A journalist won a Pulitzer Prize for "seemingly" breaking a story. "Seemingly" is not what was demanded from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when they toppled Richard Nixon. "Seemingly" never has been a qualifier in an industry that must be perfect.
But Pablo Torre — who was wrong about Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson at North Carolina and wrong about NFL Hall of Famer Antonio Gates playing in a rigged poker game — won the audio reporting award Monday for "seemingly" busting Steve Ballmer. The New Oxford American dictionary explains that "seeming" appears to be "real or true, but not necessarily being so." Yet the Pulitzer judges honored Torre for investigating "how the Los Angeles Clippers seemingly evaded the NBA's salary cap rules by funneling money to a star player through an environmental startup."
If the story turns out to be true, good for Torre, who went to Harvard and greased Tony Kornheiser’s scalp on "Pardon the Interruption." But if it is not true — and we won't know until league commissioner Adam Silver says it is or isn't — I must ask what in the name of hellishness the Pulitzer board was thinking. Sports media usually are ignored for the major awards. Now, we have no idea if he was correct on his podcast ("Pablo Torre Finds Out") or soon will be blown up by the NBA's billionaires. Victims are erased by grand investigations. Ballmer and his star player, Kawhi Leonard, are up and alive.
In Analyzing the Media Storm Surrounding the L.A. Clippers, I raised some of the same concerns that Mariotti mentioned:
I deliberately left the words "accusation" and "scandal" out of this article's title because I don't know if the L.A. Clippers violated the NBA's salary cap rules. You don't know, either, even though you may think that you do. The only things that we know are (1) there is a media storm surrounding the L.A. Clippers, and (2) the NBA is investigating the Clippers for a possible violation of the league's salary cap rules.
Unless you avoid all media outlets and social media outlets--which may not be the worst way to live--you are aware that podcaster Pablo Torre accused the L.A. Clippers and their majority owner Steve Ballmer of circumventing the NBA's salary cap rules by arranging for Kawhi Leonard to be paid $28 million by a sustainability startup called Aspiration for an allegedly "no show" job that involved no work (feel free to insert a joke about Leonard also not working at his main job due to load management).
Torre was armed mainly with anonymous sources speaking about a stack of documents allegedly pertaining to the business dealings, bankruptcy proceedings, and federal prosecution for fraud of Aspiration. Joe Sanberg, Aspiration's founder, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud for his role in a $248 million scam...
It is fascinating to listen to non-lawyers talk about legal issues. An anonymous source speaking on a podcast is not presenting evidence from a legal standpoint; a person testifying under oath or a person submitting a sworn affidavit is presenting evidence.
So, not only do we not know for sure the facts concerning the relationships that may or may not exist among the L.A. Clippers, Kawhi Leonard, and Aspiration, we also do not know the legal significance of such relationships.
It is wise to reserve judgment about the credibility and motives of the anonymous sources interviewed on a podcast sponsored by "The Athletic," which is owned by The New York Times. The New York Times has been a shady organization in a variety of ways for a long time, including treating writers shabbily, and refusing to apologize after falsely accusing three Duke student athletes of rape. Torre assures everyone that he has total editorial independence, notwithstanding the funding he receives from The New York Times. It must be just a fortunate coincidence that Torre happened to break such a big story in the first edition of his podcast after his partnership with "The Athletic"/The New York Times was formalized; there is no doubt that Torre and "The Athletic"/The New York Times are not motivated at all by such crass concerns as money or clicks, and that they live by a credo consisting of truth, justice, and defending the sanctity of the NBA's salary cap rules...
All we have for sure right now is a media storm generating clicks, page views, ratings, and social media activity. That is not to say that there is no substance here; the NBA will investigate the assertions, and make a determination regarding whether the L.A. Clippers circumvented salary cap rules. The NBA's announcement of the results of that investigation is news; Torre's podcast and the ensuing media storm is what Daniel J. Boorstin called a "pseudo-event" in his seminal book The Image. Boorstin described what constitutes a pseudo-event (p. 11):
1) It is not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted, or incited it. Typically, it is not a train wreck or an earthquake, but an interview.
2) It is planted primarily (but not always exclusively) for the immediate purpose of being reported or reproduced...The question "Is it real?" is less important than, "Is it newsworthy?"
3) Its relation to the underlying reality of the situation is ambiguous...
4) Usually it is intended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy...
Torre could have presented to the NBA privately the information that he found. If the NBA determined that the Clippers had violated rules, that announcement would have been a news event--but a debut podcast sponsored by a legacy media outlet and expected to deliver a big attention-grabbing splash is not a news event: it is Torre talking about something less from the standpoint of "Is it real?" and more from the standpoint of "Is it newsworthy?" or how much attention it will bring to Torre and his new partnership with "The Athletic"/The New York Times.
It is important to be able to distinguish events from "pseudo-events" and to distinguish journalism from sensationalism. Media members--and consumers of media content/social media content--would do well to read The Image and learn from Boorstin's wise words:
Boorstin notes that the traditional expectation of news reporters was that they would report on significant events that happened; if nothing significant happened, "He could not be expected to report what did not exist" (p. 8). Boorstin observes that in the twentieth century, the expectation of what a news reporter should do shifted dramatically: "If he cannot find a story, then he must make one--by the questions he asks of public figures, by the surprising human interest he unfolds from some commonplace event, or by 'the news behind the news'" (p. 8). Boorstin adds, "Demanding more than the world can give us, we require that something be fabricated to make up for the world's deficiency" (p. 9). Boorstin calls these fabrications "pseudo-events," a neologism based on the Greek word "pseudo," which means false.
The incessant attempt to create news and excitement where no news and no excitement exists can be observed in the ridiculous questions asked by many reporters at basketball games, at the World Chess Championship, and at almost any press conference pertaining to politics or public affairs.
If the NBA's investigation of the L.A. Clippers finds that the Clippers did not violate any NBA rules then Torre and the Pulitzer Prize Board will look foolish--but even if the Clippers violated NBA rules, Mariotti is correct that it is premature to honor Torre for "seemingly" breaking a story.
The collapse of journalism as a serious profession is sad. During my writing career, I have encountered a lot of shady people doing shady things in this profession, and I have called them out by name when they steal my ideas without proper attribution (Ming Wong) or added insult to injury by plagiarizing my words while also making factually incorrect statements (Vincent Mallozzi); these are just some examples of the general decline in the quality of published writing that has been taking place for decades, and it is unfortunate that this decline appears to be accelerating.
It appears that he is being awarded for his “reporting” on the alleged controversy surrounding the Clippers. Of course, people shouldn’t be given any type of award for reporting on something that hasn’t been proven and then there are the possible legal consequences for Pablo Torre.
ReplyDeleteFor his sake, I would like to think that he has a somewhat solid grasp of how defamation laws work and that he is aware that if his award-winning “reporting” is false or unable to be proven, he could be sued out of existence. I’m inclined to believe that his reporting is accurate only because I refuse to believe that someone could be so thoughtless in throwing out very specific and incriminating allegations without irrefutable proof, but I’m also open to the possibility that Torre is this thoughtless.
If the Clippers are ultimately absolved of any wrongdoing from the results of the investigation, will Torre’s Pulitzer Prize be retracted as it was for Janet Cooke in 1981?
Michael:
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult for a public figure such as Steve Ballmer to win a defamation lawsuit. U.S. laws are slanted to favor freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I doubt that Torre will face any legal repercussions regardless of the outcome of the NBA's investigation. I would hope that the Pulitzer would be revoked if the Clippers are cleared, but I am far from certain that would happen.
If the Clippers are cleared, Torre and the Pulitzer Board would likely take a position along the lines of "Torre believed what his sources told him" and "The NBA's investigation was not a real investigation because the league preferred to sweep this under the rug as opposed to punishing perhaps the wealthiest owner in the sport."
I find it fascinating that media outlets are so reluctant to do more investigating and reporting about former NBA player Damon Jones, who pled guilty to providing inside information to the Mafia about injured players and to serving as a "face card" in Mafia-run rigged poker games. The Jones case is connected to the case against Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and is alleged to be part of a broader conspiracy involving other current and former players plus multiple Mafia "families." One would think that the documented criminal connections between the NBA and the Mafia would be worth investigating, but for some reason this has received much less coverage than one might expect. It would be interesting to know the extent to which the Mafia has infiltrated the NBA and been involved in point shaving or even game fixing. The NBA and its media partners make billions of dollars from legalized wagering, so perhaps it is not profitable for the media to do anything that might kill the golden goose.
Regarding my statement that the NYT is a "shady" organization, in addition to the examples I cited it should also be noted that the NYT downplayed the Holocaust long after the information about it was readily available, and it has doubled down on that antisemitism by minimizing the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 while also giving publicity to outlandish (and demonstrably false) accusations against Israel: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10163539701563717&set=a.62634263716
ReplyDeleteThe NYT is an agenda-driven outfit promoting certain preferred narratives, and that is a major reason to distrust Torre's "reporting" unless/until there is hard evidence proving his assertions to be correct. To be clear, I am not taking a position on whether he is right; I am saying that the smart position is to reserve judgment until all of the evidence has been evaluated.