{"id":320,"date":"2016-02-07T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T15:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=320"},"modified":"2016-02-07T10:00:22","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T15:00:22","slug":"its-okay-to-be-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2016\/02\/07\/its-okay-to-be-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Okay to Be Wrong…"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s okay to be wrong…<\/p>\n

It’s okay t0\u00a0post something and correct it later…<\/p>\n

You can always take it down (and that way it’s like it never existed)…<\/p>\n

Is this really the state of sports journalism in 2016?…It sure seems that way…I thought we had dealt with the issue of being accurate a long time ago but apparently not…And just as apparently we’ve come to accept misinformation as common practice…As long as we get those page views….Well, count me out!…<\/p>\n

It’s never going to be okay to be wrong even if the ability to “edit” or “delete” exists…Whether it’s Twitter, thebiglead<\/em> or even Facebook, get it right!…ESPN senior writer Jerry Crasnick was interviewed in the Setonian<\/a> just recently and he put it this way, “\u201cI think it\u2019s (Twitter) produced a lot more errors and inaccurate reporting than we used to see,\u201d Crasnick said. \u201cAnd there are typically no consequences when someone reports something that\u2019s flat-out wrong. \u00a0\u201cBut I do try to constantly remind myself that there\u2019s a difference between real reporting and noise,\u201d he adds. \u201cI hope that readers can discern the difference, but I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s the case anymore.\u202c\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen McCaffrey<\/a> and Jason Mastrodonato<\/a> visited the Boston University sports journalism seminar series recently and while the discussion was intended to focus on where we stand in the year 2016, \u00a0it quickly turned to an analysis of a disturbing trend…”It’s all about web traffic, said McCaffrey, \u00a0and what you can do to grow web traffic and everything you do \u00a0is based off how well received is this gonna be by your internet audience. \u00a0You’re still putting the news out everyday but my editor would very much want you to write that story about (David) Ortiz’s haircut because fans will click on that and say where’s the picture…”<\/p>\n

We spent some time talking about a just published piece on thebiglead\u00a0<\/em>dealing with layoffs at CBS Sports.com<\/a> and their movement toward the very same issue…Writes one unnamed source “Years ago we never heard of the word “pageviews”. \u00a0Then we started getting monthly reports and your judged on pageviews more than anything else. \u00a0It’s more important to be successful on Facebook than it is to break news…”<\/p>\n

Is that really the case or cant we just do both?…Writing on tumblr.com<\/a>, Craig Calcaterra took exception with the article saying, \u00a0“They\u2019ve taken the position that, if customers are no longer interested in buying a product, it\u2019s not worth acknowledging their changing tastes and not worth trying to adapt their business approach to provide it. Rather, they seem to think, the solution is to excoriate the competitor who came in and supplied it…” Like it or not, change is inevitable… The reality is some accept it more slowly than others…<\/span><\/p>\n

Mastrodonato seems to disagree however, \u00a0stating, “I tend to think that it’s not as bleak as it looks right now. We haven’t figured it out yet (but we will)”…Covering the Boston Red Sox in his mid-twenties, Mastrodonato is doing something right…He brings a refreshing perspective to the job, one he was willing to share with the class…”Figure out who you are as a person so you can figure out who you are as a journalist. \u00a0Ask yourself questions all on the way. \u00a0Make sure you’re evolving to figure out who you are so you can figure out who you want to be as a journalist.”<\/p>\n

And it says here that is exactly the point…Sports journalism and sports journalists should be doing the very same, asking themselves questions and evolving (to fit their audience)…<\/p>\n

But it’s never okay to be wrong and it’s never okay to fall back on “I can always change it later”…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s okay to be wrong… It’s okay t0\u00a0post something and correct it later… You can always take it down (and that way it’s like it never existed)… Is this really the state of sports journalism in 2016?…It sure seems that way…I thought we had dealt with the issue of being accurate a long time ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}