OMAHA, Neb. — Talk about kicking a guy at a down moment. And why?
You want to know why so many people hate so many journalists? Why Donald Trump was on to something, and in a big way? Because of the way Ryan Lochte’s final Olympic Trials swim Friday was reported in the mainstream press.
Lochte finished seventh Friday in the men’s 200-meter individual medley, failing to qualify for the Tokyo Games, what would have been his fifth Olympics, a Games that would have made him the oldest U.S. male swimmer in history. The 200 IM made for his last chance to qualify. Michael Andrew won the race; Chase Kalisz took second.
There’s a disturbing groupthink tendency among my friends and colleagues in the press to report the same story. A particular narrative takes hold, come hell or high water, as if everyone has been drinking the same Kool-Aid. This can’t be surprising. It’s not a big secret that a great many reporters are terribly insecure and at big events especially talk among themselves to make sure they’re not missing anything their friends at other outlets might have. This might seem perplexing when you’re not in journalism — especially when the race is right in front of everyone’s eyes. A typical media workroom convo might be, so the story today is Lochte, right? And go from there.
In this instance, the story was going to be a recitation of everything Ryan Lochte had done wrong — ha, ha, ha, Ryan Lochte is a clown show! — beginning with the gas station incident in Rio, moving on to the drip suspension handed down by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and more.
Ryan Lochte at Friday night’s news conference // Getty Images
For effect, how about him showing up in Rio with his hair dyed silver?
Dude is a freak!
To be clear, it’s appropriate to recite these facts. I’ve been in the journalism business for nearly 40 years. Of course, these facts are relevant and material.
It’s our job to hold people, public officials or figures especially, accountable. When they lie or cheat, all the more so.
But when they apologize and try to make good for their mistakes, it’s also our job to recognize that. When they make a good-faith effort to effect change or change themselves, that, too, deserves recognition. When they confront illness, especially, that deserves to be acknowledged.
That’s context.
Storytelling always — always — deserves context. More, it demands context.
And, more, empathy.
Readers deserve context. They crave empathy. Especially now.
In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, we all have to be aware in the storytelling business of what we are doing and how. We need to be all the more sensitive to what we are writing, and why. It’s no longer sufficient — if it ever was — simply to drill people for past transgressions.
Ryan Lochte had — has — an alcohol problem.
He has confessed to this, publicly. He has sought treatment. He is — as we all are — a work in progress.
The gas station incident in Rio, in particular, was fueled by alcohol.
Alcoholism is a disease.
If Ryan Lochte had cancer, we would all be rooting for him.
If Ryan Lochte had ALS, we would all be rooting for him.
If Ryan Lochte needed a kidney transplant, we would all be rooting for him.
It’s no different here.
As Lochte told USA Today in a 2019 story, acknowledging that he had sought out a Florida center the year before for six weeks of treatment, “So, yes, I checked myself into rehab. I did the classes. I did everything.”
From that story: “Asked if it was accurate to say he had been treated for alcohol addiction — the term Lochte’s attorney, Jeffrey Ostrow, used — or alcoholism, Lochte replied, ‘You know, you can call it whatever you want to call it. I went there because I needed help. I need[ed] to change some things in my life and that’s what I went there for and I came out a better man.”
Fast forward to Friday night. In each of the following mainstream accounts that reported Lochte’s 200 IM Trials final swim, every single one not only mentioned but featured if not focused on the Rio gas station incident.
New York Times: “His popularity, though, was diminished in 2016 after he falsely claimed that he had been robbed at gunpoint while partying in Rio de Janeiro with three other members of the U.S. men’s Olympic swim team after they were done competing.”
Wall Street Journal, which started its story this way: “Ryan Lochte left the Rio 2016 Olympics in disgrace.” Two paragraphs later: “Lochte came to Omaha angling to qualify for his fifth Olympics and reclaim the reputation he tarnished on one infamous night at a Rio de Janeiro gas station five Augusts ago.”
Washington Post: “He left the Rio de Janeiro Games in shame after he and three U.S. teammates lied about destroying a gas station bathroom. That earned him a year-long suspension. And then he got slapped with a 14-month suspension when he violated doping rules, using an IV infusion to administer a legal vitamin.”
Los Angeles Times (my former paper): “But the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 overshadowed everything. An evening of drinking, allegations of vandalism and lying about being robbed at gunpoint triggered an international scandal.”
USA Today (different writer): “Since his last appearance at the trials in Omaha in 2016, Lochte has been suspended twice: once for creating an international incident at the Rio Olympics by claiming he had been robbed at gunpoint when in fact he and three other U.S. male swimmers urinated outside a gas station, and the second time for a doping violation after he received a prohibited intravenous injection.”
Associated Press: “During a boisterous night in Rio with several younger teammates, Lochte tied about being robbed at gunpoint. His story quickly fell apart, revealing a swimmer whose life was barreling out of control.
“Lochte arrived in Omaha insisting he had turned things around. He is now married with two young children, who were all on hand at poolside to cheer him on.”
Did any of these outlets report Lochte’s rehab stay? Why not?
Kudos to Nicole Auerbach at The Athletic. In her report, there was this: “Lochte said he spent six weeks in rehab for alcohol addiction during a 14-month ban following an IV infusion of an illegal amount of a legal substance in May 2018. He said that stint in rehab made him rethink his priorities and realize how important his family was to him.”
Redemption is, always has been, always will be, the great American story. The final words of the first paragraph of Auerbach’s story — the lede, in journalism talk — have it exactly right. What happened Friday night here in Omaha, she wrote, marked “the end of a redemption arc that didn’t quite make it to its final chapter.”
America was rooting for Ryan Lochte. Why was that so hard for everyone else to understand? Why serve up you-know-what on toast just to make each other feel good in the media workroom — or, worse, snippy editors — when what readers not only want but need and deserve the complete and balanced story?
In doing readers a better service, that’s better for business. If we haven’t all noticed, the journalism business isn’t exactly these days trending the way of bitcoin.
It’s also way fairer for and to Lochte.
Here’s a guy who had worked his ass off, at 36, who had been the other guy in the pool all those years when Michael Phelps was swimming, who had owned up to his own foibles, who now is 36, is greying, has a wife and two young kids — and was out there giving it his all against 22-year-olds.
Come on.
“I had my family there,” Lochte said late Friday. “My kids got to watch their daddy swim. So that means everything to me.”
Lochte’s Olympic career ends with 12 medals. He is the second-most decorated male swimmer in Games history. Phelps has 28. The two hugged Friday night as Lochte walked off the pool deck.
Our country is changing, journalism is changing and we had better be attuned. Being snippy and snotty just because — because we can — is not good enough.
If it ever was.