Journalism and Relationships - Page 2

On January 17 2013 20:08 Yorbon wrote:
Completely agree. Personally i felt this consequence wasn't really the issue. I thought more about the ethical side of things, as Nazgul mentioned. Nazgul's view is more practical, and a useful complement to the current situation (no restrictions whatsoever). Once you (as a representative of a company or whatever) talk to a journalist, the amount of trust on either side determines how much information is presented, and how much is leaked. If both parties trust eachother greatly, then there will be secrets revealed to the journalist, who will be expected to keep them to himself, by the representative. Is there no trust at all, nothing will be revealed and thus, nothing leaked. One can guess how the other 2 will play out.
What happened here was that information was given to slasher; he was expected to not leak it, but he did. What consequences will this have? Above mentioned combinations of trust are in equilibrium. A leak as big as this one is a significant disturbance in this equilibrium. As said in the blog, would slasher be doing this again, people will reconsider their relation with him as a journalist, making him less relevant, because of a lack of trust.

This is somewhat of a metaphysical story, but i think this is kind of how it works.
and, this is almost exactly what nazgul said, but rearranged and in a bit more general terms :')

On January 17 2013 20:22 Martijn wrote:
Nazgul seems to be arguing a position where, regardless where the information comes from, Slasher should only report on the information which is convenient to us and when it's convenient to us or we simply won't maintain a relationship with him and shut him out. Does this not set off alarm bells with anyone here?

On January 17 2013 20:36 Yorbon wrote:
To be honest, i don't really know anything about this, i assumed a scenario. That said, what described was a general point. I'll elaborate:
if slasher wants to maintain a relation with tl, he needs 'trust' (my definition) from tl. If he leaks information about tl, which tl had rather kept a secret, then tl will trust him less. There is no 'should' in this issue. Effects of leaking are the following: short term success (slasher has a great article), possible long term grief (tl gives slasher no more information, no more interviews etc). The more slasher goes for short term success, the more likely the long term grief becomes.
The reason nazgul argues from his position, is because he assumed a trustful position between the 2 parties. Apperently, that was a misconception. Core of relationshipmanagement is knowing what to expect. When impredictabilty rises, the added value of the relation lessens.

Note there is no good or bad here. I'm just talking about the 'natural' thing to do in certain positions.

On January 17 2013 20:46 rasnj wrote:

What is wrong with that? Obviously if Slasher doesn't respect the team at all, then they will give whatever reporter priviligies they can to other reporters who may give it a second thought before fucking them over.

As I see it there are three basic ways a leak could go down.
1) Slasher is a dick and just releases the leaked information with no consideration for anyone and gives no one a heads up. Obviously the team organization will then prefer to use other reporters in the future. Whatever trust people have in Slasher would be damaged heavily for the sake of a single story (other teams obviously take note as well).
2) Slasher tells EG "I have gotten this information and verified it. I will publish an article in 8-12 hours detailing what I know. Just giving you a heads up so you can prepare". EG then moves their announcement up, prepares for questions, etc. They know Slasher did as much for them as any respectable journalist ever would. No respectable journalist would ever hold back a leak because the team says so. In the future EG would know Slasher as a reputable reporter, but one who wouldn't fuck them over a little story. This leads to a healthy relationship and is probably how it should have gone down, but obviously wasn't how it went down.
3) Slasher tells EG the same as in (2), but EG responds "No. You wait till after our planned release in 8 days. Are you trying to kill ESPORTS?" Then Slasher would have no choice but to publish, and no healthy journalistic relationship with EG was apparently possible anyway.

On January 17 2013 19:33 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:

Slasher on the one hand wants to use Liquid for information supply, as well as work with us officially on interviews and other content. Yet, on the other hand he will look for leaks outside of my organization that will impact me negatively upon releasing the information. I view this as poor relationship management. I don't think it works like that anywhere, neither here nor in other sports.

On January 17 2013 21:27 Yorbon wrote:
There is no control in the way you describe it. Reacting to your last alinea the point is exactly giving information and not controlling it. A business would think twice before giving a journalist secret information after he leaks 2 or 3 business secrets regardless of where it came from. I don't see how the journalist is controlled directly by teams. He is controlled indirectly by his own interest; he has to know secrets to stay relevant.

Now, applying this to your second alinea, slasher could never accept that offer from team liquid. Like i said, the added value is knowing what to expect from eachother. First, Slasher will not know what those 2 stories are, before 2 days before scheduled release. Second, what can he do with them, leak them? Maybe that, as well, will destroy the relation? Third, without accepting the offer, he knows there are 2 stories, so there may be other ways to get information on them. And last, there is no information on his relationship with empire. Dependent on this, he will or will not release his information.
Overall, the first 3 things all point to an unpredictable tl, and so the value of the relation is very little. The last thing gives us that a journalist is not dependent on 1 party.

Now, going back to a lot of journalists. tl's proposal would be ridiculous, because it can be given only once, and who knows how many journalists know the story. Also, if tl pulls that stuff more often, they'd get less media attention, resulting in diminished relevance. Also for tl it's beneficial to have a good relation with journalists.

To be honest, i don't think your concerns are invalid, but i do think you're only looking at 1 side of the coin. Both parties are benefiting from good relations.

On January 17 2013 21:11 FXOUnstable wrote:


There are two possible solutions to this, a) "X team" doesn't leak information or b) once slasher confirms leaked information he can trade his secrecy in trade for an exclusive interview to be embedded in the initial announcement linking to game spot or something equally as valuable to him.

Now, what happens if leaked information is found and "X team" refuses his request for an exclusive in the above manner, slasher will be forced to release the information early anyway.

This is the only solution I can really think of to make both parties happy, and it entirely depends on the teams choices or actions. If neither of these are done is it really still poor relationship management on slashers part? I would argue no, but the result is the same.