OT: Packers Official Allegedly Intimidated Reporter Over Story

primetime said:

Of course this thread devolved into cries of anguish about Chris Mortenson and ESPN and bias against the Patriots even though that had literally nothing to do with the topic at hand. Patsfans dot com is anything if not predictable.

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primetime said:

Of course this thread devolved into cries of anguish about Chris Mortenson and ESPN and bias against the Patriots even though that had literally nothing to do with the topic at hand. Patsfans dot com is anything if not predictable.

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Ivan said:

How about starting by not supporting outright lies by their colleagues? Chris Mortenson published outright lies fed to him by league office employees with an agenda. That was the match that started the idiotic deflategate fire that caused Brady and the Patriots to endure months and months of abuse and legal challenges that continue to this day and cost the Patriots a first and a fourth round pick. At no point has he ever taken responsibility or outed the employees who deliberately lied to him, and rather than call him out for such abuses of journalistic ethics his colleagues refused to comment other than to support him and tell everyone what an outstanding journalist he is. And while I can certainly understand journalists protecting their sources that protection should be null and void when those sources deliberately feed them agenda driven lies. This is just one example of literally thousands and thousands of stories that we are fed that have no basis in fact and that lead to society having no idea what is or is not true, and that runs across the spectrum in every aspect of the media. Every outlet has a corporate driven agenda and they don't care about the truth they only care about clicks and ratings. It's the media that need to police themselves and call out the lies and absence of factual evidence to support their stories, but rather than do so they just double down for their side, and it doesn't matter if it's Fox or MSNBC, ESPN or the NFLN, the NYT or the Houston Chronicle, all of them deliberately feed us stories they know aren't true and the only ones who contest it are their mirrors on the other side. It's the media and their corporate masters that have destroyed journalistic ethics, not the public. Unfortunately there is no answer for it because we are a corporate driven society and corporations have no ethics or honor other than to the bottom line, concepts like truth and honesty and justice are completely foreign to them and that's why they are disappearing from our society. It sucks but that's the way it is.

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Tunescribe said:

As far as I personally am concerned, you and others here have been preaching to the choir. NOBODY has been more critical of people like Mortensen/Kravitz/Doyel/Tomase, etc., etc. than myself. I'm not defending any of it. I've only tried to point out that not all journalists are "on the take," which amply has been demonstrated by the likes of Curran, Reiss, Florio (surprisingly) and others.

I left newspaper reporting in 1995 -- 20 years ago -- to do my own thing. Much has changed since then, most of which can be attribute to the Internet's influence on how/when information is disseminated. It's a true double-edged sword but despite the "bad apples" and regrettable examples, there remain good people out there serving the public with good work.

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Ivan said:

I agree that there are good people committed to doing good work but they are as imperiled as any endangered species. I don't think the internet is the reason for their demise, I believe it is the news as entertainment principle that the corporations that have bought all of our media employs. The corporations own the media, the corporations only care about the bottom line, and the corporations don't care about truth they only care about profit. There is no longer any place for truth and honesty and integrity only for clicks and ratings.

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Tunescribe said:

The immediacy of the Internet (and social media) has contributed to recklessness in the quest to be "first." But while this can be problematic, it's not all bad all the time. News outlets also recognize that if they prove untrustworthy, inaccurate or unfair, people won't buy what they're selling. ESPN's recent struggles are a good example of that.

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Tunescribe said:

The immediacy of the Internet (and social media) has contributed to recklessness in the quest to be "first." But while this can be problematic, it's not all bad all the time. News outlets also recognize that if they prove untrustworthy, inaccurate or unfair, people won't buy what they're selling. ESPN's recent struggles are a good example of that.

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Ivan said:

I just wrote a post about what i believe is the corporate dynamic that has destroyed journalistic integrity and if you want to challenge it go for it. If you really believe that's not the dynamic at work in this country then tell us what it really is?

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primetime said:

There was always a corporate dynamic at work in journalism. Almost all news sources are for-profit entities, and this has been the case since capitalism became the dominant mode of production in the Western world. The mistake you're making is imagining that there is such a thing as objectivity. There isn't. Everyone has an agenda, and everyone always will. Everyone sees every situation differently, and everyone always will. Politics aren't just for politicians -- everything is politics.

You're posting on a message board for a team that is a billion dollar enterprise in a trillion dollar industry and acting like you're surprised that there's a propaganda machine which exists to make money off of it. The Patriots don't care about you other than for the money in your wallet; nor does the NFL.

You've essentially turned this thread into a rant about Chris Mortenson, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with a Packers executive stonewalling an investigation into a domestic violence incident. The fact that the reporter works for a for-profit entity doesn't undermine the fact that he was doing exactly what his job says he should do, and exactly what you seem to think reporters should be doing -- seeking the truth, insofar as there is a truth, and reporting it, rather than reprinting a corporate press release like it's news.

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PATS16N0 said:

Oh.. well… the reporter. We mustn't upset the precious reporter.

Reporters are vile scum. I don't care. I'm so sick of people thinking they're on a pedestal and immune from any blowback because they're "reporters." **** them.

Regardless of what someone might have done, I hate that scummy profession so much that I basically just think "Well done."

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Ivan said:

I don't disagree that there has always been a profit motive the distinction that I have made was the change from news as an entity in and of itself and new as entertainment and imo that is what has led to the lack of ethics we now see at play. And Yes, Chris Mortenson is a perfect sample of this as not one person he works with has come out against him and nothing has been done about the lies he propogated. Don't like it, too bad, the profession you are defending is so corrupt you can't name an honest broker in it.

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PATS16N0 said:

So you're a reporter telling us reporters are all wonderful people because your friends are reporters even though we all know that reporters are basically scum?

Maybe you do a great job at exposing waste at your local high school, or asking your town selectman how he can afford a mansion in the Alps, but please spare us the holier than thou "reporters are the champions of liberty" routine, especially when we're talking about sports reporters, who reside somewhere on the scum-scale between ambulance chasers and pornographers.

Acting like our very freedom depends on someone being able to break a Packers scandal so he can distinguish himself in his profession is nothing short of laughable.

These are people who think their little reporter-badge gives them free reign to do whatever the hell they want to without any ramifications, then when there is ramifications they sometimes literally cry and usually always scamper away like a coward.

The level of entitlement of `reporters` really is amazing. They truly believe they're entitled to be able to go after other peoples lives or reputations to any ruthless and destructive degree that they like, yet hilariously think there's some magical, invisible shield that's supposed to stop everyone from going after them.

It's pathetic.

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Grizzafted said:

so your point here is...what? that reporters don't have a responsibility to expose the rampant problems of domestic abuse and the way that NFL franchises cover for that behavior

i not so respectfully disagree with this asinine and ridiculous assertion

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primetime said:

ESPN was never a news entity. Entertainment is literally the first word in the network's name.

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Grizzafted said:

im sorry if some of you are letting your distress over the way the SPORTS MEDIA covers the patriots make you this cynical about the fourth estate, arguably one of the most important pillars of democracy, you're just not very smart

being told things you don't like hearing isn't a crime and it doesn't make someone a bad journalist.

we're talking about sports reporting here anyway, there's essentially zero editorial standards in that field.

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Ivan said:

Tell us which major media outlets reported the truth when it came out? And link us to their retractions when you have the time?

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Grizzafted said:

im sorry if some of you are letting your distress over the way the SPORTS MEDIA covers the patriots make you this cynical about the fourth estate, arguably one of the most important pillars of democracy, you're just not very smart

being told things you don't like hearing isn't a crime and it doesn't make someone a bad journalist.

we're talking about sports reporting here anyway, there's essentially zero editorial standards in that field.

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Grizzafted said:

I'm pretty sure the Washington Post repeatedly ran articles that were critical of the way the league handled the Deflategate issue, long before Berman's ruling opened the floodgates.

When it comes to "honest" news outlets, I'm not even sure what some of you knuckleheads are even trying to say. There's inherent bias in any form of storytelling but facts are facts, and someone has to round them up. The media is a mixed bag but as someone who's been involved in foreign reporting as both a videographer and writer I can tell you from experience there are some very committed, decent, hardworking people who take serious risks to show you what's happening in your world. I agree that there are some pompous idiots in the profession and there's a tendency towards this Aaron Sorkin-esque cornball self-admiration with a lot of media people...but there are also a lot of people in the press doing important work in keeping the public informed.

I don't know why I'm bothering with this, it's a sports message board...but I think some of you don't really understand the following dynamic:

sports reporting IS entertainment by its very nature. it will never have the same editorial standards of hard news in the political or foreign spheres. there is a slide right now towards what you might call 'clickbait' but that's not necessarily driven by editorial preferences, but by market forces, the way the internet operates, and above all: the preferences of the public.

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Grizzafted said:

I'm pretty sure the Washington Post repeatedly ran articles that were critical of the way the league handled the Deflategate issue, long before Berman's ruling opened the floodgates.

When it comes to "honest" news outlets, I'm not even sure what some of you knuckleheads are even trying to say. There's inherent bias in any form of storytelling but facts are facts, and someone has to round them up. The media is a mixed bag but as someone who's been involved in foreign reporting as both a videographer and writer I can tell you from experience there are some very committed, decent, hardworking people who take serious risks to show you what's happening in your world. I agree that there are some pompous idiots in the profession and there's a tendency towards this Aaron Sorkin-esque cornball self-admiration with a lot of media people...but there are also a lot of people in the press doing important work in keeping the public informed.

I don't know why I'm bothering with this, it's a sports message board...but I think some of you don't really understand the following dynamic:

sports reporting IS entertainment by its very nature. it will never have the same editorial standards of hard news in the political or foreign spheres. there is a slide right now towards what you might call 'clickbait' but that's not necessarily driven by editorial preferences, but by market forces, the way the internet operates, and above all: the preferences of the public.

Click to expand...