I think that’s the only Stone Temple Pilots song I like, since most of the rest of them are ripoffs of assorted grunge bands and even, once, The Rolling Stones. It’s not a band I’d want to be the basis of any questions about my journalistic integrity. Yet, a couple weeks ago, Steve Kim wrote this: “Didya guys know I actually went to a Stone Temple Pilots concert on Friday night at the Palms? Thanks to Showtime?s Chris Legentil for hooking me up…”
Call me a stickler if you will, but I’m thinking if a PR person for one of the main subjects I covered “hooked me up” with some concert tickets, I’d be looking to hide the fact, not call attention to it. I’d like to hope that said PR person was reimbursed. If an aide to a congressman I cover in my day job gave me tickets to something — or $45 in cash, or whatever the price of the tickets were — I’d definitely pay him back. So I asked Steve what was up. He answered:
“Well, its no bigger of an issue than a guy like you writing for a publication that is owned by a promoter. Let’s just put it that way. This individual had an extra ticket, asked if I wanted to go, I accepted, its that simple. Make any issue out of it that you want. You should really address your own conflict of interest. But I wonder will you also be addressing when other writers have dinner with promoters and openly talk about it or post it on Twitter, are you asking them the same question?”
(I’ve addressed my conflict of interest numerous times. I also asked ESPN’s Dan Rafael — presumably the writer Steve was referring to, since he recently did what Kim described — to respond to Kim’s remark, and as of this afternoon, he had not.)
I’ll attach the entire e-mail chain in the comments section below, so you can see all the points the two of us made to one another, but my point to him is summarized thusly: I don’t see as big an issue with him performing commentating roles for TKO Boxing, so long as he manages that conflict of interest well. It’s the idea of just flat taking a gift from a subject he covers that I don’t get. Under the Society of Professional Journalists’ standards, writing for Ring or commentating for TKO Boxing might or might not be ethical (and at any rate, virtually everyone who writes professionally about boxing today has some kind of conflict); accepting free stuff for no reason wouldn’t. And once upon a time, Kim himself mocked writers who accepted free wristwatches from Floyd Mayweather.
I bring it up because I often find journalistic standards in boxing are lacking, and this struck me as a particularly egregious example. But it happens on a routine, mundane level, with guys pigging out on promoters’ food or what have you (as Thomas Hauser wrote about for SecondsOut and in the book “The Boxing Scene”). If ever you notice someone’s coverage leaning pro or con for one entity or the other, and you have questions about how it got that way, well, this kind of thing is but one potential answer.
On to some other Quick Jabs:
It was pretty quick and unsavory how quickly Bob Arum turned to scorched-earth strategies on Nonito Donaire, the bantamweight he promoted and whom Golden Boy claims belongs to him. The bad things he said about Donaire — that he wasn’t a draw, that the Filipino people dislike him because of his wife (whom Arum said criticized how Jinkee Pacquiao dressed, a remark I’ve not been able to verify), etc. — suggest to me that Arum doesn’t want anything to do with Donaire. Despite the legal challenge we can all expect, the desired outcome of that is for Arum to get a cut of whatever revenue Golden Boy makes of Donaire, because if Arum wanted to retain Donaire’s marketability he wouldn’t be so critical. I suppose it’s maybe Arum just being hurt and lashing out at a fighter he had high hopes for, but my take is that he’s wanting to be rid of Donaire but not some of the money he provides….
Check out this remarkable piece of boxing writing by novelist Sergio De La Pava, via Deadspin. It says a lot of what I tell people who ask me about why I like boxing, about some of the fights that make quite clear why boxing is such a great sport. It is heroic that people even box for a living. The kind of heroism that people like Arturo Gatti and Diego Corrales showed in those moments defies comprehension. And it happens a lot more often than it ever should. This afternoon I watched a replay of Pacquiao-Erik Morales I. In the 12th round, Morales was ahead and his trainer instructed him “not to do anything stupid,” but he turned southpaw and got blasted, JUST BECAUSE. This sport amazes me, and I mean that in a way that Louis C.K. would approve of…
John Chavez is usually dead-on in his assessment of HBO’s television ratings for its boxing program, but I’ve yet to see HBO or any other news outlet claim that the 1.4 million viewers it says it got for Saul Alvarez-Matthew Hatton were “live,” as Chavez savages them for saying. I bring it up only because I saw Lois’ point repeated in many, many places. Maybe it’s fair to criticize HBO for using total viewership numbers at all, but if they didn’t say it was “live,” then they shouldn’t be criticized as though they did. And if I see any evidence they did, then I’ll gladly point out how right Lois was here…
It’s too bad “Lights Out” is getting canceled due to low viewership, but then, I’m part of the problem. I watched the review copy they sent and we reviewed it on this site, but I’m bad at making sure I watch things at the times they come on. Hopefully I’ll catch up to the episodes I missed and do an overall series review later. Oh, and speaking of boxing programming, HBO might be working on a boxing series based on Mike Tyoson’s life, so for those of you interested in boxing-related drama, there might be a replacement in store…
So trainer Gabriel Sarmiento missed his guy Sergio Martinez’ last fight because he was in a spot of legal trouble. If he ends up in any real hot water over it — and details are scant — at least we’ll know that his brother Pablo will continue the family tradition of wearing sunglasses in the ring as trainer for Martinez.
