The Yang Slinger: Vol. XXVI
The rise, fall and (oy) possible death of journalistic/media accountability. Five questions with Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard and some truly outstanding pieces of writing.
On Nov. 1, 1996, my editor at The (Nashville) Tennessean sent me to cover a high school football game between Goodpasture Christian and David Lipscomb.
There wasn’t much to think about. I was a 24-year-old preps writer at the newspaper, and that meant observing football, wrestling, baseball, swimming, bowling. Whatever came across my desk, I headed out to door to work as a chronicler.
So that evening, I unfolded into my (preposterously small) red Geo Metro convertible and drove from my shitty downtown apartment to David Lipscomb High, where the visiting Cougars romped en route to a 32-13 triumph for the 5-2A crown. I returned to the office (as we did back in the dark ages) and typed up a quick story for the next morning’s edition.
Here’s what I wrote …
That night, I thought nothing of it.
Nothing.
I returned home, slept well, probably wondered what assignments would follow.
But then the phone calls began. One call. Two calls. Seven calls. Twenty calls. Angry, angry, angry David Lipscomb parents, students, administrators. Fire in their voices. No, furor in their voices. How dare Jeff Pearlman! How dare he!
Um. How dare I do … what?
How dare Jeff Pearlman write this …
I can’t overstate the wrath of a scorned high school sports team. To the David Lipscomb community, I had done David Kurkau1, mediocre quarterback, dirty. He wasn’t an NFL player. He wasn’t even a local college player. He was a young kid participating in a sport for recreation.
Larry Taft was the newspaper’s preps sports editor. He took me under his wing, explained why the line didn’t quite work, told me everything would be OK and that memories are short.
And then, he did something that changed the course of my career: He told me I had to cover the following weekend’s David Lipscomb game.
Fuck.
I didn’t want to. Lord, I really didn’t want to. Those people were gonna eat me alive. They’d see me and punch me, kick me, mock me. Nashville is a big city/small town, and word would spread about the asshole Yankee newspaper writer showing his face after slamming the kid quarterback. “Please,” I said to Larry, “can you give it to someone else?”
“No,” he replied. “It’s called accountability. You need to be in front of these people. It’s part of the job.”
Fuck. Fuck.
I returned to David Lipscomb for the school’s matchup against Mount Pleasant—heart thumping, hands coated in sweat. I was recognized by a handful of loyalists, and caught a bit of shit. But nothing nearly as awful as I imagined.2 Midway through the fourth quarter, I left the press box and hopped down toward the Lipscomb sideline, the best way to snag quick postgame quotes. As the final minutes ticked off the clock of the home team's 40-0 rout, a dozen or so Lipscomb players took notice of my presence. Before long, I was surrounded, and being stared down the one and only David Kurkau.3 He was helmet-less, and didn't appear particularly happy.
“Don’t you ever come around here again,” he snarled.4
I nodded, interviewed the coach and left.
I hated Larry Taft for sending me to David Lipscomb. Hated him like I hate cottage cheese and soft jazz. Hated him like I hate yellow snow and the first name "Zev.” I thought he was being an asshole; turning me into a sacrificial lamb for the sake of … I dunno. Ego. Arrogance. Whatever.
In hindsight, he was 100-percent correct.
Accountability is everything in journalism. Not just a part of it—the whole enchilada. Without accountability, your readers have no reason to trust you and/or believe in your integrity. Without accountability, you’re no better than the anonymous Tweeter, spewing nonsense without any repercussions. Accountability means being available to those people you are writing about. It means admitting mistakes when mistakes happen, and doing your all to correct them. “When I walk into that clubhouse/locker room tomorrow, will I be able to defend this?” Tim Brown, the phenomenal sports writer, texted me. “Did I make every call? Did I think through every detail? Is this fair? And, important here, I will walk into that clubhouse/locker room tomorrow.”
Back during my Sports Illustrated days, the magazine’s power brokers emphasized accountability above all else. If a reader or profile subject challenged a story, we (the staff reporters) were charged with unambiguously determining whether the magazine was correct or incorrect. And if we were incorrect, the next week’s issue would include a published clarification. It was intensive (aka: awful) work, but it spoke to the ethical compass of a publication that knew the trust of the readers meant everything.
Again, you are nothing without journalistic accountability.
So why am I writing about this? Why now? Why here? Well, coming off of last week’s 25th volume of this Substack newsletter, concerning Bobby Burack of Outkick the Coverage, accountability has been on my mind. Now, as a rule, I don’t love piling on people, or repeating criticisms. To me, you say what’s in your head, you write it, you move on. That’s how these things are supposed to work.
But … argh. I dunno. I went hard after Burack, the Outkick media chronicler who seems to have this creepy thing for Jemele Hill. In particular, I focused on the entry headlined JEMELE HILL’S NEW BOOK HAS SOLD JUST 5,034 COPIES, PROVING TO BE HER LATEST EPIC FAILURE. I noted that m-a-n-y of Burack’s observations were factually incorrect. Jemele Hill’s book did not peak at 2,961 on Amazon, as Bobby wrote (twice). Jemele Hill never said she was confident her memoir, “Uphill,” would wind up a best-seller—as Bobby also wrote. Mark Levin’s impressive sales figures must be noted alongside an enormous asterisk—a fact Bobby ignored.
And here’s the thing: Mistakes happen. For me. For you. For Bobby. But when people point out the mistakes of a journalist, that journalist must (like, 100-percent must) correct them. Or, worst-case scenario, remove the incorrect material. He must address them. Strongly. Honestly. Immediately.
Bobby, however, did none of the above. He surely read my entry—I e-mailed it to him, and it was re-tweeted quite a bit (with his Twitter handle tagged). Yet instead of being accountable, Bobby just (poof) moved on to write more posts attacking more people, almost certainly without ever reaching out for comment or verification. The Hill post remains. The Hill lies and errors remain. “It’s the Wild West now,” Lisa Winston, a longtime baseball writer, texted me. “It no longer matters who was right, who wrote the most insightful articles about anyone or anything. It all became about who was first (accuracy be damned) or who had the most followers or hits.” I’m guessing Bobby never told his bosses of the mistakes. Fuck, I wonder if he told anyone of the mistakes. It’s the worst kind of media cowardice—hiding beneath your desk, cowering, pretending nothing happened when you, quite literally, wrote wrongly/incorrectly of a fellow human.
Chad Finn, the Boston Globe’s terrific sports media columnist, nailed this issue when I asked him about accountability. “I don't believe the pursuit of journalistic accountability—at least among actual journalists who are serious about doing that job—has changed much over the past 20 or 30 years,” he texted me. “The mission remains to unearth the truth and report with transparency on what you have found. That means stringent fact-checking, strong sourcing, and making yourself available to readers to answer questions.”
Buuuuut …
“The complications nowadays come from a bunch of different directions. Among other things, we desperately need media literacy in schools. On television in particular, we're inundated with bad-faith actors who claim to be telling the truth when in fact they're often lying for power and profit. These aren't journalists, but they claim to be, and swarths of viewers don't know the difference.”
Bobby Burack is not on TV much. But he is, without question, a bad-faith actor.
I e-mailed him earlier today. Wrote this …
He never replied.
I was texting with Mina Kimes, the excellent ESPN NFL analyst (as well as someone Bobby has taken bullshit shots at. If you’re a woman, or a minority, or a minority woman—watch out), about accountability and my efforts at communication. To Mina’s credit, she emphasized, “I’m no longer really a journalist.” She also found it all sorta funny (as do I), but also a bit sad/pathetic. “I guess I would define [accountability] as a commitment to fairness and pursuing the truth,” she texted, “and then admitting if you’ve ever fallen short in the pursuit of accuracy.”
Put differently, I am not surprised by the silence of Bobby Burack.
By the lack of accountability.
In case you missed this, earlier in the week ESPN’s Jenna Laine apologized on Twitter—both to Buccaneers halfback Giovani Bernard and for what many considered to be an iffy posting concerning a locker room exchange between the player and reporters.
This should not have been a big deal. Laine, the NFL Nation Bucs reporter, behaved a bit unprofessionally, acknowledged such and took responsibility. She deserves neither praise nor scorn for the action. It was a whole lotta nothing. Who really cares?
Only, well, in 2022 it appears many people care. The action-reaction wound up being a story here. And here. And here. And here. And a ton of other places. It trended on Twitter. Ruled on Instagram. Why, Sports Illustrated literally ran the headline, ESPN REPORTER APOLOGIZES TO BUCCANEERS’ GIO BERNARD AFTER HEATED EXCHANGE.
All because Laine was accountable in an age when accountability is a rare gem.
In the past, accountability was not a surprise, but an expectation. If someone was mad at you, you let that person express their anger. If you jotted something down incorrectly, you fixed it. Back in 2000, when I was a baseball scribe at Sports Illustrated, Wallace Matthews of the New York Post wrote a column headlined, MEEK THE METS. This infuriated Todd Pratt, New York’s burly backup catcher, who informed several people he would enjoy stomping out the writer’s skull (or something to that effect). Told of the ballplayer’s anger, Matthews made certain to be at his locker the very next day.
“Who are you?” Pratt asked.
“I’m the writer you wanna beat up,” Matthews replied.
“We talked it out,” Matthews recalled on my podcast. “That’s how you do it.”
That same season, I famously/infamously headed to Atlanta to see John Rocker, the Braves pitcher who spewed all sorts of vile to me in a lengthy interview session the previous December. Rocker had been suspended, fined and demoted as a response to the article, and he did not think warmly of me. But I went, and—as much as it sucked—endured his anger. Why? Because … accountability.
Roughly a decade after Matthews-Pratt and Rocker-Me, Ian O’Connor of ESPN.com called for the dismissal of New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. The column was direct and unsparing—Ryan had to go. “Given that I believe in being accessible after such columns, I planned to attend his next media availability,” O’Connor e-mailed me. “That happened to be the following Monday, 10 a.m., out in Florham Park, N.J. I was scheduled to cover a Nets game that night, and anyone who’s ever made the trip to Brooklyn knows it’s easier to drive from northern Jersey to Cleveland than it is to drive from northern Jersey to the Barclays Center. Starting the morning with a trip to Ryan’s 15-minute presser for the sole purpose of showing my face would make for a long day and night— I’d get back home around 1:30 a.m.—but it was a small price worth paying. I figured that Ryan either didn’t give a shit what I wrote, or didn’t see it. On the two-percent chance that he did care, or did want to say something, I sat in a center chair in front of the room, in his line of sight. Nothing came of it, as I’d expected. Other than I slept better late that night than I would have had I stayed clear of that Jets presser.”
When Mike Vaccaro, the longtime New York Post sports columnist, began his job a couple of decades back, he received some advice from two veteran colleagues—O’Connor and the late Dave Anderson of the New York Times.
Recalled Mike: “Both told me the number one rule of this job is rip away as much as you like. But always—always—make an effort to talk to the subject of your criticism before hand and ALWAYS—non-negotiable—get in front of that person as soon as possible afterward. Not to have a confrontation but just to give them the chance to engage you and know you won’t hit and run.”
So why have things turned so ugly? Why is accountability oftentimes spoken of in the past tense? Alan Sepinwall, the Rolling Stone TV critic, chalks it up to a societal dip in standards. “The idea of accountability in general has largely vanished from society,” he texted me. “If you screw up, you start your own site, or you become a pundit complaining about wokeness run amok, or in every other way keep doubling down on the mistake you already made.”
C.J. Farley, author and former senior editor for Time and the Wall Street Journal, believes it has to do with a declining (and deliberately instituted) mistrust of the media—much of it by political design. “When reporters call out insurrection inciters like ex-president Trump or alleged fabulists like incoming GOP Congressman George Santos, the bamboozled public is often immune to the stories, because they don’t trust anyone or anything anymore,” Farley DMed me. “That’s just where the Trumps of the world want Americans to be. So public figures on the right, having successfully neutered much of the press, now feel free to ignore questions, exposés and almost all attempts by the media to hold them to account for malfeasance.”
Personally, I see a few things.
First, a media landscape where fast has trumped correct, which results in a dizzying number of errors and blunders.
Second, a massive number of cutbacks at traditional media outposts, oftentimes resulting in the firings/layoffs of veteran journalists who were raised to stress accountability over all else.
Third, an emphasis on gotcha over reporting—resulting in the hiring of hacks like Bobby. “What hurts our public perception and leaves us open to more criticism today is just the vast amount of outlets and ‘news’ sources, some run without journalistic training or worse, suspect motives and agendas,” said Melissa Isaacson, the veteran journalist and Northwestern professor. “We used to be able to police ourselves.” Also, along this same line, there’s the emphasis on loud over nuanced; the rise of non-journalistic journalists like Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith—barking, arguing, insisting … but never, ever, ever, ever apologizing.
Fourth, as Winston noted, a new “Wild West” journalism landscape, where oft-slimy places like Outkick and Barstool are granted cover beneath the enormous “journalism” umbrella, and readers fail to differentiate. Suddenly, those of us trained to be accountable are blended in with those who don’t give two shits about accuracy, about righteousness, about decency. Mirin Fader, the splendid Ringer scribe, says she always reminds herself that, “we almost hold [a subject’s] hearts in our hands—their innermost thoughts, feelings, memories. And the way we share that with readers is the most important responsibility you can have.”
She’s right.
But, sadly, I wonder whether enough people care.
The Quaz Five with … Chris Ballard
Chris Ballard, my friend, former Sports Illustrated colleague and one of the planet’s great scribes, is the editor of a fantastic new book, “Sports Illustrated The Basketball Vault: Great Writing from the Pages of Sports Illustrated.” You can follow Chris on Twitter here and visit his website here.
1. How hard was it picking out the stories for the book? How many would you say you went through?: Incredibly hard. We were drawing from 70 years of SI stories. And, for much of that time, the best sportswriters in the country all worked for Sports Illustrated. A lot of these writers have their own anthologies and others, like Lee Jenkins or Scott Price, deserve them. That’s a staggering amount of good writing. Then you’re trying to cover different eras and a range of iconic players and provide diverse voices and writing styles (SI was not exactly known for diverse voices).
I began by polling a bunch of SI folks—Jack McCallum and Lee and others—and leaned heavily on Hank Hersch, who edited at the magazine for decades and is a mentor/friend. I think our original list ran somewhere close to 120 stories (?). In the end, I believe 44 made the cut, with help and edits from Adam Motin at Triumph, the publisher, and that’s leaving out a ton of amazing stories and great writers—like Howard Beck—that deserved to be in there. We could easily publish another volume.
2. As a former Sports Illustrated senior writer, who worked at the magazine when it was strong and printed in the millions, how do you feel about the state of modern sports journalism?: So much has changed so quickly. I still write for SI—I’m a Contributing Writer—but the magazine/website is vastly different than even five years ago, for reasons that are well-documented (new ownership, mass layoffs, the decline of print, etc).
As for sports journalism at large, I’d say there’s never been a better time to be a consumer of it and, at the same time, likely never a worse time to be a producer of it. The depth and creativity of coverage and the level of analysis are astounding. As a Warriors fan, I could spend hours every day reveling in interesting writing, podcasts, newsletters, and videos. And not just from the same few sources or outlets. The ability to nerd out is wonderful.
At the same time, access to athletes has never been more managed, or harder to come by. And it makes sense; if LeBron has tens of millions of followers and his own production company why would he provide in-depth access to an outside journalist, other than it might provide credibility? Even then, the layers of handlers and safeguards for the athlete are daunting (I experienced this writing about LeBron and his sons last summer). Bryan Curtis wrote a column about this not long ago, and how Jack McCallum’s (excellent) book on embedding with the Phoenix Suns could never come about today.
Those that do cover teams/leagues are expected to churn so much ‘content’ (a word that still feels weird to type). The industry wears people down and pays little. You have to really love it to do it.
3. You wrote an absolutely gripping piece on Monty Williams after the death of his wife. It’s one of the best stories I’ve read. How do you get people to open up and feel comfortable during the worst of times?: Empathy, first and foremost.
Then by explaining the goal. With Monty, I told him I thought his story could help other people dealing with grief. Because, from afar, his actions at the funeral seemed like an impossible standard. Your wife dies in an auto accident and you stand up and forgive the other driver, publicly? That’s remarkable. But what none of us saw were all the terrible days and hours that came before the funeral and all the terrible days and hours after. As inspiring as Monty’s actions were up at that podium, it’s all the rest of it that makes him relatable and human. And it’s in those details that maybe someone else reeling from loss can find a toehold.
Third, I give them agency. This is their story. I’m just the one helping them tell it. That’s an important distinction.
Finally, during the interviews, I try to disappear. I don’t want them talking to me. I want them to tell this story, in full, at their pace. A lot of times, they haven’t done that before—talked it through, from beginning to end, taking as many detours as they want. It takes hours and hours to do that. The older I get, the more I realize that the most important skill in this job is probably active listening.
4. You played college basketball. Does that make a difference as a basketball writer? Like, are there things you knew/understood that a weekend hack like, um, Jeff Pearlman wouldn’t? Did it give you an advantage?":Yeah, probably. And that’s even though I played at a low level - one season at Pomona College, a DIII school, where any highlights I had came while playing for the JV squad (I had one dunk in a game and it was against Caltech and I got called for traveling).
So I’m not sure that the ‘college’ part mattered as much as that I knew the game and loved it but not necessarily in the way a fan does but the way that a player does. I’ve always been more interested in writing about the craft of the game or the people in the game than trade scenarios (though I love reading them). After college I kept playing in adult rec leagues and still do, body willing. That probably comes through when you talk to someone: that you also care about this deeply and passionately. It also allowed me to pitch stories based around playing—I ended up shooting threes against Steve Kerr and going full-court one-on-one against Bob Myers and spending a week at IMG’s Train Like a Pro Camp and testing out these shoes that were supposed to make you jump higher (spoiler alert: they didn’t). That earns you a little respect, I think—that you’re willing to get out there.
5. We played on the SI basketball team together back in the day, and I became known for my shot fake. My son plays high school basketball and thinks the slow-to-develop fake can’t work in a modern setting. Is he right or wrong?: Your son is both right and wrong. He’s right because, at the highest levels, no way is that working. Draymond Green isn’t going to bite.
He’s wrong because, at the SI Hoops level—where most of us reside—that shit is still gold.
Here, I should describe the Pearlman shot fake for readers. For starters, if you haven’t met Jeff in person, he’s tall and stringy. Think Tayshaun Prince. So when Jeff brought the ball above his head, we’re talking way above his head—like most of the way to the hoop, as if he’s installing a light bulb he can barely reach.
Second, Jeff sold it well. Some people use shot or pass fakes in a perfunctory manner; they’ve been drilled in by some long-ago middle school or CYO coach. Not Jeff. He put his heart and soul into that thing. Frankly, I don’t know if the outcome even mattered that much - whether or not he made the ensuing basket - as long as the defender bit on it. He found joy in the fake itself.
My dad did something similar. He kept playing through his mid-70s and, to the end, you could guarantee that, at some point in the game - usually early - he was uncorking a behind-the-back pass, even if the situation didn’t require one. So maybe that’s the best argument for using that shot fake; every player needs to have their thing. If that’s yours, more power to you.
This week’s college writer you should follow on Twitter …
Adam Gorcyca, opinion writer for the Daily Illini.
I’ll just leave this gem of a lede, beneath the headline, IT’S TIME FOR A BIDET BONANZA, right here …
Shitty Excellent stuff. Only, eh, Adam isn’t on Twitter. Or even Instagram, it seems. But here is his work, and he was a helluva high school runner. Small sample size, but the kid can write.
Random journalism musings for the week …
Musing 1: The Washington Post’s Ruby Cramer sometimes gets lost in the shuffle by being surrounded by a staff of dynamos. But the daughter of the late Richard Ben Cramer is an absolute star, and her profile of Elisa Stefanik is gold.
Musing 2: Not to devote this entire space to kissing the rears of Washington Post writers, but—hoooooooly shit. Stephanie McCrummen is simply one bad-ass mofo when it comes to breaking down barriers, finding the tiniest details, weaving together a narrative. This piece, IN RURAL GEORGIA, AN UNLIKELY REBEL AGAINST TRUMPISM, is Pulitzer-worthy.
Musing 3: If you’re a fan of hard-nosed, turn-over-every-single-document reporting, you must be a fan of Grace Ashford and Michael Gold and their New York Times article, WHO IS REP.-ELECT GEORGE SANTS? HIS RESUME MAY BE LARGELY FICTION. It’s this type of work that brings me hope for the future of the industry.
Musing 4: Carron J. Phillips isn’t yet a household name—mainly because post-apocalyptic Deadspin has struggled to find its footing. But few writers have chronicled Deion Sanders’ move from Jackson State to Colorado with such precision and insight. Really excellent stuff here.
Musing 5: Not sure how much attention this will receive in the coming days, but former Broncos halfback Ronnie Hillman died Thursday of a rare form of kidney cancer called renal medullary carcinoma. Hillman was 31.
There will be plenty of tributes, kind words, heartbroken expressions of devastation. But sometimes brevity captures a moment perfectly—as shown by this Tweet from Orlando Franklin, Hillman’s former teammate …
Musing 6: I’ve been an Alex Coffey fan from way early in the process, and as she continues her journey of excellence with the Philadelphia Inquirer, I feel like the guy who spotted a young, oh, Joe Montana and said, “Keep an eye on this kid.” Alex’s latest piece, THE PHILLIES’ ANDREW BELLATTI MADE A FATAL MISTAKE AS A TEEN. A TALE OF REMARKABLE FORGIVENESS FOLLOWED, is simultaneously devastating and spiritual. Brilliant work.
Musing 7: I missed this outstanding Los Angeles Times column from Bill Plaschke on former USC star Charles White and his life with dementia. Top-shelf writing, reporting, compassion.
Musing 8: This is the greatest thing ever …
Quote of the week …
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”
I tried tracking down David for this post—and, amazingly, I butchered his name in the story. It’s “Karkau.” God, I was awful.
These things are rarely as bad as we imagine.
Karkau.
I tracked down Karkau for this post. Hadn’t spoken to him since that 1996 encounter. We traded lovely e-mails. He wrote: “I don't remember that at all...probably b/c I was a punk high schooler! If I said that to you though that was dumb and inappropriate. Sorry man! All in the past and clearly no hard feelings on my part.”
I look forward to every edition of this newsletter Jeff. With each dispatch from the frontlines of media, you offer valuable perspective and much to ruminate on, well done. Thank you and happy holidays.
Good essay, and a good reminder for an old hand like myself.