Not too long ago, we discussed issues facing sports journalists in class. Those issues included handling freebies, boosterism, moonlighting, and working with sources. Most of which had an easy answer. Ethically, obviosuly it's not acceptable to take freebies or be baised in this position. But, we failed to come up with a solution to one hypothetical situation.
The situation was asking what would you do if a source denied you access after you were critical of the team/coach/player/and so forth? In sports, official sources are not only the primary gate to coverage, but they may be the only. This makes a very challenging situation for the journalist, because any criticism could negatively affect the relationship with the source.
As it turns out, this specific incident has occured, and it resulted in a very clever solution. The New York Islanders revoked the credentials of a reporter for his stories which were critical of the team during their losing streak in the regular season. This essentially made the reporter ineffective at doing his job, just because he was doing his job fairly and accurately.
For this year's NHL postseason media awards, the hockey beat reporters declined to participate. Collectively, these reporters were effective in getting their message across. Although journalists certainly rely on sources, so do sources rely on journalists by providing coverage and access that is benefial to whatever the source does, be it a coach or team owner. This is a potential solution to such a hypothetical situation. Eventually, the source will always rely on journalists to provide access and coverage to the fans. Either way, sports journalists should continue reporting accurately and fairly, and hope that the source can understand the nature of sports journalists' job.
http://blogs.northjersey.com/blogs/rangerrants/not_voting_this_year/
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