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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sam Amick to teach Sports Writing Workshop July 12
by Colleen Belcher, published on June 29, 2011 at 1:48 AM
Storyline: Workshops
Thanks to those of you who came to our Bias in Journalism workshop earlier this month. If you missed it, you can read the recap here.
For July, we are excited to announce a new workshop presenter – Sam Amick.
With the Sacramento River Cats season well under way, the Sacramento Capitals tennis team starting in July and the buzz building for the next Sacramento Kings basketball season – there will be plenty of sports stories to be covered on The Sacramento Press and on blogs, etc.
Amick will teach a workshop on sports writing at the Sacramento Press office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. July 12.
Amick is currently an NBA columnist for Sports Illustrated at SI.com.
He received his degree in journalism from Sacramento State in 2000. He began working in The Sacramento Bee's sports department on a part-time basis during his final two years of school, then returned after a short internship at The Record in Stockton during the summer of 2000.
He became a full-time member of the writing staff in 2002 and covered everything from high school sports, college sports, pro baseball and pro football before turning his attention to the NBA in 2004.
He was the beat writer for the Kings from 2005-2010 before taking a national job covering the league at AOL FanHouse and eventually landing at SI.com.
Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.
Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.
We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here – one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.
To RSVP for this workshop, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.
Thanks, and we hope to see you there!
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It is often very funny--funny strange and funny haha. In crowd demonstrations or meetings the vast majority will be holding signs or speaking for one side of the controversial issue. Then the reporter proudly and glibly says "BUT not everyone feels that way." She/he, in order to avoid "bias" has dug, scoured and searched until, finally she/he can find ONE dissenter to speak for the other side.
The result is that the reporter creates bias for the reader or viewer in attempting to avoid bias, leaving the impression that that the one single voice was equal to the 100 others who were there. I've seen and read this over and over.
That said, most demonstrations are by their nature composed of people from one side of an issue. There may be counterprotests nearby, but look at the Westboro Baptist Church protesting at military funerals. If I only interview the people there, I have presented a very biased story.
I remember covering the beginnings of the tea party in 2008. At the time, it was people protesting taxes. Who actually likes taxes? But I still had to find the other side, which was absent from all the demonstrations. And given three years, it's pretty clear that that helped the story be unbiased, rather than creating a bias.
The big difference is when the reporter gives the impression that the tiny minority is equal to the majority, instead of so stating the reality. By failing to state the contrast, the reporter creates a bias in favor of the minority voice. In days before video media, I well remember reporters writing something like this after newspaper or magazine photos showed "A crowd of thousands gathered in front of the courthouse . . . . " In the story itself there would then be reference to "a few (or 10 or two hundred) standing along side . . . ."