Believe it or not, some people hold some reporters in the highest regard.
Valley boxing promoter Steve Eisner recently offered our readers a touching tribute to a sportswriter. In a May 23 letter to the editor, Eisner, of Scottsdale, noted the death of former Phoenix Gazette writer Max Seibel, and with him the passing of a more colorful, compassionate era in journalism.
Eisner revealed the blockbuster story Seibel chose to sit on some 20 years ago. It involved local middleweight Edgar “Bad News” Wallace, once the No. 2 contender in the world and still rated among Arizona’s finest all-time boxers.
Just a few days before Wallace’s last fight, Seibel heard a rumor the fighter had a bad eye.
It was true. In fact, Seibel, at Eisner’s invitation, attended a secret ophthalmological exam. Wallace was essentially blind in one eye.
The story would have been an enormous scoop. It would also have killed the fight and robbed Wallace of his last payday.
The fighter promised Seibel it would be his last bout. Wallace said he had been fighting for almost a year with the condition and that the money he earned would be used to get a restorative operation.
“Max elected to sit on this till after the bout,” Eisner wrote. The fight went on. Wallace lost but did get the surgery.
“In these days of heartless, go-for-the jugular journalism, Max would be an easily disposed-of anachronism,” Eisner wrote. “For me, Max Seibel’s greatest story was the one he did not write.”
Journalists here agreed that today the story would run.
“I cannot imagine that such a story would be held in this day and age,” East Valley Opinions page editor Paul Schatt observed.
Certainly, it could be argued that such a story would serve the best interests of the fighter and the sport, even the prospective gamblers.
“Personal harm to the boxer and liability to the public should have outweighed Max’s decision to protect the pugilist,” said veteran news reporter Mike McCloy.
Today, competitive pressures are higher as well. Some news outlet, some Web site, would go with the story.
Indeed, the journalist’s code of ethics obliges us to publish, not withhold, such information.
Folks, we believe in the public’s right to know. It’s not just a catchphrase. We believe democracy is best served with the free flow of the most information we can uncover.
But ours is not the only brand of integrity, of responsible ethics.
And our own personal sense of ethics can lead to different conclusions, even among professional journalists, young and old.
Many of us, for example, can recall stories we regret doing. Sneaking into a funeral service. Taking advantage of an unsophisticated person thrown in the middle of a big story.
Some of us have our own stories we never wrote.
Maybe my Gazette colleague Max Seibel is not such an anachronism after all. Even today.
