Posted by Bud on November 09, 2009 at 11:29:33:
Predictions policy quiets Denver Post writers; doesn't apply here
Phil Rosenthal
Tribune Media
November 8, 2009
There was an awkward radio moment the other day out West when guest Mike Klis, who covers pro football's Broncos for the Denver Post, was asked how he thought that week's game would go and Klis said he couldn't say. Really. He couldn't.
Klis told the hosts, according to Denver's Westword, that the Post had decided that allowing its news and sports beat writers to prognosticate might lead readers to question their objectivity, so the paper was banning their predictions.
"The weather page is exempted, but then there are no contestants involved," Post Editor Greg Moore explained by e-mail Friday, when asked by the Tribune.
Now, one can argue whether a prediction of who will win a football game is analysis, which is allowed, or opinion, which is verboten. The distinction Moore makes is: "Analysis is an informed and reported explanation of an event or development. A prediction is almost like placing a bet on the outcome. It's having a dog in the race, and you have to cover the race."
But assuming all that's being gambled is the writer's reputation for knowing what he or she is talking about, the only real risk is of looking like a dunderhead when wrong. There's an old saying: He who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat broken glass.
And it's amazing how much you can down if you don't fill up on bread first.
It's too soon to know whether this is the start of a media trend, although as a columnist, I would be allowed under the Post's new policy to make such a prediction if I wanted to hazard a guess. Which I don't.
But here are some predictions I will make -- supply your own grain of salt:
When Oprah Winfrey does make a decision on whether she will extend her syndicated daytime show beyond August 2011, she will do it live on her own program.
She will not call me ahead of time, although she knows it would be swell if she did.
If Winfrey does quit, it will be because she recognizes she can no longer burn the scented candle at both ends.
The long build-up to Winfrey signing off would dwarf those preceding the end of "Friends," Johnny Carson's run on "The Tonight Show" and analog television.
Where will the Cubs finish the 2010 regular season, their first under Ricketts family ownership? Houston, at 1:05 p.m. on Oct. 3.
Critics will love Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as co-hosts of the Academy Awards, even more so if they can get the show over before the Winter Olympics start.
Viewers will love the Academy Awards if movies they've actually seen win.
Don Draper, the ad man with an assumed identity and an innate talent for deception at the center of AMC's " Mad Men," will wind up with a White House job before the series is over in the late '60s or early '70s.
David Letterman, whose contract with CBS is set to run out next year, will renew his "Late Show" deal through 2012. He'll be 65.
The sex scandal will not affect Letterman's decision, except that his studio (famously kept between 58 degrees and 62 degrees) probably will seem a tad warmer than his home -- at least for a while.
NBC bosses will maintain putting Jay Leno in prime time was a great success right up until they move him either to 9:35 p.m., with late local news shifting to 9 p.m., or all the way back to his old 10:35 "Tonight" slot.
Actually, even then, NBC execs still will insist it was a great decision.
NBC execs also will steadfastly maintain the original "Star Trek" was spent when they axed it after three seasons, the Cubs were shrewd to trade future Hall of Famer Lou Brock to St. Louis for Ernie Broglio, and Napoleon's plan to invade Russia was flawless.
And I don't think the Denver Post will ever hire me.
"Folks may disagree with this, and that's OK," Moore, the Post's editor, said of his paper's new prediction policy. "They are exercised over something pretty minor. Like I said, for those looking for game predictions, they are still in the paper (from the columnists), just in a way that I am more comfortable with."