NYTimes football concussions reporter talks press ethics

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Brent Cunningham of the Columbia Journalism Review interviewed Alan Schwarz, the reporter responsible for the NYTimes coverage of head injuries in professional football.

Schwarz’s persistent coverage has helped make the issue—which had been kicking around the edges of sports journalism for twenty years—part of the national conversation, prompting two congressional hearings and a sea change within the National Football League on how it deals with head injuries. After years of denying that concussions can produce long-term health consequences, including dementia, the league did an about-face in December and agreed to financially support research into concussions by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, one of its harshest critics.

NTYimes | N.F.L. Acknowledges Long-Term Concussion Effects

I didn’t know Schwarz was hired in 2007 based on his initial freelance work on head injuries, or that he has a mathematics degree, which helped him evaluate an analysis of dementia performed by a lawyer for the NFL players’ union.

Here’s a really interesting comment by Schwarz relating to journalistic ethics and integrity.

CJR: Let’s assume for a minute that your son, who you said is three years old, is actually ten years old and he is clamoring to play Pop Warner football. Would the fact that you would then have to decide disqualify you from covering the story?

Schwarz: No, it wouldn’t disqualify me, though of course that’s up to my editors. But there is something about working here—and I’m not saying we’re better than everyone else, blah, blah, blah—but there is something that really inspires you to do the right thing, and to do the thing that helps you to cultivate the trust that allows readers to take you seriously. So I would probably let him play because if I didn’t it would compromise the reporting. It would compromise the trust that others and even the league may have in me. Now, I would not send him out to slaughter, but getting one concussion is not that big of a deal—it just isn’t. And to suggest otherwise is incredibly irresponsible. So if my kid gets one concussion then yeah, he doesn’t play anymore probably. But to not allow him on the field is, frankly, an overreaction. And if I didn’t allow him to play then yeah, it would be harder to cover the story, if only in my own mind. I believe that the cost to others of my not being able to cover this story as well would be greater than the cost of my kid getting one concussion and never playing again. I’m a very mathematical guy. I follow certain precepts. And those are the things that make sense to me. And I can’t tell my kid he can’t play, because then what am I going to tell the league? What am I going to tell my editors? It doesn’t work. It’s dissonant.

Food for thought as I navigate the waters of entrepreneurial journalism here at True/Slant.

via Covering Health