports department also ran with the story in a similar fashion. I can't comment any further because I did not see the broadcast.


Now the Vultures of the media are circling and attacking Bird and Taylor. The problem is these people should be careful to throw stones while living in glass houses. One local radio host seemed to take pleasure in raking Bird over the coals this afternoon. To him I would say tread lightly because a report of his own that allegedly was collaborated by a media source in Philadelphia was recently debunked. See, another media member actually called that Philadelphia media source and discovered that it had not made any such report.

My message to everyone is local sports media is simple:

Fight both the urge to quench the thirst to be first, and the urge to attack a colleague when he or she is down.