The Yang Slinger: Vol. XCV:

He's a poorly paid writer who was presented with a $50 Amazon gift card by an appreciative parent. Is it OK—as a journalist—to accept the present?

If you follow my career or this Substack, you know one of my all-time favorite people and journalists is Michael J. Lewis, a New York-based sports writer not to be confused with “Moneyball” Michael Lewis.

Lew and I go way back—when I was a senior and editor of the University of Delaware’s student newspaper, Lew was a perky freshman scribe in a jeans jacket with a ridiculous JETS pendant dangling from his neck. He was spunky and eager and extremely talented, and through the years we’ve forged a kinship that I’ve long valued (Plus, his blog—yes, blog!—remains a joy to read).

Best of all, Lew is overflowing with eternal journalistic quandaries. He’s just a guy who wears shit on his sleeve. And is unafraid to admit shortcomings. And bring forth awkwardness. And debate points. And …

This week, he gave me a good one.

So every Thursday, Lew writes a sports piece for the Long Island Press, his local newspaper. The articles highlight the exploits of area prep athletes, and they pay (hold your hats, kids!) a whopping $60 a pop. And Lew doesn’t do it for the money, per se. He does it because he loves journalism, loves hyping up local jocks, loves the grind. He’s primarily a stay-at-home dad these days, and the Press pieces allow him to keep a foot in the game while introducing the community to folks like Blake Sealy and Angel Walia.

I digress.

A few days ago, Lew wrote a story about an area swimmer named Natalie. It wasn’t his first article about the young woman—she’s a talented athlete worthy of Lew’s attention. Anyhow, shortly after the story ran Lew received this text from the swimmer’s mother …

It was accompanied by this …

And … um … eh … awkward.

Really awkward.

Super awkward.

Insanely awkward.

But, awkwardness be damned, it leads to the glorious question of the week: Is it cool/kosher/legit for Michael J. Lewis to accept the $50 Amazon gift card?

Is it OK?

The obvious answer is no.

Like, one of the first lessons one absorbs in journalism class is that you cannot—under any circumstance—compromise your integrity. That means remaining neutral, that means avoiding bias, that means avoiding the perception of bias. So the journalist always pays for lunch, always makes their own arrangements, always steers clear of any sort of conflict.

And yet …

Do we?

Do we really?

When I posed Lew’s situation to Mike Vaccaro, the exceptional New York Post sports columnist, he texted back— “I know we’ll want to say with righteous indignation: GIVE IT BACK!”

Mike didn’t stop there. “I still have two Big East tote bags from when they’d give those out if you covered the tournament,” he said. “I have eaten at the trough of free press box food plenty though not as often lately. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s much of a difference.” And it’s funny—because Mike was not alone in having conflicted/mixed feelings. Yaron Weitzman, author and longtime sports scribe, pondered my inquiry for a good spell before replying. “I definitely think it matters that it's a local kid and not, like, a superstar athlete,” he wrote. “A proud and thankful mom sending a gift card is different than, say, Nike sending a pair of sneakers after as a thank you for a glowing profile about an NBA player. I think I'd probably just thank the mom and then donate 50 bucks to a local charity or something. But, to be honest, I don't really have an issue if the freelancer just pockets the money. There's so much grey area in journalism and I've never subscribed to the whole ‘slippery slope’ thing. My approach to journalism ethics has always been more along the lines of ‘I know it when I see it.’ As an example: before he was drafted, I traveled to Israel to profile future NBA player Deni Avdija. After my last meeting with his family, his dad gave me a gift of local olive oil and wine to take back. I thanked him ... and left it with the hotel's front desk.”

Before I started penning this post, Lew and I were discussing the late Bill Fleischman, our fantastic University of Delaware sports journalism professor and a man who preached (at the top of his lungs) integrity, integrity, integrity … while (cough) wearing a windbreaker he’d once received free from NASCAR, a sport he covered. I never discussed the jacket with Bill, and Bill (perhaps on purpose) never discussed the jacket with me. But there is something quirky and selective in our collective sports media behaviors: We grab sodas and snacks from the press boxes. We accept the T-shirt or hat teams hand out on designated days. We’ve attended parties thrown by various leagues and, at times, various athletes. Almost all top-shelf press conferences come with some level of grub. In short, we’re sorta walking conflicts of interests—insisting our leanings are not up for sale, yet occasionally offering the impression that, well, they are.

That said, this circumstance is—in a major way—different than the press box soda tap. When teams or leagues offer, say, grub, it’s not a hyper-specific act with the intent of swaying a particular editorial viewpoint or outcome. Like, say, the Rockies and Mets are playing at Citi Field—the access to the press box dining room is offered to everyone, from Fox Sports to ESPN to the New York Times to Outkick. It has nothing (seemingly) to do with one’s article intent, and everything to do with feeding journalists stuck inside the stadium for six hours. It would be different were a journalist profiling Pete Alonso, and Alonso’s agent offered to buy the scribe a steak or hook him up with a box filled with Mets gear. But that’s not the case with press box food. Not even close.

The problem(s) with Lew accepting the gift card are manifold.

First, there’s the perception of someone receiving positive coverage in exchange for graft. “It potentially changes dynamics in future reporting,” said Melissa Isaacson, the veteran journalist and Northwestern professor. “Will the mom expect more stories, special coverage or positive coverage if the swimmer was somehow involved in a negative scenario in any way? Would you want others to know about it?”

This, of course, doesn’t mean Natalie’s mother offered the $50 Amazon card hoping for more kindness toward her kid. She almost certainly was just trying to be nice. But … let’s say Natalie’s mother tells her friends about the $50 gift card. And let’s say the friends also have kids who swim. And let’s say those kids who swim are plenty good, but haven’t received Natalie-level coverage in the Long Island Press. And let’s say the parents are jealous (as parents tend to be). Let’s say they believe their daughters are more talented than Natalie’s. What are they going to think? How are they going to read the exchange? Will a $100 Amazon gift cards come next? Maybe $200?

Answer: One might assume Lew’s space in the Long Island Press is for sale.

Second, even if Natalie’s mother gave Lew the $50 Amazon gift card simply to be kind, it has the strong potential to (even slightly) shift things. Say Natalie wins her next six races, but Lew is focussed on, oh, a prep baseball player two towns over. Is there going to be some stirring (even deep down) that Lew is sorta screwing her kid? That—hey!—I gave him a $50 Amazon gift card … the least he can do is hook Natalie up. Maybe, not not. But maybe. “When he writes something critical, what happens if the mom goes around and tells people she can’t believe he wrote that after she gave him a gift card?” said George Dohrmann of the Athletic. “That’s a potentially much bigger problem than hurting her feelings now.”

Third, in this industry we are only as capable as our reputations. And once you’re outed as a journalist who takes shit—it’s a tough road. I won’t name names, but I’ve known plenty of writers and broadcasters who don’t merely accept graft, but do so anxiously, excitedly. There’s an old line in the biz—“Nothing tastes better than free food”—and it’s true. Free food is delicious. But the free comes with the price of diminished mojo. Years and years ago there was a Major League Baseball beat writer who desperately (aka: pathetically) wanted to hang with the players. So he went out with them, dined with them, had his drinks paid for, his grub paid for. He lasted about a wink and a half. His rep was destroyed.

That’s not an uncommon saga. This business makes it incredibly hard to maintain standards. We are underpaid, routinely mocked, oftentimes considered the geeks in a land of cool. The people we cover oftentimes make millions upon millions of dollars, and we’re bringing a tinfoil-wrapped ham sandwich to the ballpark. It’s easy to toss away standards in the name of material bliss. But it’s wrongheaded and injurious.

When I asked the Washington Post’s Candace Buckner for her take, she—as always—took her time, pondered the circumstance, delivered legit wisdom.

“He sounds like an underemployed journalist and this is a time of high costs and inflation,” she said. “Which would be tough for anyone trying to make a living. Surely he could use the gift card and surely the mother just wants to show her gratitude that this journalist has chronicled some of the most precious moments of her son’s athletic career. It’s just $50 bucks, more of a show of appreciation and not at all bag money to help pay his rent.

“And yet, he should give it back. If even the sllllllliiiighhhhhtest thought creeps into his mind of reciprocity the next time he covers this kid, he’s compromised himself. Or in the back of his head he searches for more lesser covered subjects to write about in the faint hope that their parents would show financial appreciation, he’s compromised himself. This job ain’t for anyone hoping to get rich. Most journalists darn there take a vow of poverty to do this. I sincerely hope he’s making ends meet, but don’t compromise your values. Even for $50.”

The cliffhanger: Lew didn’t accept the gift card.

He replied with this …

And it was perfect. Polite. Appreciative. Compassionate. Defusing. And it reflected something shared by Adam Duerson, my former Sports Illustrated colleague. “It seems pretty simple to me: Gee, that sure is nice, thank you—but I just can’t accept a gift like that, for all the obvious reasons,” he said. “Explain those reasons. Educate someone. Doesn’t have to be cold, but: Now more than ever, it’s good when non-journos understand the rules of the trade, right? Perhaps it reshapes someone’s idea of how we work; perhaps this person or someone close to them gains a little better understanding of or respect for working media. Good time to do that. Does it matter how little the writer makes? Not. At. All. Where would you draw a line, at what salary does it become OK?”

Adam skipped a beat, then added: “I’d sure love to hear a justification for accepting the gift card.”

Honestly, when it comes to integrity, there really is none.

There’s just not.

The Quaz Five with … Josh Barbara

Josh Barbara is a student at Dean (Mass.) College who spent the 2024 football season calling games for America’s worst (literally, the absolute worst) team. One can follow him on Instagram here.

1. OK, Josh, so a few weeks ago you went semi-viral with a call of your school, Dean College, scoring a touchdown. What, exactly, were you thinking during the call?: I was really locked in on the game as I always am. We don’t score many touchdowns, so when I saw the punt dribble up to one of our captains it then dawned on me that there was a chance he could return. I started to raise my voice a little bit, because in the moment I was in disbelief that a defensive lineman was returning a punt for only our second touchdown of the year through seven games. A touchdown like that rarely happens, but any touchdowns were rare for us this season so it was a special moment. Funny enough, the player, Christian Donalson, ended up being the ECFC Special Teams Player of the Week because of that return. 

2. So in the latest SP+ College Football Top 764, Dean was ranked the worst team in all of America. Sorta curious how this makes you feel ...: Personally I think it’s pretty cool to be known as the voice of the worst team in America. However some of these guys are my friends and I see the work they put in day in and day out when I cover practice during the week. With that being said, it helps me hone my craft as a broadcaster because you really need to do a boatload of preparation for the game considering you know you’re going to use every bit of research you have due to the fact it will most likely be a blowout. 

3. Why the desire to be a broadcaster? Where did it come from? What's the goal?: Well, it’s quite simple actually, I like to talk a lot and I’m a very passionate person as well. Those two things mixed with my love for sports really put me down this path. I thought about wanting to be an in studio host or anchor for a sports television show because I’ve always been fascinated with being in front of a camera. However, I really found my love for calling games in high school when I was given the opportunity to be the play by play voice of Wethersfield High School nasketball. From there I kind of just ran with it because play by play is a real skill and art form that is for some reason going out of style which I find quite funny because the games never go away. I really look up to and appreciate the work of guys like Mike Emrick, Jim Nantz, Howie Rose, and Mike Breen. Those legends laid the foundation for not only what I aspire to be professionally but also personally in the industry. I one day hope to cover major events like they have. 

4. You were an intern for the Hartford Yard Goats, a Minor League Baseball team based in Hartford, Connecticut. What, exactly, does a Yard Goats intern do?: First off, I want to give a shoutout to everyone in the Yard Goats organization from top to bottom especially Jeff Dooley who gave me the opportunity to work with the broadcasting team as a sound engineer for the radio and television broadcasts. The Yard Goats won Minor League Baseball’s Organization of the Year it made it to the playoffs for the first time in team history. I would show up to the ballpark around three hours before game time to get settled for the day in the broadcast booth. I would help with the pregame stand ups for the broadcasters after I arrived, then following that I would observe what Jeff and Dan would do to prepare for the broadcast every night. During the game I would pull clips from our database called Diamond and would edit them before sending them over to our social media admin so they would be posted on the Yard Goats social media accounts. One of my highlights I cut for social media actually ended up in the SportsCenter Top 10 plays. However my favorite memories of working with the Yard Goats had to be the time I spent with my coworkers because by then end of the summer they became my work family. I was welcomed in immediately as a 19-year-old intern and proved myself through hard work and dedication. They valued me for just being myself and showing up every day ready to work. 

5. So your dad, Stu Barbara, worked at ESPN for 24 years. He was a hugely impactful figure with College Game Day and Outside the Lines. What did you learn from him? What are your boyhood memories of your dad and sports broadcasting?: He’s the man I look up to most in life. No matter what life brings I know he’ll be there for me always. He exposed me to sports at a very young age. One of my earliest memories is actually being over at a family friends house to watch the perfect New England Patriots play against the wild card New York Giants in the Super Bowl. I just remember my dad especially telling me not to root for the guys in navy blue. From that point forward I was a Giants fan and thankfully my dad spared me from a life heartache that he experiences every week as a Jets fan. I really haven’t been able to watch TV without analyzing it since I was 10-years old. I grew up around the halls of the ESPN Bristol Campus with my dad going to production meetings and sitting in control room while he produced SportsCenter. I fell in love with sports television from a young age but as I stated before I always wanted to be in front of the camera and not in the control room. The way he treats his colleagues as though they are a lifelong friend showed me how to treat people and build an environment of positive collaboration and creativity. He’s taught me how to maneuver my way through the early years of my broadcasting career and showed me from an early age that authenticity and passion are the most important keys to succeed in this industry. He built the brand of College Gameday in his early years and while he doesn’t get the credit he deserves, I am filled with so much pride each and everyday knowing that my dad made that show what it is today. He’s the best man I know and is my role model. I love him with everything I have and I hope to share some really special memories down the road and hopefully I can bring him to work one day as he did for me when I was growing up. 

BONUS (rank in order—favorite to least): Robert Saleh, "Mmm Bop," Hannah Storm, cucumbers, Aidan Barros, the Detroit Tiger hats, Mahopac, N.Y., pumpkin pie, Alexander Ovechkin, J.D. Vance, Franklin, Mass.: 1. Mahopac, N.Y. is easily number one for me, so many great memories there and shoutout to the family I have in Mahopac. Really miss them. 2. Hannah Storm is an awesome person and someone I was fortunate enough to meet at a young age. Always smiling and just loves what she does. 3. Pumpkin Pie, classic and a personal Thanksgiving favorite of mine. 4. Alexander Ovechkin, a living legend and though I am a Penguins fan he’s got a special place in my heart as he gave me a puck when I was 4-years old sitting rink-side for a Capitals-Islanders game. With that being said, Sid the Kid is still my GOAT. 5. Franklin, Mass is a nice little town … not much of a college town however and everything closes super early but it’s where I live and I’ve come to love it. 6. Detroit Tigers hat, it had a sleek and classic design that has a logo that’s iconic in baseball history. 7. J.D. Vance, I’m not a big political guy and I don’t wanna piss anyone off so he’s going at the seven spot. 8. Aidan Barros, doesn’t get playing time really so he cannot be blamed for Dean being named the worst team in America. Don’t really know him personally either. 9. Cucumbers, I like salads but not the biggest fan of cucumbers. 10. “Mmm Bop,” iconic song however I’m not a fan. It’s actually quite annoying in my personal opinion. Has nothing on the song “Suavemente.” 11. Robert Saleh, feel bad for him but seeing what he’s put Dad through the last couple of years and considering he’s not cut out to be a head coach at the NFL level and is now notorious for being Aaron Rodgers’ subordinate … I can’t put him any higher. 

A random old article worth revisiting …

On Dec. 6, 2008, London’s Daily Telegraph reported on the saga of a man who lived our collective worst nightmare—death via picking his nose …

The Madness of Tyler Kepner’s Grid …

So unless you’ve been living beneath a pebble beneath a rock beneath a big hunk of cheese, you’re aware of Immaculate Grid, the daily game that’s drawn thousands of nerdy sports fans (guilty!) to its ranks. And while the NBA grid, NFL grid, NHL grid and WNBA grid are all fun, this game is at its best when it comes to baseball—where the names are endless and the transactions ceaseless. No one owns the medium like Tyler Kepner, the Athletic’s fantastic baseball writer.

Here’s a breakdown of one of his recent efforts …

Tyler thoughts:

• Roy Lee Jackson: For some reason, I just remember his teams. Also, while I didn’t watch the show “3-2-1 Contact”, I find it funny that he was in the opening sequence to that show as a Met.

• Freddie Toliver: Pitched for my hometown Phillies in the 1980s and I remember all of those guys.

• Camilo Pascual: My summer-league coach used to say that I had a “Camilo Pascual curveball”. (I’m quite sure Camilo’s was a lot better!)

• Roger Mason: World Series star for the 1993 Phillies. Talked to me for my World Series book.

• Eddie Williams: had a great platoon season for SD in 1994 and used him in a SIM league once

• Bob Veale: Not a very good rarity score, but I knew he had a lot of strikeouts because Joe Torre used to talk about what an intimidating pitcher he was in the NL in the ‘60s

• Dicky Gonzalez: Covered him with the 2001 Mets

• Oscar Azocar: Has a funny baseball card where he’s embracing a bat

• Esteban Loaiza: Had a crazy outlier season for the White Sox in 2003. Actually started the All-Star Game in Chicago that year. (Later became a drug dealer!)

This week’s college writer you should know about …

Arismita Ghosh, McGill University

So oftentimes, when I’m trying to find a collegiate scribe worth noting, I’ll randomly search some student newspaper, hoping to stumble upon some nuggets of silver.

Well, Arismita Ghosh is gold.

Her latest piece for the McGill Daily, LEONARD COHEN HOLDS THE MIRROR, is beautiful, brilliant, spectacular writing.

Here, take a look …

Seriously, I gobbled up every word.

One can follow Arismita on Facebook here.

Bravo.

Journalism musings for the week …

Musing 1: The presidential election is obviously over, and Trump won, and life (for some?) goes on, but I’ll never fully understand how, in the days before the vote, Trump repeatedly mocked Anderson Cooper, CNN’s openly gay journalist, as “Allison”—and media as a whole simply shrugged. Like, we just collectively went, “Yeah, another day in the life.” Which is crazy. Absolutely crazy. What would have happened had Kamala Harris started mocking Cooper’s sexuality? Fuck.

Musing 2: Chris “Mad Dog” Russo says he is done with Joel Embiid. And I know this because it was on ESPN.com’s homepage. And I wonder, truly: Does anyone care? Does this shit even matter? Or is Russo yet another sports talk radio dino holding on for dear life?

Musing 3: This New York Magazine Q&A with Senator Chris Murphy is 100 percent worth your time. Murphy is a centrist, and he seems to really understand where the Democratic Party has fumbled away the ball. Said Murphy: “I think there’s a fight inside the Democratic Party today about whether or not neoliberalism has permanently failed. There are still plenty of market believers and market fundamentalists inside the Democratic Party, but I would argue Joe Biden made a pretty material break from neoliberal orthodoxy. His unabashed public support for labor unions, his revitalization of industrial policy, albeit targeted industrial policy, and his work to rebuild American antitrust power was all a recognition that we needed to move beyond our neoliberal failures. And one of my frustrations is that President Biden and Vice-President Harris didn’t lead their economic messaging by talking about their break with neoliberalism, their belief in the need to break up corporate power, their belief in the need to revitalize labor unions. So the policy was really good. I just don’t think the rhetoric always matched the policy.”

Musing 4: At age 27, Karoline Leavitt will be the youngest press secretary in White House history when Donald Trump takes office. And, on the one hand, Leavitt is a victory for athletes and athletics: She was a former softball standout at Saint Anselm College and oftentimes comes off as a warm presence. On the other hand … glub. She’s all in on “fake news” and “the liberal media” and all the Trump talking points. Pretty good piece on her from Neal Riley of WBZ News.

Musing 5: So the Pirates’ Paul Skenes won the NL Rookie of the Year, and by his side for … every … single … photo was Olivia Dunne, the former LSU gymnast and owner of 8.1 million TikTok followers. And I actually think Dunne’s next few moves will be legitimately fascinating. She’s made millions of dollars off of her social media presence, endorsements, etc.—but what happens when college ends? When you enter the real world? Does it continue? Does it slow down? End? Sex appeal only lasts for so long, and then—what? I’m not criticizing the young woman. She’s made it work. But I’m intrigued by the road ahead.

Musing 6: Josh Kendall of The Athletic is terrific, and his NFL power rankings sizzle off the page. When scribes can merge knowledge with pen skills, it shows. Josh is one of the best.

Musing 7: Fuck, just read Lydia Polgreen’s latest New York Times column, I NEVER PANIC. I’M PANICKING NOW. And I’m now panicking, too. Writes Polgreen: “Trump’s victory feels like a diagnosis, though Americans disagree profoundly on whether he is the disease, symptom or cure. Anyone who has faced mysterious symptoms knows that diagnosis brings its own bleak satisfactions, even or especially if the news is very bad. Cancer, with apologies to Susan Sontag, is an irresistible metaphor for our current moment. If 2016 felt like a fluke, a bolt of lightning akin to a freak accident, this feels systemic. What is cancer, after all, but something mysterious and unconstrained that our own body builds within itself? America is about to undergo a radical course of treatment. My mother hoped Kamala Harris’s promises to take on corporate landlords, to lower prescription drug prices and protect Medicare and Social Security would help her live a better life. Ultimately, what appears to be, at best, a very narrow majority of Americans decided to vote for Trump’s hard medicine.”

Musing 8: OK, so I just saw ESPN has an upcoming 30 for 30 on the New York Sack Exchange—the 1980s Jets’ defensive line of Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam and Mark Gastineau. I’m so here for it.

Musing 9: So Tyler Tynes, the former GQ and Los Angeles Times writer, posted this on his LinkedIn page a few weeks ago …

And Tyler is a talented guy. Years ago, when I was editing Best American Sports Writing, I placed this wonderful piece in the book. But, if I’m being honest, his plight is a good reminder why journalists need to stay grounded. This is an unforgiving industry. The hottest scribes (poof) vanish daily. You can be rolling one minute, unemployed the next. And one of the things that keeps you in the game is base-level kindness. Respecting peers. Not treating others as rivals, but as colleagues. Avoiding trash talk (which is a toxin in media). Refusing to shit on the work of others. On and on. I see a crazy number of young journalists who talk as if we are the athletes. We are not.

That’s all I’ll say about that.

Musing 10: I’m way late to this, but Paul George’s interview with Chet Holmgren was really terrific stuff. Two hoops junkies going deep.

Musing 11: A few days ago my local cinema showed “Singin’ in the Rain,” the 1952 musical starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. It has some kick-ass dance/singing numbers, including this gem. I mean, Kelly has to be on the short list of great American dancers. But Kelly was (cough) 20 years older than Reynolds, his on-screen love interest. Which is just really, really, really, really strange.

Musing 12: The new Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast stars Bill Higgins, former Cape Cod Times sports editor …

Quote of the Week …