After our class discussion yesterday about the merit of MLB.com’s coverage in terms of objectivity, I thought it might be interesting to do a comparison between an MLB team site and a mainstream news outlet covering the same team. A few hours later, I found out that the Miami Marlins were sending three of their core players, all of whom had been signed the previous season in an effort to promote the team’s new stadium and image, to Toronto.
Here is the Miami Herald’s story on the team “taking a blowtorch to their roster once again”
Needless to say, the MLB story on the Marlins’ site takes a very different tone than the Herald and the rest of the mainstream media. The Herald article, for example, cites a tweet from Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton in which he wrote “Alright, I’m pissed off!!! Plain & Simple.” The MLB.com story doesn’t mention Stanton’s reaction; it is the only news outlet I have seen that has left this tweet out of its coverage.
I genuinely believe that MLB.com’s beat writers want to write objectively, but it obviously isn’t always in the clubs’ best interests for them to do so.
I’m curious to hear what you all have to say after reading these two pieces, and how an MLB.com writer would react to this side-by-side comparison. Should we put an asterisk on MLB.com’s coverage?
Sports Journalism 
Great find.
This definitely falls under the MLB.com category of, “no bashing the owner.” If only this happened before we had a chance to speak with Jen, we could have asked her whether or not she would sidestep that ruling and write about Loria (if she reported for the Marlins). This is an example as to why it would be so difficult to write for MLB.com in this type of situation. How on Earth can you be objective?
I wasn’t that impressed with the story by the Miami Herald as well. It was just like any other story written by pretty much every major publication across the U.S. If this is a beat reporter for a team, how come he didn’t use his connections and access to get quotes and insight from the sources he sees on a daily basis? I think he completely missed an opportunity to cover a MAJOR story from a different angle. Maybe get a brand new voice to add to his story? I am certain that this beat reporter had contacts that could have improved his otherwise bland, strikingly similar story, but am curious if he strayed away for fear of disrupting his relationship with the Marlins. This could be an interesting question to ask Derrick Goold today. Would he have utilized his sources and connections to write a story that would be different from all other news outlets, and risk disrupting relationships (if he covered the Marlins)?
Really insightful comparison here, Alex, and I agree that this Marlins situation is almost tailor-made in relating to the discussions we’ve had regarding MLB.com and objectivity. Its also some pretty wild timing for this to go down on the week where we have two baseball beat writers in for discussion; it’ll be interesting to hear Goold’s take on the situation.
Taking a look at both the Miami.Marlins.MLB.com and Miami Herald accounts on this proposed trade is really interesting because while each is reflective of the facts regarding the trade and are truthful on the offset, they almost tell completely different stories. I think this makes sense, in a way. All it takes is the consideration of the source – much like we’ve discussed when speaking about MLB.com previously. The official Marlins site tells the story from an administrative standpoint, with a very nuts-and-bolts approach of a “players x, y and z are being traded to Team B in exchange for players a and b” prototype. But that’s the story that should be expected from the league website, after all. MLB.com’s story does garner some mention of the Marlins’ failure of an envisioned rebranding a year a ago, which even seems surprising despite its mild content as far questioning the move goes (which it really strays away from). MLB.com publishes a story by the league and for the league, in a way. The Herald, on the other hand, has different priorities. Their story feels much more representative of the perceived public opinion on the move, but this makes sense as well, as that audience group is the group that the Herald is responsible for (to put it one way). The Herald has no ties nor any inclination to “protect” the Marlins by admonishing certain edges of the story, and so we can observe two very opposite, very correct (on both ends and in different ways), approaches to this news story and the presumptive fallout.
Big shoutout to Alex for finding something that ties in what we talked about this week. I agree with Brendan that it appears that this story falls under the “no owner bashing rule.” I was surprised with how similar the stories were, though. The Herald’s lead and final graph were obviously different, but other than that there wasn’t a whole lot that differed between the stories.
It seems so simple, but until I had listened to Derrick speak I would never have thought the similarities and the differences between the two stories may have just been because of the similarities and differences between the two reporters.
I think it could definitely be argued that the Herald’s writer should have done more with the story, because when it comes down to it there isn’t a whole lot that separates it from the MLB.com story, which given the “no owner bashing rule”, was a major opportunity to provide something outside the norm.
Firstly, there’s no amount of scathing writing Frisaro could do to embarrass the Marlins anymore than Jeffrey Loria has.
That aside, the two leads definitely set different tones. The Miami Herald piece, though, seems like it wants to set a blowtorch to the Marlins organization, but never pulls the trigger. Part of me thinks Spencer is trying to remain objective and not let any personal feelings towards this move spill into his writing.
Brendan is spot on when he asks how you can be objective in this situation. Jeffrey Loria is the man who needs to be held accountable for this situation, but as we learned from Jen this week, owners are off-limits, unless under very odd circumstances. It’s almost as if he’s “shielded” from MLB.com reporting. It’s a 2-percent-wide gap that the MLB.com reporter and the newspaper beat reporter will be separated by until MLB changes its policy (which it probably never will).
I recognize that the work schedule is similar for the two reporters, and the diligence paid for that work is equal. But how can we even make a fair comparison between the two jobs when there is an entire world of reporting that one of the jobs isn’t allowed to do? Is MLB.com reporting just 2-percent shy of being pure journalism?
I think back to what Jen Langosch talked about when she visited us in class last week. Given that MLB owners have a major stake in MLB.com, criticism of owners is considered to be off limits for MLB.com. Back to what Lucas has said, I wonder if MLB.com is really 2 percent shy of being a straight objective journalism. I also think back to what Wright talked about in class when he said that objective journalism is hard to achieve. I’m not trying to make excuses for this MLB.com reporter, who covers the Marlins. In the case of this controversial fire sale trade, he should have reported the tweet from Giancarlo Stanton that clearly criticized the Marlins ownership. Maybe it was taken out of his story.
I agree that there’s a clear difference in tones between the two stories. But, I also don’t think the Miami Herald story is all that great. Like the MLB.com story, it reports the facts in an X, Y, Z happened sort of way. It doesn’t offer opinions on Jeffrey Loria, the owner of the Marlins. Both stories don’t look at how Bud Selig basically fought for the Marlins to get a new stadium built in Miami, only to see its owner decide to trade away pieces that made the Marlins exciting to watch.
I know Jen also talked about how it’s up to the reporter’s approach to stories and whether he or she decides to be objective or turn into “homer” journalists. I think Jen made it clear that she approaches things as if she was working for a newspaper and I think we can see that in her reporting for the stories we’ve read. I too have wondered about the objectivity of MLB.com, especially because it’s a place I’ve considered working for. I don’t like how MLB.com is unlikely to report about steroids or owners’ mistakes. Still, though, I think the objectively question boils down to how the reporter approaches the job.
Certainly, there are reporters who work at newspapers and websites covering major league teams that turn into homers. I think that MLB.com has this wrap of being “PR journalism” because their content goes on a website that says “the official website of the St. Louis Cardinals.” But, as I’ve said before, it’s up to reporters to decide what they include in stories.
I agree with what Nicholas mentioned, something we discussed with Derrick Goold, that sometimes the angle of the article just depends on an individual writer. There is also something to be said of the location of the writers. You might expect that local newspaper writers would understand the frustration of a team that dumps off salary one year after spending money to try and compete. In this case, though, both writers cover the team, so they both should understand that aspect of the story.
Its hard to believe that in this case, the fact that Joe Frisaro works for MLB hasn’t shaped the way he approaches coverage. His article completely leaves out voices of frustrated Miami fans, while it include Justin Nicolino’s statement about being excited to join the Marlins. That is not really the story, here. There are far more relevant things that he could have included. This is either him being conditioned to into more of a PR person or having to stay away from criticizing the owner.
I also agree with Brendan about Clark Spencer’s article. He could have found a more interesting way than including blog comments and tweets to show that fans were upset.
Thank you, Alex, for sharing.
As has been mentioned, the tone is different in the two articles. I just want to dive in on a point made by Joe, who takes issue with how the Herald story doesn’t include any opinion on Loria. Personally, I find no fault with that, and think the article did a good job explaining what happened and providing the details in a tone resembling the atmosphere currently surrounding the Marlins organization. It’s easy to find fault with Loria for practically everything he does, especially scamming the taxpayers, but that would be a better second story, or one reserved for a columnist, I think.
While the Herald article was blunt at times, I, too, would have liked to ask Jen’s opinion of it, because I don’t think it’s that harsh. Sure, the payroll dump was the focal point of the story, but Loria doesn’t have to be explicitly blamed in the article. Even if MLB.com editors would have changed it up a bit, I wonder if Jen would have tried to write a similar article to the Herald’s to force the issue. Because I agree, the MLB.com site takes a hit to its credibility with its version of events.
And while Selig may be somewhat disappointed in Loria’s actions, he’ll still support Loria in everything the owner does, because Selig was once an owner. That’s the story of baseball, as far as I’m concerned. How can you have the commissioner be a former owner? He’s blatantly biased toward one side of the negotiations table.
I will be brief because you guys made a lot of good points. Clearly these two articles are written differently, arguably due to the fact that one is written by an MLB.com reporter. The biggest difference to me in these two articles lies in the quotes chosen. Quotes can really affect the tone of a story, especially when it is about a negative situation. The three quotes that Joe Frisaro of MLB.com used were all relatively positive, while Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald focused on angry quotes. In both cases, the reporter used the quotes to aid his view of the situation. Since it is hard to achieve objective journalism (as confirmed by Wright), a journalist can only write how they see a situation. Yes, Frisaro could have seen the situation the same as Spencer, but chose to make is positive, but that is not for sure as Jenifer said it really just depends on the writer.