The Orioles, the media and the Hangout

[JackO]

Exactly. In situations like this if sources are wrong, or the simplest mistakes are made then your entire career could be over.

The biggest difference is that you need to know which sources are telling the truth and which are airing grievances and you have to verify what is true.

In my job -- which deals in writing about hundreds of millions of dollars and dealing face-to-face with folks that dwarf Peter G. Angelos on the Forbes list -- I have lots of people with whom I speak, and each of them tells me the truth in some form. The trouble is that almost all of them are pushing agendas and often that truth is just a kernel hidden behind a husk of bald faced lies.

When a story deals with a situation that is heated and nasty and that has factions fighting for money, position and jobs figuring out what is the truth is a difficult task. I have faith that good journalists like the Tom Boswells and Peter Schmucks and even the Rochs of the world know enough to know when they are getting snowed over.

I have faith that Tony will give me really interesting takes on the prospects in the O's system. But as for hard core sifting through agendas and lies, heck I hope he gets it right, but SG is right, if he doesn't it is not a big deal, and I trust the long time pros a touch more.

If Tony blows the story, the hangout will still be compelling and will still be good entertainment, and I am guessing that few if any will stop reading the hangout because some misinformation was spread around -- I mean how many folks actually stopped reading the hangout after each time one of our insiders got something completely wrong?

If one of the pros blows a story, it is a serious shot to his credibility and it could cost a job and future employment, which means that whatever is written better be airtight.

[SilentJames]

I just talked to Scott today about all of this and I told him these kind of attacks would start. I'm not going to go into why the sources have come out to me, but considering I get paid to write this stuff and the site is credentialed just like the Sun, calling us an amateur news site tells a lot more about your motives here than anything else.

Pay them no mind Tony. I know I speak for a lot of people here, and in the blogging community, when I say that we have complete faith in what you are doing right now. Anyone who calls you "amateur" has no clue the amount of work you put into this.

I am an amateur, you sir are as pro as they come.

[lordbrook]

The biggest difference is that you need to know which sources are telling the truth and which are airing grievances and you have to verify what is true.

In my job -- which deals in writing about hundreds of millions of dollars and dealing face-to-face with folks that dwarf Peter G. Angelos on the Forbes list -- I have lots of people with whom I speak, and each of them tells me the truth in some form. The trouble is that almost all of them are pushing agendas and often that truth is just a kernel hidden behind a husk of bald faced lies.

When a story deals with a situation that is heated and nasty and that has factions fighting for money, position and jobs figuring out what is the truth is a difficult task. I have faith that good journalists like the Tom Boswells and Peter Schmucks and even the Rochs of the world know enough to know when they are getting snowed over.

I have faith that Tony will give me really interesting takes on the prospects in the O's system. But as for hard core sifting through agendas and lies, heck I hope he gets it right, but SG is right, if he doesn't it is not a big deal, and I trust the long time pros a touch more.

If Tony blows the story, the hangout will still be compelling and will still be good entertainment, and I am guessing that few if any will stop reading the hangout because some misinformation was spread around -- I mean how many folks actually stopped reading the hangout after each time one of our insiders got something completely wrong?

If one of the pros blows a story, it is a serious shot to his credibility and it could cost a job and future employment, which means that whatever is written better be airtight.

You make it sound like Tony is to baseball what Drudge is to politics. WTF? It's not like he's coming out here with wild speculation about MLB conspiracies and cheating baseball players. Give me a break.

I don't pay for this site either (yet), but it's not because I don't believe they can't offer me something no one else can. It's because I can only take so much negativity day in and day out.

Until Tony shows that he spews out any wild speculation about any subject O's related, I will choose to trust that he is checking all of the facts first. That is all I have seen him do so far. I leave the wild speculation to some of the other posters here.

[Frobby]

The audience for this website is vastly different from the audience for the Sun. The average fan really isn't interested in a lot of things that members here care about intensely. So, I don't necessarily expect the Sun to go do a Watergate-style expose of everything wrong with the Orioles' organization. The Orioles are a sports team, not the White House. So, if Tony wants to supply his audience with a piece that the Sun doesn't find worthwhile to write about, I don't have a problem with the Sun about that.

At the same time, if Tony is going to write about it, then I'm not at all surprised that he wants to do everything in his power to (1) double-check the accuracy of what he writes, and (2) protect his sources. He doesn't want this article to be the Hangout's suicide note. But he does want to deliver what his readers want, i.e., information that goes beyond what the mainstream media provide and what the average fan cares about.

[JackO]

I just talked to Scott today about all of this and I told him these kind of attacks would start. I'm not going to go into why the sources have come out to me, but considering I get paid to write this stuff and the site is credentialed just like the Sun, calling us an amateur news site tells a lot more about your motives here than anything else.

Tony... this is not an attack on you or the hangout. But the news that is reported here is indeed by and large by amateurs. Amateur is not a bad word. It just means that it is done by someone who is not getting paid.

Like I said... I trust your reports on players and the on the field product. But you don't have much of a history with writing these barn burners, so there is a credibility issue. JUST TO MAKE CLEAR. I am not saying you are not credible and whatever you write won't be credible. I am saying that there is very little history on which to judge just yet.

I am going to hang on for the ride and read whatever you write with interest. And we'll see if the story is new, advances what we already know and if it holds up. If it all does, then you've earned credibility points and I anticipate the next story with much less skepticism.

As for the rest of the site. Again... the scouting reports and the player analysis provided by both the staff and folks like Stotle, who are doing this for free, at least on this site, are all great. It is solid amateur reporting and opining.

But, I would say that 90 percent of the news on the inner workings of the team we have gotten here from the non-staff amateurs -- i.e. the insiders -- has been wrong. I still come back everyday because it's entertaining as heck and once in a while someone gets it right.

I just think that perhaps you misread the word amateur. I have no motivation here to cut down the hangout. I am an avid reader and fan, and not competition. What I write about is about as far away from sports as can be... this is where I come to take a break from it.

[TGO]

I am pretty sure Tony pays his staff writers, so if that is your definition, they aren't amateurs.

[Three Run Homer]

I can assure you that if there is really a story to whatever Tony will report then The Sun is already on it, especially because there has been no secret here that Tony is working on something that involves dysfunction and unrest in the front office. And any decent professional journalist would be damned if he was scooped by an amateur news site, especially when that amateur news site has tipped its hand.

"Real" journalists sometimes miss stories that amateur journalists uncover...just like "real" baseball executives sometimes make bad decisions that armchair executives can correctly recognize as incorrect at the time they are made...just like people sometimes make correct medical self-diagnoses that their "real" doctors miss.

Professionals in any venue may be more likely than amateurs to make the correct decisions, but they are never infallible. To believe otherwise is to place blind faith in authority.

[JackO]

You make it sound like Tony is to baseball what Drudge is to politics. WTF? It's not like he's coming out here with wild speculation about MLB conspiracies and cheating baseball players. Give me a break.

I don't pay for this site either (yet), but it's not because I don't believe they can't offer me something no one else can. It's because I can only take so much negativity day in and day out.

Until Tony shows that he spews out any wild speculation about any subject O's related, I will choose to trust that he is checking all of the facts first. That is all I have seen him do so far. I leave the wild speculation to some of the other posters here.

The insiders are worse than the Drudge report of baseball... but we keep reading it because it is damn entertaining.

[Tony-OH]

The insiders are worse than the Drudge report of baseball... but we keep reading it because it is damn entertaining.

Are you really that confused over content from me and my staff and posts from people on a message board? The "insiders" were never anything other than an anonymous people on a message board.

It wasn't like we were running that information on the front page. In fact, I got concerned with people confusing the two before and stopped all of that stuff.

I seriously don't understand you issue here. You've called us a bunch of amateurs and have compared us to fans posting on the board.

Yeah, you don't seem like you have an axe to grind here at all.

I'm confident that enough people know my background to know I know the difference between someone with an axe to grind and someone with real information. I may not be formally trained as a journalist, but my formal training certainly gives me a leg up and determining credibility.

Considering I've probably had conversations with 75% of the important people in the organization over the last 13 years, I'd say I might have some contacts and just might be worthy of people reading what I have to say.

You are free to have any opinion you like of me and my work, and I sure I have my detractors out there, but this is not a me vs the local press issue and there are a ton of factors as to why I have the info.

I'll say this right now though, if anyone in the Sun or national media want this story they can have it. All they need to do is contact me. I honestly don't want to write this thing but I feel obligated to get the truth out to the Orioles fans that still care.

[waroriole]

I just talked to Scott today about all of this and I told him these kind of attacks would start. I'm not going to go into why the sources have come out to me, but considering I get paid to write this stuff and the site is credentialed just like the Sun, calling us an amateur news site tells a lot more about your motives here than anything else.

Wow, the tension builds. Tony's like Jim Garrison.

"Scott, I won't have any damn ultimatums put to me.":D

[JackO]

I am pretty sure Tony pays his staff writers, so if that is your definition, they aren't amateurs.

OK. I suppose at this point I have to explain the concept of "Citizen journalist."

There are staff members of the O's hangout. I am not sure which of them get paid.

My assumption is that the editors get paid something as do the support and tech staff. whatever that staff may be.

I do not know if they all get paid enough to make this their full time gigs.

My assumption is that the managing editor gets paid something and that John used to get paid but now does this more on a volunteer basis. And Tony gets paid as well. He is the publisher, selling the ads, this is his business. My assumption is that it is not a full-time gig for the managing editor.

Tony gets paid here for running a business, not for his reportage. Let's just make that clear. And he has built a nice product. This is not an attack on Tony or the hangout. I love the hangout.

Greg or Scott, well. I am sure they get paid for coordinating the content on the site and making sure things are as readable as possible. But they don't get paid to report.

But the actual reporters -- doc shorebird, avencil, Paul Folk, those guys. My assumption is that they do not get paid. They get to go to games for free, get a press pass, and get to have a lot of fun watching and writing about baseball. And most likely are using this as a stepping stone to a job that actually pays something down the road with another publication. That is not a knock against them at all. This is part of working your way up in journalism. And it is a symbiotic relationship between Tony, who gets free copy, and the writers who get a forum on which to write.

Still. They are amateurs, working their way up to become professionals, some of them show some mettle for this and hopefully for them they will make it.

Then you have this whole world now of news known as "citizen journalists." Those are the unpaid bloggers, the folks writing the stuff on the Huffington Post that you never read, or contributing to The Faster Times stories they wrote for free in hopes that the story will get enough clicks that they will make a few bucks, and in general the people posting "news" to blogs and chat sites that they didn't actually report out, but that they might have heard about third hand somewhere from faux sources.

I will call the staffers here pro-ams. The real amateurs, the citizen reporters, are those on the hangout who pass along "news." The take is FWIW crowd, who are pretty much wrong 9 times out of 10.

[Birds of B'more]

I'll say this right now though, if anyone in the Sun or national media want this story they can have it. All they need to do is contact me. I honestly don't want to write this thing but I feel obligated to get the truth out to the Orioles fans that still care.

This just sounds worse and worse every time you refer to it. I know I will definitely read it with great interest, but can't help but wonder if when I'm finished I'll wish I hadn't. Oh well, no sense in us all having our heads in the sand.

[carolinaoriole]

I trust the news that I get here more than anywhere else when it comes to the Orioles.

I trust Roch.

And a few of the college football fan sites that I go to

All I ever need from a reporter is to tell me the score of the game.

Let me know if a trade or a free agent signing happens and that is ALL.

I do not need there personal bias about what is right or wrong with any team.

I have no trust in any journalist on filtering out there bias, and if they say they bring no agenda then I trust them even less.

Especially the national Sports media the bigger the news outlet the less use I have for them.

I believe that unless the national baseball media is covering the Yankess they usually are doing a story where they have no clue what they are talking about.

If a reporter writes an article about anything the first thing that I do is question why they wrote it.

What is the agenda , where did they go to college ,where have they worked in the past, Are they related to someone that works in the sport that they are writing about. do they have or have they had issues with anyone involved in the organization they are writing about.

I question everything that the media does and that has taught me to disregard most of what they say.

[weams]

Wow, the tension builds. Tony's like Jim Garrison.

"Scott, I won't have any damn ultimatums put to me.":D

Tony is the man for the job.

[JackO]

Are you really that confused over content from me and my staff and posts from people on a message board? The "insiders" were never anything other than an anonymous people on a message board.

It wasn't like we were running that information on the front page. In fact, I got concerned with people confusing the two before and stopped all of that stuff.

I seriously don't understand you issue here. You've called us a bunch of amateurs and have compared us to fans posting on the board.

Yeah, you don't seem like you have an axe to grind here at all.

I'm confident that enough people know my background to know I know the difference between someone with an axe to grind and someone with real information. I may not be formally trained as a journalist, but my formal training certainly gives me a leg up and determining credibility.

Considering I've probably had conversations with 75% of the important people in the organization over the last 13 years, I'd say I might have some contacts and just might be worthy of people reading what I have to say.

You are free to have any opinion you like of me and my work, and I sure I have my detractors out there, but this is not a me vs the local press issue and there are a ton of factors as to why I have the info.

I'll say this right now though, if anyone in the Sun or national media want this story they can have it. All they need to do is contact me. I honestly don't want to write this thing but I feel obligated to get the truth out to the Orioles fans that still care.

Tony. I am actually not sure if you are just completely missing what I am saying or if you are trying to pick a fight here because it's good marketing to your core audience. "Calling us all here a bunch of amateurs." Come on man. That was not the connotation with which I used the word amateur, which I have explained.

I am pretty sure that I have said a number of times quite clearly that I love the hangout.

And I am also certain that I said that I am not discounting your story before I read it.

I am also positive that I said you guys have done a masterful job marketing this story. You're a good salesman.

And I am sure that you are quite credible with the people who know you.

And I never said that YOU have an ax to grind, merely that the people with whom you are speaking might have agendas to push. Of that, actually, I am certain. AND let me be clear agenda does not mean nefarious. An agenda could be for the better of the franchise.

I just said that as a journalist to the broader community that is not in your inner circle -- such as myself -- I look forward to reading what you write, and we will see if it holds up. I hope it does. More good journalists is a good thing.

To be clear. I do have an ax (not axe) to grind. It is with those who don't believe in the value and voracity of solid professional journalism, such as was expressed in the opening post.