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When an ‘exclusive’ is not an exclusive
By Zach Arnold | July 27, 2009
I hate using that term when writing articles. I try to avoid it at all costs. (Now don’t throw a punchline back at me that I’ve never had an exclusive here… geek.) I find it to be a most self-serving term and it doesn’t really mean all that much to a reader.
However, if you’re going to use it, you better be accurate that what you are, in fact, reporting is something that no one else is reporting about.
Mike Rome of Bloody Elbow has some egg on his face. (Update: Bloody Elbow comment response here.)
On July 24th, he breathlessly reported a ‘Bloody Elbow exclusive’ with the following headline: Major ESPN Executive Attends UFC 100 as a Guest of Dana White
Bloody Elbow can confirm that John Skipper, Executive Vice President at ESPN in charge of content attended UFC 100 as a guest of Dana White. This was the first UFC event he has ever attended.
Unfortunately, this news was not an exclusive. Michael David Smith of AOL Fanhouse dropped the proverbial hammer on this ‘exclusive’:
I first learned that Skipper had attended UFC 100 on July 16, when I heard UFC President Dana White talking about it on Dan LeBatard’s radio show. I checked with someone at ESPN who confirmed that Skipper was there, and that ESPN is keeping its eyes on MMA, but added that Skipper attends sporting events all the time and that his attendance at any single sporting event isn’t necessarily a sign of anything.
So that’s why I didn’t write anything at the time, and that’s why I was surprised a week later when I started to hear from people in the MMA community who think a UFC-ESPN partnership is imminent. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but White did promise something big at his July 31 press conference, so we shall see.
It’s hard to keep track of every Dana White interview, but Dan Le Batard’s a pretty big voice in sports talk radio. Hard to say exclusive when Dana White said the ESPN item publicly a week before the ‘exclusive’ report.
Addendum: I get criticism a lot for what I write and so do others. Nobody should play favorites and no one is above being criticized if the questioning is on-target and fair. To suggest that MMA writers like myself can’t take criticism or haven’t taken criticism, well, you’re on your own there…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Not sure I understand the point of this post. I don’t feel like this is a big issue. At worst, Mike made a mistake. At any rate, I don’t feel it warrants a post of its own.
The only person with egg on his face that I can see is you, Zach. Unless you think that Michael Rome was supposed to know (psychically?) that Smith knew and didn’t report on this issue. I mean, nobody reported it before Rome, right? So when published, it was an exclusive, yes?
I agree that the conclusion that something must be up between the two companies if Skipper is at an event is a stretch, but even Smith isn’t saying that it’s a complete stretch.
Actually, I never read the article from MDS, just what was quoted in the post on FightOPinion. Now that I see MDS’s mailbag was written two days after Mike’s article, there really is no reason at all for this post.
Exactly. Zach doesn’t seem to know what the word “exclusive” means in this context.
EXCLUSIVE!!: FANS DO NOT GIVE A HOOT ABOUT THE BIG TAGLINE! But the editors and site folks sure seem to. With the modern information age who gives a care about this really. If one site reports something first, then every other website has the story within 5 minutes anyway. Thats why I use Fight Opinion; catch the headlines that link me to the story.
Get over yourselves ‘media’ and do your job.
Actually Zach, if anyone should have egg on their face, it’s me.
I added the exclusive against Rome’s request not to.
But I continue to enjoy your breathless coverage of Bloody Elbow’s every perceived misstep.
But Nate: it’s only not “exclusive” if somebody else reported it. Does Smith’s thinking about reporting it count?
Zach is COMPLETELY off base on this one.
My understanding was that Dana spoke on the radio show about having network execs with him at UFC 100 but not who or why. Hence Rome naming the exec and reporting that he was there as Dana’s guest, plus explaining the possible significance of it constituted important original reporting. We use the exclusive tag to alert our readers that BE is the source, more than anything else.
Considering Fight Opinion had a post linking to the “kimo is dead” articles and Bloody Elbow didn’t, it would seem a bit too soon to throw stones in the glass house.
There are a lot of big sites out there being quite liberal with their use of the word ‘exclusive’ … I’d say the bigger problem is sites not linking or sourcing other people’s breaking news. There’s a few that have solid policies in place NOT to link to any other MMA sites, even when using their info.
I’m exclusively dating two different women.
“There are a lot of big sites out there being quite liberal with their use of the word ‘exclusive’ … I’d say the bigger problem is sites not linking or sourcing other people’s breaking news. There’s a few that have solid policies in place NOT to link to any other MMA sites, even when using their info.”
Some will even slander your ass if you dare complain.
Stuff like this is a sign that MMA websites have jumped the shark just as pro wrestling websites jumped the shark in 2000.
We’ve got sites warring with each other, we’ve got reporters on the same sites bitching at each other, we’ve got sites bragging about their big exclusive news that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but them to pat themselves on the back. And last week we got our first internet prank that ballooned into something major with Kimo’s death.
While MMA sites taking themselves so seriously isn’t as humorous as pro wrestling “news” sites taking themselves super-seriously, it is pretty ridiculous to all of those viewing from outside the bubble. I had hoped this peaked with Luke Thomas’ temper tantrum post about UFC refusing to let him in as a member of the media because he does some local FM Radio show about MMA. But I can see nobody has learned anything yet.
So take it from a long time reader: nobody cares about your pissing contests with each other. And we also recommend that when you hype your “BIG EXCLUSIVE MAJOR BREAKING NEWS” to rope more readers in, let it be something A) Truthful B) Legit and fact checked. Because if all the pro wrestling websites that died off in 2000 showed you anything, it’s that when you bait and switch and outright lie to readers enough times, your traffic (and therefore ad revenue) will leave and never return.
+1 million to the above post by Mark.
+1 million and one