A day after The Third Baseman accused her of home invasion and claimed Miami P.D. told her to get lost, Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts spoke with WFAN’s Evan Roberts and Kim Jones (mp3) about her investigation of Alex Rodriguez. “It’s an absolute lie, I don’t know where he’s coming up with this stuff,” protested Roberts, who comes off less like a crazed character assassin and more like a mature, reasonable person who’s been villified by a very desperate individual.
Just listened to that interview. While she certainly doesn’t come off like a crazed stalker, there are times she comes off just as disingenuous as AROD does when he claims that he did not know what he took.
At the 21 marker on the unsealing the other 103 names, this notion that the feds are not after users, but only distributors, and Feds will tell players: “you can help us help you in a sense”. It seems like she is bending her brainwaves to believe that good might come out of this, so it justifies her own illegal behavior in leaking sealed information.
Illegal behavior? What law did Roberts break? The information she used in her SI report wasn’t stolen and no one — least of all Rodriguez — has claimed it was fabricated.
For the most part, I think it’s true the feds are targeting distributors rather than users. What prominent ballplayer has served time in the pokey for ‘roid use? Sure, there’s pending action against Tejada, Clemens and Bonds, but in each case those guys are accused of lying, either to investigators or Congress. In the wake of the SI report, I’ve yet to read of any attempts to prosecute Rodriguez. Lying to Katie Couric might be considered worse than lying to Congress by some, but the former isn’t the sort of thing you can press charges over.
She may not be a stalker, but between a) vilifying the Duke lacrosse team despite a total lack of evidence, let alone a single conviction; b) her defense of Michael Vick as a “victim” of his own snitch-happy entourage; and c) her conclusion that the true villain of Spygate was Eric Mangini, for ratting out his boss…I think we can conclude she’s definitely a complete hack.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=li-arodlegal020909&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
The leak itself was likely a crime. We know for sure that the BALCO leak was a crime, and that the Game of Shadows authors were facing jail time before the original source came forward.
There is a reason why a judge seals testimony. Journalists who leak that info to the public are aiding and abetting those crimes and undermining the judicial process.
Now there are many cases where the social good of the leak trumps the illegality of it (like Deep Throat with watergate), but steroids in baseball doesn’t fit that bill.
Roberts, just like Fainwaru-wada and Lance williams used illegally obtained information to sell their books and increase their status. It is a very disturbing trend which leaves no accountability for journalists.
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well, the punishment against players is not so much legal, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the BALCO trial was really about getting Barry bonds, not Victor Conte. Back in 1991 when McGwire was busted in Operation Equine (20 times the size of BALCO) it was about the drug bust and not the players. And Big mac was swept under the rug, and outside of one Daily news article, no journalist mentions Operation Equine.
MODI: “There is a reason why a judge seals testimony. Journalists who leak that info to the public are aiding and abetting those crimes and undermining the judicial process.”
Actually, in the story you cite, the reason to seal is specifically that to release it aids the prosecution, not the criminal. Sealing prevents people like A-Rod from being “tarnished.” As for no accountability for journalists, you perhaps missed the NY TIMES journalist who did jail time in the Scooter Libby case? There is plenty of accountability, enough to discourage journalists who you feel are actually doing the public some good from doing it.
Just to be clear: Obtaining the information illegally is the crime, not reporting it. If she stole it, she may face jail time. If not, and she got the information from a source, the source is the one who obtained it illegally and she could face jail time if she doesn’t reveal the name.
All of which goes a long way in saying – the reporter did absolutely nothing wrong in reporting it.
Yeah, Ben is OTM. The leak doesn’t come from the reporter, unless we’re talking about Ms. Roberts’ urine samples, the leak comes from the people who have a vested interest in putting out the info. Reporters chase stories and, hopefully, build credibility and reputation in the process. I wasn’t familiar with Roberts’ previous writing with regards to the Duke case and Michael Vick but I like to take things on a case-by-case basis. I think she’s been working some pretty traditional angles while doing an investigative report on a very controversial subject. She’s not a fringe lunatic like Rush Limbaugh sitting in a chair and yelling at people. Any reporter who picks up the phone and has a neat little package delivered right to them from an inside source considers themselves pretty lucky. The real problem here is that the Union was correct all those years ago saying that anonymous testing wouldn’t really stay anonymous and, oh, they also neglected to get an agreement from the Feds that said that the test results wouldn’t be used in a criminal trial against anyone. Oopsie. Hate the leaker, not the leak.
Is she right or is she wrong?
A-Rod is not refuting the story, just her with a classic “nuts and sluts” Clinton-era defense by a serial liar. I think that says a lot. If I’m supposed to gauge his past credibility — he publicly lied to/cheated on the mother of his kids with a married woman (ok, Madonna, but still), lied to the nation on CBS, used his interview with Chief Justice Gammons to smear SI’s Roberts, warn other reporters of the same, and blame everyone around him for his use of steroids. Once all is said and done, Roberts’ story stands up.
Ben