PressEthic

In response to the recent scandal involving the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who were leaked grand jury information on the use of steroids by professional athletes, sports writers are finally weighing on what seems like an industry-wide decision to ignore a controversial, yet obvious story.

A staff writer for Editor & Publisher reported:

"Senior Editor Joe Strupp interviewed more than a dozen beat writers and sports editors about what they should have covered as far back as 20 years ago when steroids are believed to have entered baseball at a measurable level. Overwhelmingly, the consensus was that signs of a problem, and potential proof of abuse, were there as far back as the mid-1980s."




Ken Rosenthal, of FoxSports.com, and Baltimore’s The Sun told E&P, "In hindsight, I screwed up."

But is only “potential proof of abuse,” enough to report on? If the information wasn’t available, then why are reporters apologizing?

"Buster Olney of ESPN the Magazine, and a former Yankees beat writer for The New York Times, says that writers should have at least put more speculation out there. This might have led to firm discoveries sooner. 'We could have written general stories about what people were saying,' he told Strupp."

The obvious questions that arises is what should a journalist do when they can’t get solid proof to back up their story? Are speculation and a general acceptance enough to report on? While I understand that the issue of steroid abuse could have been addressed earlier, doing so in vague ways doesn’t do much to support the quality of sports journalism.

Ultimately, what’s most unfortunate about this story is that it took the legal woes of Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, the two Chronicle reporters whose investigative reporting could lead to jail time, for this story to surface.