Sometimes the world of sports and politics intersect. Sometimes sports and journalism intersect. But rarely do journalism, sports and politics all cross the way they did this week.
The topic was Sarah Palin, who is a subject of a new biography by Joe McGinniss that had excerpts leaked by, of all publications, The National Enquirer.
The Enquirer, which is is known for having questionable ethics, raised some eyebrows in the sports and political world when it reported that Palin in 1987 had a tryst with former University of Michigan basketball player Glen Rice, who would go on to moderate stardom in the NBA.
The hookup wouldn’t be of note unless you knew that Palin at the time was a sports anchor/reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. She was covering the Great Alaska Shootout, in which Michigan was competing.
If you haven’t noticed, someone involved here made a huge ethics violation and it was neither Rice nor The Enquirer. Gotcha!
No matter how sleezy you find The Enquirer, don’t shoot the messenger in this case. This story has been corroborated by Rice. And it is ironic on all sorts of levels. Let us look at the facts that make this an ethical injustice.
* Palin was working for an NBC affiliate at the time. We all know this was part of her past, but isn’t it odd that she rips the mainstream media so often that she used to be part of? Yes, an NBC station in Anchorage was and is the
mainstream media no matter how you cut it.
* As a sports anchor, Palin still was a journalist. She was reporting news in person and in front of a camera. And most newspaper, TV and radio stations make reporters and editors sign an “ethics policy” upon being hired. Odds are that was the case in 1987.
* Most ethics policies include provisions about fraternizing with public figures and whether they can be objectively reported. Rice qualified as a public figure, especially since he would go on to become the fourth overall pick in the NBA Draft about 18 months later and already was known as one of the best college basketball players in the country.
* No one is saying it is wrong for two consenting adults to sleep with each other. However, in this case, Palin obviously violated any ethics policy that might have been sponsored by KTUU. At the very least she broke the ethical standards she must have learned in college.
This wasn’t the first time female journalists slept with athletes and it won’t be the last. There’s one famous ballplayer who lied about such a weekend meeting with one beat writer in his autobiography. Every week – make that every day – a pro or college male athlete likely hits on a female beat writer. Ninety-nine percent of the women who are asked rebuke the advances for at least one reason: She could lose her job. Besides, so many women sports writers worked hard to enough to get equal locker room access that such action would hurt the strides that were made.
Palin must have cared about neither of those factors in sleeping with Rice. She thumbed her nose at her profession and the pioneers who gave her access to those interviews.
This is not to deride Palin’s political beliefs, her people skills or her malaprops. Her ethical lapse is the issue here. And would you elect a politician who was so careless about ethics? Would you want someone with a history of ethical lapses running the country, which is one of her aspirations?
The disdain she has for journalists has been well documented. Just ask Katie Couric. Back in 1987, apparently, she had a disdain for the entire journalism profession that had given her a platform right out of college.
The bottom line is that Rice probably had more scruples than Palin in this meeting. After all, he was a college student at the time. She was a paid journalist who threw caution – and ethics – to the wind.
Bill Bradley is the former sports editor of the Sacramento Bee and the Nashville Tennessean. He has been a sports reporter or sports manager in nine markets in the United States since 1979.
