The Backstory: What determines where a story runs in the newspaper?

Luis Cruz: Welcome to “San Diego News Fix: The Backstory,” where we tackle important questions about journalism ethics and give you a behind-the-scenes look at our industry and our newsroom.

In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at a couple of recent stories that had a lot of people talking. First, claims that Padres beat writer Kevin Acee had misquoted Padres pitcher Nick Martinez in one of his stories. The other story involves a longtime Del Mar Union School Board member who resigned after officials announced he had been arrested in Florida on suspicion of soliciting prostitution. Joining us to discuss these stories are Union-Tribune sports editor Ryan Finley, managing editor Lora Cicalo, and we begin with publisher and editor Jeff Light.

Jeff Light: Thank you, Luis. So, this week, we’ve got a couple of items for our journalism textbook, I guess. Let’s start with Kevin Acee and Nick Martinez, and, at the outset, I want to make clear: Kevin Acee did not misquote Nick Martinez, which really goes to the essence of the question today. Ryan, why don’t you just give us the background about the flap over the Nick Martinez quote.

Ryan Finley: Sure. It was supposed to be a great story about Nick Martinez pitching for the United States in the World Baseball Classic. Nick Martinez was added to Team USA’s roster when Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers was unable to get insurance coverage for the World Baseball Classic, believe it or not. For Nick Martinez, it was a very big deal. He was an Olympian, he won a gold medal with Team USA, counted his Olympic experiences as the best of his life, and was thrilled to join the U.S. World Baseball Classic team. And one of the reasons why is because he is descended from Cuban immigrants, and he had told Kevin Acee that one of the reasons why it mattered so much to him was that his family comes from what he said was a socialist country – Cuba – and that it mattered to him to represent the United States because of the opportunity that his family received, the opportunity that has allowed him to become a multimillionaire starting pitcher in the big leagues with the San Diego Padres.

Kevin Acee puts this in a note that we posted about 9 in the morning on Monday, and by Monday night, a tweet had circulated which was video of Nick Martinez talking about why he was excited to join the World Baseball Classic team, where he said, basically, a sentence and a half that sounded almost identical to what he told Kevin, with the exception of the words “socialist country.”

In that quote he says, “my family comes from Cuba. And I was able to get more of an opportunity . . .” The implication from this Twitter sleuth was that Kevin had inserted the words “socialist country” instead of the word “Cuba,” and, as things on Twitter do, this thing took on a little bit of a life of its own, to the point where the following morning, Kevin did something that’s somewhat unprecedented from a beat writer: He posted the audio of Nick Martinez telling him that.

I think it’s tough, journalistically. Everything we quote is accurate, or should be accurate; that’s our job, right? Had Kevin done anything resembling that, Kevin would have been in big-time trouble. But you know, Kevin felt the need to post that because this thing on Twitter had taken on a life of its own, and, of course, within seconds of Kevin posting that, the vast majority of the people who were critical of it said, “Oh, separate interview. Understood.” There are still some corners of the Twitter space who think that the audio was doctored somehow, but that’s sort of where we’re at.

I thought that it was so unfortunate that it took up so much time and energy from Kevin when he’s supposed to be in Peoria covering the Padres and delivering great coverage to our readers. But I also think that it was important that he got that out there.

One thing that’s important to note – since you probably haven’t spent as much time in clubhouses as I have – especially in spring training, athletes answer the same questions a couple of different times from people. You could be talking to somebody about pitching in the World Baseball Classic and a TV camera can come up behind you and catch the back end or the second half of his statement and then, oftentimes, the TV reporter or radio reporter will go, “I’m sorry, I just walked in. Can you tell me again, about your experience?” Or there will be a media gaggle where somebody will address something that they’ve told a reporter one minute earlier. That just happens. That comes with the territory, especially in spring training, where there’s more media access than there is at any other time in the baseball season.

Jeff Light: Yes, I thought it was an interesting turn of events. And maybe, not being a sports editor, I have a little different perspective in that, to me, it’s perfectly understandable that people would see the video of Nick Martinez and then read Kevin’s story – that said almost the same thing – and think, “Oh, look, they misquoted him.” And, by the way, do newspaper reporters get quotes wrong? Of course they do. They’re human. That happens all the time. So, I didn’t have the same feeling of “how dare people question us.” I felt like, “Oh, yeah, I could totally see how that would be confusing to people. We should let them know what happened.”

Ryan Finley: Well, to me, I think that there is a leap there that maybe I, as a reader, would not make, and it wouldn’t be assuming intent on any of this. I think that is where Twitter can be a great thing and Twitter can also be a dangerous place.

It wasn’t: “So why is Kevin’s quote different from what we see on video?” That was not the question. The thought was: “Kevin made it up or Kevin inserted it in there because of an agenda.” And, Jeff, you and Lora and I, all received emails the next day from somebody saying that represented a political agenda. I’m still not sure what political agenda it represents. But, for people to take this leap that this is yet another sign of whatever, that, to me, grows tiresome.

Kevin is, as we all know, a skilled, talented reporter, who obviously would not have done anything like insert the words “socialist country” for the word “Cuba” in the quote of a grandson of Cuban immigrants.

Jeff Light: Yes, well actually, I thought when I read it, Nick Martinez’s commentary was political. In reading the two different things that Martinez said, there seemed to be total coherence to what he said. He wasn’t saying something different in the videotaped interview than he said in the tape-recorded interview. He used different words, but his meaning was exactly the same.

I thought all of that was interesting. I also thought the factors were not just Twitter and people with a great need to have others hear their opinions, which, of course, I guess there are always many of them, but also the sort of orchestrated or tightly controlled nature of pro sports coverage, which is part of this. People are accustomed to seeing the manager or the coach or the star brought out for their availability and the media clustering around so that everybody always has the same story. I do think that any departure from the same story has become a little bit out of the norm, right?

Ryan Finley: I know. I can’t believe Kevin Acee did what good reporters do, which is find people one-on-one and try to get more than what is shared in the group. There are two factors here that I think are important to note for the average reader, people who don’t necessarily know how spring training works.

At spring training, access is great. There are reasons why we – the Union-Tribune – are there from the day it starts until the day it ends, often with more than one person there. It’s because media access is incredible. You can walk into the clubhouse in the morning, go talk to anybody who wants to talk to you and ask them all sorts of questions. It’s an informal time. It’s a time where you really get to know your sources – who are these athletes. And, as a result, you could go talk to somebody about any topic and then a TV camera could come around asking about the same thing.

Another thing is, in the post-COVID world as it pertains to media availability, the year 2023 – this baseball season right now – is back to “normal,” which it wasn’t in 2020, 2021 and 2022, which means there is going to be regular, unmasked media access in the clubhouse. There’s going to be more access to get one-on-ones with these athletes in the clubhouse. Things became especially controlled during the pandemic, in part because of safety protocols, and, I think, in part because of the advent of Zoom. Everything that an athlete or a coach says is not only for the group, but it’s also being recorded. This is a little bit different. It’s good.

I’m of the belief that a one-on-one interview and personal connection with your subject is the best way to get the best information. Oftentimes, especially with 10 people surrounding you and a TV camera on, guys resort to platitudes and cliches. One of the things that I find Kevin is really good at – especially when he has somebody one-on-one, like he did with Manny Machado the other day – is he has a great ability to get information out of these athletes, who he covers every day.

Jeff Light: Yes, terrific story by Kevin – one of many – and thank you for your perspective as well. That was really good.

OK, Lora, let’s turn to the second half of today’s textbook, and this is about determining where to play a story. In this case, we had a Del Mar school board member arrested in a post-Super Bowl sweep of prostitution and/or human trafficking, and we were left to decide, OK what do we do with that story? Why don’t you just give us the basic facts. What did we know and what were the questions in your mind?

Lora Cicalo: Well, we knew about the sweep, and I should point out that this occurred in Florida, so we came to know it because the law enforcement authorities in Florida had a press conference where they talked about this operation that had occurred over several days. I think they ended up arresting more than 200 people in this big sweep, and in the course of that press conference, I believe it was the sheriff of Polk County who took time to highlight the Del Mar school board member’s arrest and to talk about the fact that there was a public official as part of this group that they had rounded up. So, we knew that he was arrested.

Later in the day, he resigned his position with the Del Mar school board and so, by the evening, we knew that as well. But among the things that we were discussing that night were the issues of the prominence of the individual and the seriousness of the charge. And, as you will recall, we did some mental calculations of “if it were a different person in a different public position, how would we think about it? If it was a different charge, how would we think about it?”

I thought it was a really good discussion – again, one of those that most people will never see or hear, but an important discussion to have to talk through how we think about what we put on the front page. Again, one of the considerations was this was an arrest on suspicion of soliciting prostitution; this is not the adjudication, this is not the sentencing. It was an arrest.

Jeff Light: Yes, it was a fascinating conversation, and I think the key things that we talked about were the prominence of the person and the severity of the crime. So, the prominence of the person – a Del Mar school board member – and as we went through the hypotheticals, I guess that’s less prominent than the mayor of San Diego. If the mayor were arrested on a misdemeanor, that would probably be a front-page story. And by virtue of the size of the city, less prominent than a San Diego city councilperson. And as a school board member, somehow less prominent than a city council member in our conversation, if I recall, although I’m not sure I can really justify that hierarchy.

Lora Cicalo: Right. Although I will say, being a school board member, that also brought in other considerations. One of the things that the sheriff pointed out in this press conference when he was holding him up as an example, was talking about, “Here is somebody who is supposed to be protecting our children and he’s arrested in this in this sweep.”

We also talked about the fact that this sweep included victims of human trafficking, and it was unclear – and I think it’s still a little unclear – who was soliciting whom. Not all of the victims that they talked with as part of the sweep were identified as human-trafficking victims, and there was no clear indication that the people who were arrested for solicitation had any knowledge or context about the victims being trafficked. So, that was a little bit of the discussion as well.

Jeff Light: Yes, I think if we did know more about the circumstances of his arrest, certainly there could have been details that elevated that to the front page. So, in the end, the decision was to put that on the local news cover, and I think it probably is one that we will return to now as a benchmark, as we try to figure out other people and how their indiscretions should be played.

To me, I thought that was a pretty interesting little lesson in journalism ethics – trying to decide the right level of infamy for this kind of crime. We’ll see how it plays out. I’m not sure I agree that the fact that it was just an arrest played a role because I think the arrest of different sorts of figures for different sorts of crimes, really, that was the question, right? How high up the ladder would we place that?

Lora Cicalo: Yes, although I think one of the things that we also have to consider – and I think we’re more cognizant of this now than we used to be – is if we prominently play an arrest, are we going to prominently play every other step in that process? If the adjudication is that this person is found innocent, are we going to play that in the same way? And I think as we go back and look through our history at how we played some of these stories about crimes, particularly misdemeanors, that’s been one of the things that we’ve had to look at – how have we then played the final step in that process?

Jeff Light: Yes, actually, point well taken, and in searching for more information on this case, I did run across some reporting in Florida about the eventual outcomes of these types of sweeps and the number of guilty verdicts as charged were pretty small in a couple of the cases. So, we definitely will need to keep our eyes on this one.

Very interesting cases, both of them.