Few things bug a reporter more than an unasked question. The question that isn’t asked–because the reporter didn’t think of it in time, or he lost his nerve, or he was drowned out by oafish colleagues–isn’t answered, and a story that hangs on the answer can’t be written.
Another day went by, and Baker held a morning press briefing at the Cubs spring training camp in Phoenix. Beat reporter Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald had a line of questions ready for him.
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“Happy?” Baker replied. “I’m happy to be breathing, man. If you had cancer [Baker has been treated for prostate cancer] you’d be happy. That’s Bruce’s column. That’s his opinion. I can’t comment on it. I like Bruce. I haven’t talked to Bruce but one time since I left. . . . I can’t comment on what somebody else said.”
Miles asked Baker if–contrary to Jenkins’s prediction–he expected to stay in Chicago beyond his current contract: “You still like seven, eight years?”
The Sun-Times chose another way. The story under Mike Kiley’s byline began, “Cubs manager Dusty Baker on Thursday downplayed a column . . . that implied racism has figured into how he has been accepted in Chicago.” Kiley’s story quoted at length from the Jenkins column, then went on, “After being informed of Jenkins’ column, Baker was asked if he was happy in Chicago. ‘Am I happy?’ Baker said. ‘I’m happy to be breathing.’”
Sun-Times sports editor Stu Courtney concedes that the headline fairly summarized the misleading story beneath it, but he absolves Kiley of responsibility for what was misleading. According to Courtney, Kiley’s original copy distinguished what was asked and answered from what was never said at all–as Miles’s story did in the Daily Herald. But in tightening and brightening that copy, the Sun-Times sports desk made it wrong.
Hot Type isn’t a collection of career notes, but there are a few journalists whose watershed moments all seem to get into my column. Phil Rosenthal is one of them. In 1996, a couple weeks after he joined the Sun-Times as assistant sports editor, he suddenly showed up as the new author of the paper’s rude and popular “Between the Lines” sports column. The wise-guy creator, Steve Rosenbloom, had jumped to the Tribune.
