T.O.'s Recession

“There are several teams that are interested in signing Terrell,” agent
Drew Rosenhaus wrote in a text message Friday to The Associated Press. “I have
been in negotiations with these teams. I will not identify these teams at this
time. Terrell and I expect to have a deal in place by the end of next week if
not sooner.”

This is like trying to check if former Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne has any new job offers by asking his mom; can it be considered newsworthy if the source of the news benefits from it? Cayne and Owens will both have a hard time finding work because of the destruction of their past employers. But if you’re out looking for a job, or negotiating on a house or car, what is your biggest bargaining chip…other offers! Nothing makes you more attractive for employment than competitors trying to secure your services. Nothing makes it easier to buy a house or car than a glut of similar cars and houses on the market that are willing to give you more for less, fabricated or not. Of course there are several teams who want T.O. according to his AGENT, who by the way, will make some decent pocket-change off any of the suckers he snake-charms into believing this.

But back to whether this should have even been reported in the first place: if your source for a story will benefit in any way from the publication of the news is it ethical to publish it? This is exactly what happens when journalists query a CEO about his company’s fiscal health. The CEO most likely owns a great deal of stock in the company. That stock will rise if his company is given a sound financial prediction. He will make money off it (at least in the form of increased stock prices, it won’t become actual money unless he sells those shares), so why would you ask him how his company is doing? Shouldn’t a second, verifiable source be checked? Like public financial records in the case of corporations or NFL front offices in the case of T.O.

My Baby Brother wrote an interesting blog post about the death of a newspaper we both grew up around. I disagreed with the overall tone and some of his points, but one point he made corresponds well with this type of story: the need for news organizations to fill “space”. In TV news it is air-time, in print media it is number of pages to justify more advertisements. I know there is a concern among news organizations about being scooped by your competition. But the real losers with this kind of reporting is the overall field of journalism, it makes it harder for your competitors to do the right thing and follow-up on a 2nd, corroborating source when you aren’t doing it. But that is the nature of our current culture of information.

In related news, a new study reveals that sexual activity among 16 year old males is at 100% (source: 16 year old males).