Daily News Bad Boys (And Girls) Need To Be Spanked

By Mike McGann
Posted Sunday, April 22, 2007

Sorry kids, I’m going on the soapbox.

You might have missed it, but there was another reporter versus Met incident yesterday when a near fight broke out between an unnamed reporter and Paul Lo Duca. The Daily News wrote about the story in detail, but failed to mention the name of the reporter — which is exceptionally hypocritical.

The reporter was asking about a woman Lo Duca was seen with after his horse won a race at Aqueduct Raceway, Friday. Lo Duca, the subject of a Daily News witch hunt in 2006 reacted strongly to an invasion of his personal life. More interestingly, the story has the entire play-by-play of the incident, including the reporter’s questions — as written by Kristie Ackert and Jerry Bossert - so one could hypothesize that either Eckert or Bossert are the reporter in question — which makes this not just unseemly, but unethical. And to be clear — Ackert, primarily a basketball writer, and Bossert, a horse racing writer — if it wasn’t them, it was equally irresponsible to not name the writer involved.

Let’s set aside the fact that the Daily News has all but stalked Lo Duca since last spring, alleging gambling and personal issues with varying levels of accuracy — what the hell are two reporters doing in the Mets’ clubhouse asking personal questions of a player? This isn’t a knock on Mets’ beat writer Adam Rubin, a true professional - but the assignment editors and other writers at the DN who apparently picked up their journalism skills and ethics in a box of corn flakes.

The Mets can’t — and won’t — do a whole lot about it either. There’s a number of marketing and commercial relationships between the Mets and The Daily News, up to and including Daily News Live on SNY. So even if they were inclined to do so, they can’t toss those DN staffers who are not Baseball Writers Association of America members out of the locker room (BBWAA members require an act of God, in writing, in triplicate, to be tossed out of a clubhouse).

They can’t do anything about it.

You can.

I suppose you could boycott the Daily News – refuse to buy it or read it online. But let’s be honest, that would do no good whatsoever. As a former newspaper editor, I can tell you exactly how to hit the Daily News where it hurts: start calling their advertisers to complain. Call the big car dealerships that advertise with them. Call the supermarket chains who run all the coupons on Wednesdays. Express your outrage.

As it is right now, advertising is dropping for all newspapers and advertisers need only the slightest provocation to drop their print ads in favor of other media with better (read younger) demographics such as TV and, yes, the Internet. A handful of calls to a car dealer on Long Island complaining about his ads — and saying you won’t be buying a car from him — could be enough to cost the Daily News a sizable chunk of change. Multiply that by a few hundred and heads will role in the management suite of the News (trust me, I’ve seen it work before, first hand).

Sure, some people might suggest I’m just a pasty-skinned Al Sharpton (albeit with much better hair) — attempting to rouse the Mets’ rabble. But no, I’m not attempting a witch hunt here, as Sharpton did with Imus, but rather force a conversation about journalism ethics — and start to make media outlets pay financially when they throw those ethics out the door to sell a couple more copies of the paper. We can force the media to accept the best business plan is to play it straight — something that used to be the case.

Mets’ fans have seen what kind of guy Lo Duca is — he’s a gamer. Like a lot of us, including a number of baseball writers whose private lives and interaction with groupies bears some public discussion at a later date, Lo Duca isn’t perfect and has made mistakes. So what? How, exactly, is that newsworthy? Does it impact his ability to move a runner over with nobody out? Does it impact his ability to call a game?

Nope. But being slandered and libeled — and stalked — well, that could push almost anyone off their feed. Let's not forget the stalking of Steve Trachsel and his subsequent meltdown in the postseason.

As a Mets’ fan, you often try right now to impact the outcome of the game, cheering or booing players to motivate them. By becoming Lo Duca’s wingman, you have the opportunity to get the media off he catcher’s back — and in the long run, make the Mets a more inviting place for free agents to sign. By throwing a brushback pitch to an out-of-control media, you the fan, can help the team win.

It’s that simple. You have the collective power — doing a demographic survey of the greater New York area, it was once figured that there are something like eight million people who describe themselves as Mets’ fans. Eight million. That, my friends, is a lot of power.

Now you have the opportunity, collectively, to make use of it.