THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF NOT BEING HIRED AS A SPORTSWRITER…

Well, we think we had a hand in the dismissing of one of Northern California’s worst sportswriters. And we did.

The Sacramento Bee recently fired Jim Van Vliet. If you have ever read this blog, you know we rail at local sportswriters. Van Vliet was the Bee’s A’s beat writer and he was horrible. It was obvious on many occasions that Van Vliet did not witness the games in question and still had direct quotes attributed to players, coaches and managers. We pointed it out several times on the blog. We sent a lot of email to the Bee in disgust. We have also seen the trend growing in the rest of their sports department.

It’s easy enough to do. There are a few dozen bloggers out there that do the same thing that Van Vliet got fired for - but better. They watch the game on TV, listen to it on the radio or wait a few hours and download it off MLB.com and watch the game. In the postgame interviews there’s at least twenty minutes of sound bites. You wade through it, grab a few and then write about it.

With the Associate Press and Reuters ability to post, often horrible, accounts of games online in less than 30 minutes of the games end - any desk jockey could cover half of MLB for a newspaper and get the title ‘beat writer”. The sad fact is, not many would notice. What these writers lack in ability they manufacture with a number of throw away quotes.

It’s a sad claim of the modern sportswriter. Their craft has a want ad that reads: "lacks the ability to write, report or even appear to have a brain in their skull". Rattle off any name of good sportswriters and you’ll have a legion of torch wielding villagers who have already run said sportswriter out of town. Pedro Gomez, Skip Bayless...

Which is what gave us our birth.

So sick of reading accounts of games in local papers and from national news services that clearly missed a majority of the action, we wanted to explain the game to any number of readers who felt the same way.

What makes the issue of ‘phoning it in’ all the more ridiculous is that Van Vliet did want to go to the ballpark. That’s just dumb. Of course the game he got nailed for was a Giants’ game, so we kind of understand.

Here’s the Bee’s statement.

An apology to our readers

Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Wednesday, August 20, 2003
On Aug. 7, a story on the cover of the Sports section about the Giants game at Pacific Bell Park was filed by a Bee reporter who was not at the game. The reporter watched the game on television at a location away from the stadium.
He filed his story without telling editors at The Bee his true location, leaving the impression he covered the game from the ballpark.
In addition, it was discovered later that the story included quotes from other media outlets that were unattributed and old, made to reporters on a previous occasion before the day of the game.
The story violated basic journalistic values and ethics as practiced by The Bee.
The reporter involved, Jim Van Vliet, no longer works at the newspaper.
The Bee regrets the situation and apologizes to its readers.
Armando Acuña
Sports editor