By John Bednarowski
Marietta Daily Journal
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – So what does happen when you fail?
How do you explain what happened to your staff when another publication swoops into your backyard and beats you on a story?
Jorge Rojas, of the Miami Herald, and Phil Kaplan of the Knoxville News Sentinel, explained how it happened to them, and what they did to get back on top of the story as one of the panels during the APSE Southeast Region meeting last month in Birmingham.
While clearly not his favorite subject, Rojas was candid about what happened when Yahoo.com broke the story about the NCAA’s investigation of the University of Miami.
“We’ve never been beaten so badly,” he said. “It was a failure of vision.”
Rojas said there were three main areas in which the paper failed.
1. A reporter, who was going to quote an athlete, said “Ok,” when that athlete asked him not to get him in trouble. After discussion, it was decided the quotes could no longer be used.
2. The paper did not invest in a trip to talk to Nevin Shapiro, the key figure in the investigation, while he was in jail in New Jersey. Yahoo.com did, and it was the key to their story.
3. The staff had a meeting and talked about how to handle a story about boosters and agents hosting athletes at a party, but did not follow through.
Despite the mishap, Rojas said it became a learning experience.
“You have to have perspective as to how and why it happened,” he said. “You know you are going to get criticism – from bosses, staff, other media and haters.”
Since then, there have been two reporters on UM football and have made many attempts to talk with Shapiro.
CBSSports.com beat the Sentinel on the story of then Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl and his lying to NCAA about meetings with highly rated recruit Aaron Craft. It happened while Kaplan and the staff were still trying to clean up from Lane Kiffin’s unceremonious departure from the university and the recruiting mess he left behind.
Kaplan and his staff used Freedom of Information requests to get back on top of the story, mainly by getting one thing no other organization had asked for – the university’s response to the NCAA.
Kaplan said the request was filled on a Friday, and after they realized the Sentinel was the only news organization to have the response, they took advantage by taking their time. The staff took the documents apart and they did a large weekend project in print and on the web instead of just posting the document on the website.
For both Rojas and Kaplan, they said they were able to turn a beat into something positive.
“I learned you have to keep everything in perspective,” Rojas said. “You know there is going to be competition. Just stay calm, be transparent and forthright.
“We have a really good staff that has done really good work. It’s a matter of doing the jobs we know how to do.”
