Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Am I Bothering You? Am I Bothering You? Am I Bothering You? Am I Bothering You?

A Philadelphia sports reporter went to Dulles International Airport to find former Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who was arriving to meet with the Redskins about a possible job. See the story that aired here.

The reporter repeatedly called the "interview" an exclusive, even though Jackson seems to be politely trying to tell the reporter to go away.

Instead, however, the reporter continues to ask questions.

Is this good journalism? 

First, did the journalist do a good job of trying to extract information from the player? Just because the player seems annoyed, should the journalist have stopped asking questions?

Second, did the journalist present the information in a proper manner? 

14 comments:

Jade London-Johnson said...

First, I think it was appropriate to put quotations over the word interview because this was not something you would exactly call an interview. DeSean did not exactly answer his questions or give out any exclusive information. I think the journalist was doing a good job of trying to get information from DeSean; just because he was not replying does not mean he should walk away from doing his job. As journalist, we still need to try to get information from people but in a decent manner. This journalist was going about asking questions in a decent manner because he did not bombard DeSean or anything, he just tried to ask question. However, I don't think it was right the how the journalist flipped the subject to ask DeSean about gang affiliations. Wasn't the interview supposed to be about getting released form the Eagles? When a journalist is covering a certain topic I think it is right to stick with the topic-- don't get desperate for information.

Danika Palmeri said...

I think that the journalist tried his best to get information for the football player, even though he sounded very annoying doing so. I think that if the interviewee sounds annoyed and it is clear that he does not want to do the interview, the journalist should take a step back, as he is not likely going to get valuable information from the interviewee.

Haley Kuhns said...

I feel as though the reporter definitely was excited about this "interview" because he was the first one to meet Jackson when he got off of the plane, however, I think the way that he went about questioning him was all wrong. He probably followed him all the way out of the airport while asking the same few questions over and over again with different wording. I would hardly call this an interview- let alone an exclusive interview, because watching this reporter talk to Jackson is similar to watching someone talking to a wall. Jackson was showing absolutely no emotion while the reporter looked like a child who just entered a candy store. Nothing about this reporter's story screams "exclusive interview"- it's just a little sad and embarrassing to watch on behalf of the reporter.

Jon Bodack said...

This interview was far from exclusive, except for the fact that the reporter was questioning Jackson before everyone else tried to. The constant questioning and hounding is not necessarily a bad thing because his job is to try and get the information that everyone wants to know. I think he could've stopped well before he did though because Jackson from the get go clearly seemed to be uninterested in talking about anything. The fact that the man left his headphones in the whole time says it all, that he doesn't care about this interview or these questions. To call this exclusive and for the reporter to be that excited makes no sense. Within an exclusive story the consumer should be getting real information not listening to a reporter hound and hound and hound one man with questions to get no answers.

Unknown said...

Jeff was just doing his job. Athletes and public figures know that they are subject to constant questioning and attention when they are in the news, as DeSean is. I say Jeff was just doing his job. It doesn't mean Jeff was doing his job well. Although he sure as hell got the definitive answer out of DeSean, he asked a lot of repetitive questions that were obvious answers through the beginning of the interview. For some reason 6abc hyped up this interview to be EXCLUSIVE OMG WATCH THIS EAGLES FANS when I, someone who watches the news daily, learned nothing I already knew from watching the news of the previous days. Everybody learns something new by watching the news, and Im sure someone learned who DeSean Jackson was when they aired that interview. But "exclusive" should be used to describe a segment where everyone will learn something. An "exclusive" interview would have been if DeSean said yea I'm a crip and Howie Roseman is on my list. It will be hard to take 6abc's "exclusive" clips seriously from now on.

Mariam Dembele said...

When I hear the word exclusive, I except for the person to sit down and reveal unknown details about an event. An interview where both parties are complacent and willing to open up. I think the label 6abc used for the interview was very misleading and it's evident that they were just using that title to increase the viewership. In addition, I don't think the way the reporter approached the DeSean was smart. He repeated many of the same questions although it was evident that DeSean wasn't answering. He could have changed the questions he was asking. Also, when it was clear that DeSean was no longer going to share anymore information he should have ended the "interview."

Meredith Hebert said...

The interview seems like the reporter didn't even ask DeSean Jackson if he could interview him beforehand. It seems more like the reporter is a fan who found him in the airport and is bombarding him with the same questions. The questions were redundant and the answers were inconclusive. Skversky's summary of the interview before its shown tells more than the actual interview does. If I were the station, I wouldn't have even aired this pathetic excuse of an 'interview.' It would be more appropriate to summarize the interview, to prevent them from looking like jackasses.

Shealyn Kilroy said...

It is apparent that the journalist tried his best to extract information out of Jackson. However, Jackson wasn't giving any new, juicy information. The journalist was clearly annoying Jackson (obviously he was excited to capture Jackson off guard and had his expectations soaring through the roof). The lack of information and apparent annoying from the continuation of trying to extract info from Jackson is when the journalist should have stopped. As soon as he realized that a) I'm not getting anything from this dude and b) I'm clearly not making the situation better by asking him more questions, the journalist should have called it quits. Also, the journalist did not get any new information that was already existing, therefore, this "exclusive" interview definitely could have been labeled differently. If more and new information was presented and conjured about Jackson's recent release from the Eagles and gang relations in this interview, then it would have been grounds to label it as an "exclusive" interview.

David Kroll said...

I found this pretty funny. The determination to get this "interview" after basically being ignored make me chuckle a bit.

At least he tried. Right?

Anonymous said...

I don't think that his persistent questions was a good or bad thing to do. He tried and tried again, so at least he didn't give up! However, I do think that there is an issue with how he presented the information. I think that he could have done a brief recap of the "exclusive interview" and explained that after constant questioning, DeSean Jackson still wouldn't respond.

- Lizz Vo

Unknown said...

You can understand both sides of the issue. That's what makes journalism such a moral grey area. He's only trying to get the story and Desean has had enough of people sticking microphones in his face asking him dumb questions. It comes off as tacky but admirable, and I think even though he certainly was only doing his job, he should've recognized a lot earlier that he wasn't going to get a response from him rather than pad his airtime with footage of them just standing there and trying to turn it into a story. That's where he went wrong.

Jake Hyman said...

The reporter had the right approach when conducting the interview with Jackson. Though he is a high profile athlete, the journalist shouldn't have put him in a position to answer questions he didn't want to answer. It is assumed now that the allegations against DeSean were false but he didn't want to comment on the situation at the time. Both acted in a responsible matter.

Michele Gaston - J1111- Temple said...

First, to say that the story was an "exclusive" was a gross understatement. Honestly, to maintain his integrity and credibility, I think the reporter should have done a follow up story apologizing to the readers/viewers for the train-wreck of an interview. I think he had to save face and keep trying to get answers from Mr. Jackson, but I think his approach was all wrong. A lot of people get annoyed during an interview, but I think if the reporter didn't appear to be such a hound, he may have received a different reaction.

Maryvic P said...

This was not very good at all because it makes the Journalist look 1) Annoying and 2) like he just wants to gossip. There is a fine line between begging for information and effectively seeking it. I do not think Journalists are supposed to push people because at the end of the day everyone has rights. On the other hand, in a way it makes the Eagles receiver look like the jerk for not wanting to give him the information he is asking. It is not ethical to try to make someone look bad.