MMA Journalism Roundtable: News vs. Gossip

Welcome to the fourth of a ten-part series on pertinent issues relating to MMA journalism. I ask the questions and some of my favorite MMA journalists give the answers. On board, we’ve got Jim Murphy of the Savage Science, Zak Woods of SB Nation and Watch Kalib Run and MMA Opinion’s very own Joshua Stein provide the answers. Today we’ll be discussing the fine line (or would that be slippery slope?) between MMA news and MMA gossip. As always, please leave your own thoughts in the comments section!

When Meisha Tate reported that Kim Couture was getting divorced in a myspace post, it was all over the blogosphere and message boards in hours. Many people did not cover it, however, because they wouldrather focus on the sport than on people’s personal problems. However the mainstream media is normally all over any scandalous personal information about athletes. What, if anything, do you consider off limits in MMA media?

Read Jim, Zak and Josh’s answers after the jump!

Jim Murphy:

Part of the answer here goes way beyond fight sports to the presumption of privacy that anyone can expect in the social media Internet era.  As far as Meisha Tate’s post, I didn’t find it offensive or inappropriate.  She posted it in a context that she likely thought was a way to communicate to her friends and fans what was up.  When a fighter says that a fight is “off” the next question is obviously “why”.

In this circumstance specifically, that also applied to the fight media.  The way we handled it at SAVSCI was reflective of how we try to deal with situations like this—if it’s a ‘personal issue’ that has an impact on what happens in the ring or cage we report on it.  Beyond that, we don’t dwell on it.  It’s one thing to say ‘Meisha Tate’s fight is off, she indicated on her Myspace page that the Couture’s are having some personal issues impacting Kim’s focus on the fight’.  That’s news.  Now, if we did 15 follow up articles trying to piece together the source and nature of marital discord in the Couture household, that’s pure exploitation.  Maybe you could make a case that there’s a legitimate ‘right to know’ the gory details, but in our role as fight media I sure don’t see it.  And as long as I’m in charge of the editorial input at SAVSCI we’re not going to cover it like that.

Like everything else, though,  there’s not a hard and fast answer.  Beyond our policy of not addressing personal issues that don’t impact the actual fights, it becomes a judgment call.  The recent death of boxer Arturo Gatti is an example of this—trying to report on the cause of his death is newsworthy, and unfortunately in this case it necessitates dealing with some less than flattering facts about a fighter that should be remembered for his toughness and heart.  You can’t responsibly say that ‘Arturo Gatti is dead at 37’ and leave it at that.  You need to provide some context—and in Gatti’s case that gets personal.  An analogy I like to use is this—if there’s a multicar accident with fatalities that’s blocking traffic in both directions, to report on this is newsworthy and appropriate.  To roll video on the crash scene hoping to see a decapitated head or some severed limbs is exploitation.  I know this is somewhat metaphorical, but hopefully it helps illustrate the concept.

Zak Woods:

We are in the business of revealing or discussing information (otherwise known as storytelling). We shouldn’t go into a situation with one hand tied behind our back. However in the search for information and the development of sources sometimes it is necessary to not write about everything we hear. Again this is a balancing beam and it helps to have other writers or editors to discuss such issues to try and come to the correct conclusion.

Josh Stein:

It doesn’t really matter what I consider off limits, because I have different standards than the mainstream. I don’t care that Kim and Randy got divorced. I don’t think divorce is that exciting (as a guy who’s watched his father and step-mother get divorced, it’s not something that’s really fun to discuss and gossip about for me), but it’s not as though I have authority to shut other people up just because the stuff they’re talking about bores me.

There’s enough scandal within the sport.

Companies fold, fighters don’t make weight, there are huge upsets. That’s enough for me as far as drama goes. I don’t need the personal life stuff, so I don’t consume that part of MMA media. Unfortunately, my powers as a producer without a Rupert Murdoch-esque monopoly on a portion of the coverage means I can’t shut down topics of conversation, so I just ignore it and hope people will find it as dull as I do.

Readers: what are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments section.