{"id":456,"date":"2018-03-18T12:46:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T16:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=456"},"modified":"2018-03-18T12:46:31","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T16:46:31","slug":"hold-the-pickles-hold-the-lettuce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2018\/03\/18\/hold-the-pickles-hold-the-lettuce\/","title":{"rendered":"“Hold the Pickles, Hold the Lettuce”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think working as a journalist and now teaching Sports Journalism would ever be compared to a popular hamburger chain… But at the most recent Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar, that’s exactly what Chris Gasper<\/a> of the Boston Globe did…”Like Burger King,<\/a> you can have it your way”, said Gasper…<\/p>\n

Do you give them what the want or do you give them what they need?<\/p>\n

Fellow Globie\u00a0Tara Sullivan<\/a> put it succinctly, “Journalism in it’s purest form informs the public what it needs to know and now we find ourselves doing what they want to have.”<\/p>\n

It was an interesting sidebar to the night’s\u00a0 intended journey…One we’ll try to explore as we finish up the semester…<\/p>\n

But one thing journalists can’t “have their own way” is accuracy and credibility…there simply is no two ways about it…Either the readers\/viewers believe you or not…And there’s no middle ground…This isn’t Major League Baseball where hitting safely three out of ten times gets you into the Hall of Fame…You need to bat a thousand…Ask Ron Borges, ask John Tomase…<\/p>\n

A reporter is only as good as his\/her information and the people who supply that information…Building that base takes time, takes hard work, takes skill…”appreciate them (athletes\/sources) as three dimensional” Gasper told the students…”Don’t just talk to them when you need something”…<\/p>\n

Which brings us to getting the story right and getting it first…Certainly we’d all like to do both but in these Twitter\/Instagram\/Facebook days of disseminating news, that’s just not the case…”The short term gain of breaking that story can be great but what if it’s wrong”, posed Gasper, “then people look at it and say , this is somebody who gets things consistently wrong as opposed to getting it consistently right and they’re less likely to trust you and confide in you.”<\/p>\n

“What else can I tell you but that right is what matters”, added Sullivan, “I get the temptation and the rush and all that but being right is ultimately what matters so much more and the satisfaction of doing your job when you’re doing it right, trust me when I tell you the long term satisfaction of getting it right is far far deeper and stronger than getting getting it first.”<\/p>\n

We work in a different journalism world now…the rules seem looser, the competition more keen…Young journalists are learning their way…Sources need to be cultivated and protected…But even Gasper acknowledged that when it comes down to deadline and given the choice between getting a second source and going with a story (to have it first), “we’re gonna run it”…That has to seem like such a contradiction…<\/p>\n

Don’t give them what they want, give them what they need… Yet, if it means getting beat, give it to them first (and worry about the consequences later)…<\/p>\n

That’s not exactly the “special order” journalism has in mind….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think working as a journalist and now teaching Sports Journalism would ever be compared to a popular hamburger chain… But at the most recent Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar, that’s exactly what Chris Gasper of the Boston Globe did…”Like Burger King, you can have it your way”, […]<\/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\/456"}],"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=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}