We're Gathering Information

Being a journalist by trade, I live in a news (speficifally sports news) saturated environment, meaning I deal with a lot of athletes, coaches and public relations professionals.

Among the irritants in my profession are PR people, a group of paranoid double talkers whose duties in "public relations" seem to mainly involve keeping things private and not relating to anybody but their superiors.

Anyway, PR people have a few standard go-to plays when they're in trouble. Among these are "it was a mutual agreement," "we are moving on," and "no, he is not talking today." But my favorite is "we're gathering information," a line usually tossed around when, for instance, an associate has been arrested for masterbating to porn on his in-car DVD and slamming his SUV into a parked car, and being caught on video (this actually happened in the NBA last year). "No comment" is sooo 1995. The new "no comment" is "we're gathering information," which really means, "we're sitting in our offices going about our normal work, hoping you won't call back."

Another of my favorites, which always comes courtesy of an athlete or coach, is "I know what the truth is, and that's all that matters." Actually, no, that's not all that matters. Just ask Barry Bonds. Whether he's taken steroids or not, everybody who has ever watched Major League Baseball thinks he took steriods. Whether he did or didn't at this point is irrelevant. Bonds is a steroid user because we think he's a steroid user. This is how it works with public figures. It is in their best interest most of the time to talk about things.

We in the media get a lot of criticism for running with stories without talking to the priciples involved. Things like trade rumors, Curt Schilling's bloody sock, whether players are transferring, etc. all tend to follow similar reporterial arcs -- rumor, reports with unnamed sources, denial/non-denial by the priciples, resolution. These criticisms are valid. I am against using unnamed sources unless the story is so big and the information is so sensitive that it's the only way. However, the reason reporters run with this stuff is that the athletes/coaches/managers won't ever say anything more insightful than "we're gathering information" or "when something happens, you'll know." Everything is a big secret.

I would say more, but I'm currently gathering information.