When the Take’s Too Hot

It’s been a long time since I was in journalism school, but back in my J-School days we had an ethics class and used to have long discussions about what was and wasn’t ethical to publish.

Generally, these talks revolved around ideas like going undercover: if you gave a false identity to get information, does that information outweigh the act of lying? Or, in other words, if you were dishonest to one person, why should the reader believe you’re being honest to them? It was all very academic and looking back at it, makes me wonder if I attended The College-on-the-Hill.

It all kind of came back to me the other day when I read about a scorching hot take which ran over on a Blog I’m Not Going to Name. Basically, it was a vile opinion that wished actual, literal death on Josh Hamilton for being an addict. It was stupid beyond words, a vicious, ugly piece of hot garbage.

This post isn’t about that, though. It’s about what happened in the layer above the post: the editor who ran it, quickly deleted it but gave the writer a chance to write a self-congratulatory, tone-deaf ‘apology.’ How does that happen?

The goal of opinion writing is supposed to be to present an informed take on a subject and present it in a way that makes a logical argument. If I were to write something about how the Toronto Raptors should fire Dwane Casey, I’d have to make a case for why he’s failed at his job, why Toronto should move on him and maybe even argue a case for who should be coach. I’d have to write about something concrete: wins, losses, defensive meltdowns and short rotations.

I wouldn’t launch a personal attack.

For one, that’s rude and distasteful. Second, it doesn’t actually mean anything: if I start calling people names and slandering them, it’s only making me look petty and uninformed and unintelligent. And again: it’s stupid. My job as a ‘sportswriter’ – anyone who has that job, really – is to argue about sports and be able to back it up. Ad hominem attacks are lazy, uninformed and a waste of everyone’s time.

If I know this, why doesn’t the editor at Blog I’m Not Going To Name? Why doesn’t his boss at A Much Larger Blog Network know this? Were they even in the loop? When the blogger went back and wrote a goodbye post, was it something they approved or even knew about? Who the hell knows.

But it’s not just this one post – although it kind of pushed me to write this – but it’s something I see all the damn time these days: Hot Take after Hot Take, often just out there to shock readers into a few clicks. As a certain four-letter network says, Embrace Debate.

Which brings me back to my days in ethics class: we used to talk and argue these things and hear multiple points of view. Which is what I think every good blog needs: communication. You need to talk with editors to help shape your piece. You need to think about your words and how they’ll impact people.

As we used to say: it’s impact, not intent. I could mean the nicest thing in the world, but that’s moot if they start pissing people off. And once you start coming off like an asshole, it’s pretty hard to gain trust back from readers. Maybe that’s why I avoid a lot of sports media these days.