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Why
I Let the Scoop Slide |
Posted:
02.02.04
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Nick Reder, a former editor on his high school newspaper, first
heard Pete Rose confess to betting on baseball in 2002 and didn't
report it. He explains why he chose not to publish the big scoop.
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In November of 2002, one of the writers on my high school newspaper
staff told the class that she might be able to get some celebrities
to come speak to us. I remember her asking me "Who would
you rather have: Bill Clinton or Pete Rose."
The answer was a no-brainer in my mind. Pete Rose, of course.
The man is a journalist's dream come true, a combination of unfathomable
fame and constant controversy. And he was never at a loss for
words.
From a baseball standpoint he is a legend, the all time hits
leader, a World Series champion, and a hustler, in every sense
of the word. Charlie Hustle had been lying to the world about
gambling on baseball for fourteen years, and was still in lying
mode when my class and I had the chance to interview him. And
Rose was not at a loss for words.
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The interview |
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After fifty five minutes in which Rose talked about everything
from his opinion on illegal substances in baseball to his professional
wrestling aspirations, the following question was posed to him:
"Why did you give up your spot in the baseball hall of fame?"
Oddly, Rose responded by saying, "You mean why did I bet
on baseball? I made a mistake, people make mistakes."
Rose seemingly realized what he said, got defensive and proceeded
to cover it up with a rhetorical question that in all honesty,
was laced with the most inane logic I have ever heard.
"If you could do one of the following, and I hope you never
have to do any of the above, but if you had to be any of the following
what would you be? An alcoholic, drug addict, spousal abuser or
gambler," Rose asked.
At the end of his tirade, he said "so I made a mistake in
the eyes of baseball. I admit it, I bet on football." This
sent him into a rant about how everyone else is allowed to bet
on football so why shouldn't he.
The interview went on for another hour, but from that moment,
I knew that we had something on record of serious significance.
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The debate
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.But after hours upon hours of deliberation between the editors
of the paper and our advisor, we chose not to publish the remark.
And for Pete's sake, we made the right decision.
For the one thing that Rose did discuss in our session with him,
in all irony, was journalistic integrity and ethics. And while
Rose may not take ethics that seriously, in our high school journalism
class, we did.
Rose's admission was nothing more than a Freudian slip. Surely
the gambling question was on his mind because, in all irony again,
he had met with Major League Baseball Commissioner earlier that
week to discuss his reinstatement. And, undoubtedly, he knew at
that point that he was going to come out with his admission in
a book.
But since it was not an explicit admission and purely a slip-up,
we could not make the statement public. He could have easily turned
around and said that all he did was make an error in speech.
More importantly, however, Rose came and spoke to us as a favor.
The man tries to make money at every opportunity possible, and
the fact that he came to our school for an interview session with
no strings attached meant a lot to us. So we were not about to
leak the excerpt to the media when it could easily have been taken
out of context and put Rose in a position where he would receive
unfair treatment; it was simply not ethical. Also, remember we
were not The New York Times or ESPN, we were the Calabasas Courier.
And while the Courier is a very highly regarded high school newspaper,
we were not in a position where we could easily release it.
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Why now? |
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So why come out with the story now? Well I was sitting in my
dorm room at USC when I saw a breaking story on the news that
Rose was going to admit to gambling in his new book. And at that
point, I knew that the story should be out there. His pseudo admission
in our class had foreshadowed his later "official admission".
It was also a clear signal of Rose's psyche at the time; a year
ago, he had it all planned out. And this was important for people
to know.
But the more fascinating story is the journalistic and ethical
bind that we found ourselves in last year. Who knows, maybe it
would have been a little different if President Clinton had stopped
by instead.
--
Nick Reder is now a freshman majoring in journalism at the University
of Southern California.
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This [teen] is an immigrant from Mexico, and he works long hours at a local farm milking dairy cows, five hours per milking, twice a day.
