Jeff Gluck nails it...

Tom Bowles' response: https://medium.com/@bowles66/as-any...in-harvick-didnt-like-13eecbc4b7d0#.mbe8fthad

I'll post my rebuttal to each point below.

Re: the Harvick situation, here’s what went down. A fellow Frontstretchreporter, Mike Neff, got in touch with me before Dover last weekend regarding a tip he’d heard on Harvick’s future. The tip came from a crewman inside Stewart-Haas Racing, a source used before who said rumors around the shop that the driver was staying with Chevrolet were firing up again. Neff followed that up from a second tip inside the Hendrick organization. This source, who we’ve used in the past, gave a detailed breakdown of how it would work, what Chevrolet was planning and gave Neff the basics.
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I know Mike Neff very well and have worked with him multiple times, so it pains me to see him getting thrown under the bus by Tom Bowles. Tom could have just as easily said "another reporter". But, apparently, he can name names when it's convenient to him.

Was the rumor true? That question was answered quickly and decisively this week. But let’s be clear; here’s what the column did not do. It did not say, “Harvick has signed to go somewhere else.” It acknowledged previous denials, even adding a quote from Harvick in March in which he reemphasized how happy he was with his current situation. It brought up the contract rumor as an option.
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Tom Bowles knew exactly what he was writing when he wrote it. As a journalist, the way I read this is that he knew he was implying that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick and he knew that's how people would read it, but he was not confident enough in his "four sources" to come right out and say it. In other words, he was on shaky ground, but wanted to be the first to break the big news.

I’ve done plenty right and wrong in my career, but this particular situation feels like a misdemeanor being labeled a Class A Felony. A journalist’s main goal should always be to get things 100 percent right 100 percent of the time, but things happen sometimes — many writers can attest to this. But admitting fault there has made it seem like I don’t take journalism seriously or my chosen profession in sports.
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We've all been wrong before. But, we've all learned from it. Tom Bowles can't admit he was wrong in this case. He's decided, as the editor-in-chief of Frontstretch.com, to shift blame elsewhere. A managing editor is supposed to be a leader. Passing blame to others is not being a leader.

I would rather have my facts right than have a story first. I can't even count how many times I've had some big stories in my fingertips and had to sit on them because I didn't have my ducks in a row. In some instances, it's a matter of calling the main subject of a story and them not calling back. In other instances, I haven't had confidence in the sources that have given me a scoop. In rare instances, sources have completely backpedaled before or even after I published a story. It's okay to get beat to the punch.

On a few occasions, someone else had published a story that I elected not to publish because I wasn't confident enough to publish it, and their whole story has fallen apart.

It’s frustrating to me that other peers have taken this opportunity to attack. I will say I’m not quite sure how much experience I need to “report” according to their standards. I’ve been at this now for a decade; just because I haven’t been at the races for a few weeks means I suddenly can’t be a reporter? That confuses me. It also won’t be the first time athletes will be mad at the media, a song-and-dance that will go on long after all of us are dead and buried. I thought we all had thicker skin. It’s a shame others felt entitled to witch-hunt when one day they, too, may find themselves the center of misinformation and a story that didn’t turn out right. I don’t make it my nature to attack other peers on a personal level and some of what I saw, heard, and worked through yesterday was frustrating. In particular to have someone question whether I was even at the track saddened me.
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This is not the first time Tom Bowles has put the integrity of the media center as a whole in question. When he cheered as Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500, it was younger "citizen journalists" who got beat up over it. Bowles was fired from his job at Sports Illustrated after that -- but it was others who had to bear the brunt of his mistake.

They were moments that gave perspective, a reminder that there are far more important things in life than arguing over the wording on a NASCAR rumor, one presented as such that turned out not to be true.
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The wording of a rumor in an article was designed to imply that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick Motorsports. Which takes me back to my earlier points about this article.

In my opinion, which is a pretty experienced opinion, Bowles knew he was on shaky ground journalistically. He clearly didn't have enough confidence to report definitively that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick Motorsports so he, instead, took a "reporting on rumors" approach.



Now, allow me to re-write Tom Bowles' column for him with what he should have said.

Tom Bowles said:
Earlier this week, I wrote a story that turned out to be untrue. I, as the editor-in-chief of Frontstretch.com, have retracted the article and apologized to Kevin Harvick and the employees of Stewart-Haas Racing who have been distracted all week by this rumor. I could explain everything to you, the readers at home, but that would not change the outcome, which was that my article turned out to be untrue. As journalists, we strive to be correct 100 percent of the time and every now and again, we get it wrong, and that hurts us because getting it wrong amounts to failure.

I know I have made a mistake and I have failed everyone. I hope that, over time, I can regain your trust.
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I never considered anything that was said about Harvick going to HMS as rumor anyhow. I don't know Tom from Adam but from what I read he reported it as rumors and speculation. Not a big deal to me. It's just something that the media seems to be having fun with now. Grab your pitchforks and torches. Let the media have at it and for the rest of us, let's throw the green flag on some more racing.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Tom Bowles knew exactly what he was writing when he wrote it.
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How does anyone know exactly what he knew when he wrote the article? Media outlets report rumors, distort the story, apply a bit of innuendo and of course add in some reporter/media outlet bias and then it gets reported to us as a factual accurate story everyday.
 
Frontstretch ... click, click, click, click, click and repeat ad infinitum.

Andy ... racing website advertisers pay by the click. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I never considered anything that was said about Harvick going to HMS as rumor anyhow. I don't know Tom from Adam but from what I read he reported it as rumors and speculation. Not a big deal to me. It's just something that the media seems to be having fun with now. Grab your pitchforks and torches. Let the media have at it and for the rest of us, let's throw the green flag on some more racing.
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It never made a click errr ... lick of sense.
 
Myself and another person run a site dedicated to dirt racing in our area. I never run with a rumored story until I have confirmation that it is true. To do so otherwise, would be careless. That is what this guy did, especially since he wasn't at the track to get the word from the horse's mouth.
 
MRM said:
Myself and another person run a site dedicated to dirt racing in our area. I never run with a rumored story until I have confirmation that it is true. To do so otherwise, would be careless. That is what this guy did, especially since he wasn't at the track to get the word from the horse's mouth.
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How dare you act responsibly?
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I never considered anything that was said about Harvick going to HMS as rumor anyhow. I don't know Tom from Adam but from what I read he reported it as rumors and speculation. Not a big deal to me. It's just something that the media seems to be having fun with now. Grab your pitchforks and torches. Let the media have at it and for the rest of us, let's throw the green flag on some more racing.
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Harvick squashed the rumors the day they rose. Sent out a tweet saying "people make **** up". Some people failed to notice & it became a big hoopla
 
I give no credence to rumors and innuendo as I figure most of the time it is a small fish in a large pond looking for attention.

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This is one of the most Jeff Gluck articles ever. He's a really good guy, and extremely likeable, but he's pretty lazy on the trail. He's a poster boy for Twitter parrot journalism. Cut, paste, put out there. The last "scoop" he's ever gotten was at Baskin-Robbins.

And while I agree with his piece in principal, there's more to it than just sloppy journalism. Harvick to HMS/Chevy was definitely put out there by sources a reporter might trust. And for reasons much different than making that reporter look bad. What I'd tell Jeff is to spend less time hating the player, and more time hating the game.
 
Allenbaba said:
This is one of the most Jeff Gluck articles ever. He's a really good guy, and extremely likeable, but he's pretty lazy on the trail. He's a poster boy for Twitter parrot journalism. Cut, paste, put out there. The last "scoop" he's ever gotten was at Baskin-Robbins.

And while I agree with his piece in principal, there's more to it than just sloppy journalism. Harvick to HMS/Chevy was definitely put out there by sources a reporter might trust. And for reasons much different than making that reporter look bad. What I'd tell Jeff is to spend less time hating the player, and more time hating the game.
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Good insight about Gluck but it does seem we get a lot of st

Good insight about Gluck and reading between the lines he may use the policies and procedures of USA Today to excuse himself from working and digging to mine for information.

Unless it is Jay Glazer I normally view stories like Harvick to HMS in the same way as the villagers ended up viewing "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"
 
This is not a unique NASCAR situation. Even in regular news, the danger of being scooped by Twitter is causing reporters to fail to fact/source check like they used to.
 
Allenbaba said:
This is one of the most Jeff Gluck articles ever. He's a really good guy, and extremely likeable, but he's pretty lazy on the trail. He's a poster boy for Twitter parrot journalism. Cut, paste, put out there. The last "scoop" he's ever gotten was at Baskin-Robbins.

And while I agree with his piece in principal, there's more to it than just sloppy journalism. Harvick to HMS/Chevy was definitely put out there by sources a reporter might trust. And for reasons much different than making that reporter look bad. What I'd tell Jeff is to spend less time hating the player, and more time hating the game.
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Oh, I know there were some reliable sources out there.

I think getting it wrong when you have reliable sources is forgivable, but the way Tom Bowles has handled it since isn't.

Honestly, if he wouldn't have gone on SiriusXM to try to defend himself, it would've passed by now. People were more pissed off at Beyond The Flag than him, since they showed utter incompetence as usual in their desperate attempts for clicks. He decided to make himself the story and, now that he is, wants to play the victim card.

I'm not a big Jeff Gluck fan, to be honest. Seems that, no matter what the subject is, or what happened in the race, he has to write out an opinion piece. Just doesn't sit well with me.
 
One thing I've learned is if someone says "according to sources" that's a fancy way of saying the following story is more fiction than the Twilight movies.
 
Did this situation really warrant an OP ED???

They are acting like the source said Harvick was leaving NASCAR to run for Governor.
 
ladyspartan16 said:
Did this situation really warrant an OP ED???

They are acting like the source said Harvick was leaving NASCAR to run for Governor.
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NASCAR "story" about some big fish in the pond, a NASCAR focused publication and similarly focused writers and editors, one of whom did things in a way that most of the rest of them aren't happy about.

So, yes ... apparently it did.
 
I am starting to think most of the "journalist" that cover NASCAR are about as worthless as lipstick on an horses rear end
 
29-4 said:
This is not a unique NASCAR situation. Even in regular news, the danger of being scooped by Twitter is causing reporters to fail to fact/source check like they used to.
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Social media is dangerous.

Example: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...-sunil-tripathys-story-now-being-told-n373141

Honestly, nowadays, journalists spend more time having to debunk social media memes that go viral that they can't even do their jobs. Larger problem is, it's because Americans choose their own set of facts.
 
aunty dive said:
NASCAR "story" about some big fish in the pond, a NASCAR focused publication and similarly focused writers and editors, one of whom did things in a way that most of the rest of them aren't happy about.
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The more I think about it, the more I disagree. Bowles' initial reporting was fine, though I do think he showed in it that he wasn't confident in the story he was chasing to go all in. And other media members pounced on him when the opportunity came.

Gluck was right on principle. But, when I look back and read it, it reads like "We, as an industry got this one wrong, and instead of just taking a couple punches from social media, we have to scapegoat someone".
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
The more I think about it, the more I disagree. Bowles' initial reporting was fine, though I do think he showed in it that he wasn't confident in the story he was chasing to go all in. And other media members pounced on him when the opportunity came.

Gluck was right on principle. But, when I look back and read it, it reads like "We, as an industry got this one wrong, and instead of just taking a couple punches from social media, we have to scapegoat someone".
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What Andy said.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
The more I think about it, the more I disagree. Bowles' initial reporting was fine, though I do think he showed in it that he wasn't confident in the story he was chasing to go all in. And other media members pounced on him when the opportunity came.

Gluck was right on principle. But, when I look back and read it, it reads like "We, as an industry got this one wrong, and instead of just taking a couple punches from social media, we have to scapegoat someone".
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What happened to just being honest and saying , I was wrong, or the info I got was wrong, or just some from of taking responsibility ?
 
jws926 said:
What happened to just being honest and saying , I was wrong, or the info I got was wrong, or just some from of taking responsibility ?
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Bowles' biggest mistake in all this was trying to explain how he was right, instead of just saying "we got it wrong" and retracting it. Then, he threw someone else under the bus.

Gluck's trying to pile on. If you would've polled everyone in the media about the Harvick situation, I bet every one of them would've said Harvick was going to Hendrick. So, it's not fair to pile on one guy.

Especially since other media outlets reported it too and aren't getting beaten up over it.



Tom Bowles' problem is, this isn't the first time he's ****** up on an enormous magnitude.
 
I am glad I am not plugged in so I don't have to deal with my phone blowing up with innuendo, lies and unfounded speculation. Call me Joe Friday and if you don't know what that means ask your daddy or granddaddy.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Tom Bowles' response: https://medium.com/@bowles66/as-any...in-harvick-didnt-like-13eecbc4b7d0#.mbe8fthad

I'll post my rebuttal to each point below.



I know Mike Neff very well and have worked with him multiple times, so it pains me to see him getting thrown under the bus by Tom Bowles. Tom could have just as easily said "another reporter". But, apparently, he can name names when it's convenient to him.



Tom Bowles knew exactly what he was writing when he wrote it. As a journalist, the way I read this is that he knew he was implying that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick and he knew that's how people would read it, but he was not confident enough in his "four sources" to come right out and say it. In other words, he was on shaky ground, but wanted to be the first to break the big news.



We've all been wrong before. But, we've all learned from it. Tom Bowles can't admit he was wrong in this case. He's decided, as the editor-in-chief of Frontstretch.com, to shift blame elsewhere. A managing editor is supposed to be a leader. Passing blame to others is not being a leader.

I would rather have my facts right than have a story first. I can't even count how many times I've had some big stories in my fingertips and had to sit on them because I didn't have my ducks in a row. In some instances, it's a matter of calling the main subject of a story and them not calling back. In other instances, I haven't had confidence in the sources that have given me a scoop. In rare instances, sources have completely backpedaled before or even after I published a story. It's okay to get beat to the punch.

On a few occasions, someone else had published a story that I elected not to publish because I wasn't confident enough to publish it, and their whole story has fallen apart.



This is not the first time Tom Bowles has put the integrity of the media center as a whole in question. When he cheered as Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500, it was younger "citizen journalists" who got beat up over it. Bowles was fired from his job at Sports Illustrated after that -- but it was others who had to bear the brunt of his mistake.



The wording of a rumor in an article was designed to imply that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick Motorsports. Which takes me back to my earlier points about this article.

In my opinion, which is a pretty experienced opinion, Bowles knew he was on shaky ground journalistically. He clearly didn't have enough confidence to report definitively that Kevin Harvick was going to Hendrick Motorsports so he, instead, took a "reporting on rumors" approach.



Now, allow me to re-write Tom Bowles' column for him with what he should have said.
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NASCAR media has become so pious on this issue, it makes me laugh and puke at the same time. The dude tried to jump the story, and missed. How many reporters did the same damn thing with the Carl coming to JGR I? For whatever reason, many have decided to tweet how little their poop doesn't stink over this deal. He didn't call into question Harvick's personal life or attack his family. He erroneously reported based on rumor not fact. OMG! Many in the NASCAR media are so full of themselves that they can't even see most of us laughing at them. Pontificating about "ethical" journalism, etc. What a freakin' joke! Here's my take....If you are good at what you do, Bowles isn't going to hurt you. If you suck, you suck, and he had nothing to do with it. Get the hell over it.
 
Allenbaba said:
This is one of the most Jeff Gluck articles ever. He's a really good guy, and extremely likeable, but he's pretty lazy on the trail. He's a poster boy for Twitter parrot journalism. Cut, paste, put out there. The last "scoop" he's ever gotten was at Baskin-Robbins.

And while I agree with his piece in principal, there's more to it than just sloppy journalism. Harvick to HMS/Chevy was definitely put out there by sources a reporter might trust. And for reasons much different than making that reporter look bad. What I'd tell Jeff is to spend less time hating the player, and more time hating the game.
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THANK YOU!
 
Allenbaba said:
This is one of the most Jeff Gluck articles ever. He's a really good guy, and extremely likeable, but he's pretty lazy on the trail. He's a poster boy for Twitter parrot journalism. Cut, paste, put out there. The last "scoop" he's ever gotten was at Baskin-Robbins.

And while I agree with his piece in principal, there's more to it than just sloppy journalism. Harvick to HMS/Chevy was definitely put out there by sources a reporter might trust. And for reasons much different than making that reporter look bad. What I'd tell Jeff is to spend less time hating the player, and more time hating the game.
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Ouch, that hurts. Although I do like Baskin-Robbins, so you're probably right.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Oh, I know there were some reliable sources out there.

I think getting it wrong when you have reliable sources is forgivable, but the way Tom Bowles has handled it since isn't.

Honestly, if he wouldn't have gone on SiriusXM to try to defend himself, it would've passed by now. People were more pissed off at Beyond The Flag than him, since they showed utter incompetence as usual in their desperate attempts for clicks. He decided to make himself the story and, now that he is, wants to play the victim card.

I'm not a big Jeff Gluck fan, to be honest. Seems that, no matter what the subject is, or what happened in the race, he has to write out an opinion piece. Just doesn't sit well with me.
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A couple things...

At first, I was like, "Oh hell no, I'm not touching this." I thought Bowles was being irresponsible, but I wasn't going to touch it.

I happened to be in the car driving back from an interview and was listening to Sirius when he was on. And man, it just touched a nerve. I shouldn't have said anything, but he was patting himself on the back for creating conversation and was talking about how he knew he'd never be 100% right on stories he wrote. That just drove me nuts. I can't tell you how many times I hear things or am pretty confident something is true, but I don't write it because unless I'm SURE, it's not worth the risk.

So I ended up chiming in. Looking back now, it probably wasn't a good idea. I don't feel very good about it, especially since I hate when media criticizes other media.

By the way, you're right about the opinion piece...I literally do have to write an opinion piece. When something happens, my boss calls/emails me and says, "I need an analysis or column on that." So that's dead on (although I'm sorry you don't like them).
 
Jeff Gluck said:
A couple things...

At first, I was like, "Oh hell no, I'm not touching this." I thought Bowles was being irresponsible, but I wasn't going to touch it.

I happened to be in the car driving back from an interview and was listening to Sirius when he was on. And man, it just touched a nerve. I shouldn't have said anything, but he was patting himself on the back for creating conversation and was talking about how he knew he'd never be 100% right on stories he wrote. That just drove me nuts. I can't tell you how many times I hear things or am pretty confident something is true, but I don't write it because unless I'm SURE, it's not worth the risk.

So I ended up chiming in. Looking back now, it probably wasn't a good idea. I don't feel very good about it, especially since I hate when media criticizes other media.

By the way, you're right about the opinion piece...I literally do have to write an opinion piece. When something happens, my boss calls/emails me and says, "I need an analysis or column on that." So that's dead on (although I'm sorry you don't like them).
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HOLY CRAP! is this legit? @AndyMarquisLive
 
Jeff Gluck said:
Do you mean is this me? I'm sitting in the media center and I checked my site and this forum referred some traffic to the story. So I was like, "Oh, what's that site?"

Sorry, first-time poster.
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yeah some folks might be concerned if you really are Jeff G...
 
Revman said:
NASCAR media has become so pious on this issue, it makes me laugh and puke at the same time. The dude tried to jump the story, and missed. How many reporters did the same damn thing with the Carl coming to JGR I? For whatever reason, many have decided to tweet how little their poop doesn't stink over this deal. He didn't call into question Harvick's personal life or attack his family. He erroneously reported based on rumor not fact. OMG! Many in the NASCAR media are so full of themselves that they can't even see most of us laughing at them. Pontificating about "ethical" journalism, etc. What a freakin' joke! Here's my take....If you are good at what you do, Bowles isn't going to hurt you. If you suck, you suck, and he had nothing to do with it. Get the hell over it.
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Credibility and trust is everything. Again, this is NOT the first time Tom Bowles has put the entire NASCAR media in this type of situation. That deal at Daytona a few years ago, people were crucifying younger NASCAR reporters and the "Citizen Journalists Media Corp" for something Tom Bowles did.

I think Jeff Gluck and others are mad because you have Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart running around condemning "the media" and other fans running around condemning "the media", when it was literally two people: Tom Bowles and Christopher Olmstead. I don't blame any of them for being defensive, but at the same time, it just seems like everyone's beating up Tom Bowles.

Also, the "Edwards to JGR" stuff, one trned out to be accurate. And, two, the people who "jumped the gun" to "confirm" that he already signed with them were mostly wannabes on Twitter, the same people who wanted to be first to confirm deaths of Jason Leffler, Kevin Ward and confirm the fatalities at Daytona that never happened. They only cared about retweets and, since they don't actually write for anyone, they aren't held responsible by anyone.

Well, one of them was held responsible by NASCAR.
 
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