Who started K-Rod brawl? NYPD, witnesses tell two tales
Today's tabloids: August 13, 2010.
9:29 am Aug. 13, 20101
Each day, the New York tabloids vie to sell readers at the newsstands on outrageous headlines, dramatic photography, and, occasionally, great reporting. Who is today's winner?
Daily News: According to the News, the fight between Mets pitcher Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez and his father-in-law, Carlos Peña, began when the older man "challenged Rodriguez's manhood and insulted his mother after the crazed closer began shouting about the latest Mets loss" in the families' lounge at Citi Field. "Stop acting like a baby," a source told the News Peña said. "Man up, and play better."
Then K-Rod's mom got involved in a screaming match with Peña in Spanish, and K-Rod, shouting "You can't talk to my mamí that way!" began to pummel the man. Note this for later.
Now, the cover has K-Rod in cuffs and a police escort in the outfit he wore yesterday to Queens Criminal Court, where he was indicted on assault and where a judge issued a restraining order keeping him away from the Long Island home he shares with Peña, his common-law wife and year-old twins. "MAN UP" is the main head: "Words that sparked K-Rod's fury." Wow, an actual piece of news, told completely and economically in the display copy! Whatever "MAN UP" lacks as wood—and by tabloid standards, that's not much—it makes up in actual news value. We'll try not to dwell on the skyboxes pegged to Halle Berry's Vogue interview or Day 20 of the Steven Slater saga ("SLATER: LET ME FLY AGAIN.") Because the K-Rod story is the one to keep your eyes on today.
The New York Post: With a slightly different photo from the same shoot, the Post makes its own pun—"CUFF LOVE"—out of the K-Rod story. "K-Rod went ballistic over gal pal." If you were looking at both covers this morning you'd think, they're telling the same story—so why'd the Post go with the generic description instead of the quote? Well perhaps it's because the Post's account—also from police sources—differs so completely from that in the News. According to the Post, K-Rod "launched into a foulmouthed tirade against the mother of his children, then pummeled her father after he came to her defense, banging the older man's head against a wall …" after arriving at the families' lounge at Citi Field. "You can't talk to my daughter that way!" Peña says in this account. (Remember, the News had K-Rod telling Peña not to talk to his mother "that way.")
Observations: So, how come the Post and the News have such divergent reports from police and onlookers? It's academic: both papers come down on K-Rod for a one-sided ambush on an older man. But why does the News have witnesses and police sources corroborating a story that has Peña instigating the fight, and the Post sources, indistinguishable in print, reversing the tale? With even a live quote attributed differently in the two cases? We are not forgetful of a recent event in which the Post, with NYPD sourcing but no confirmation from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, plastered its front page with the story of a would-be murder-suicide swallowing rat poison on the lam and then being rushed to the top of a hospital waiting list for a liver transplant. That story turned out not to be true, and the Post had egg on its face. The Post, normally reliable in getting the inside story from One Police Plaza, took a powder on that one. Are they doing the same here?
Either way: we've only got what we know today, and the News tells you exactly how they believe the fight started in the short span of two words; the Post only gets a pun out of it. The pictures are a wash. And while the News skyboxes are a useless distraction, it's a taller paper than the Post and I don't think they lose points on them.
Winner: Daily News.
Good take today. but Post wins it and here's why-- neither cover, as you say yourself, is grabbing any eyes with the photo (in fact most people who look quickly will think the photos are identical, which they aren't; they're from the same moment, but look at K-Rod's face).
so. photo is a throwaway, no better than the generic Steven Slater shots from a few days ago. all we have to go on is the wood plus the general layout. And for precisely the reason you think the News handled it well (by including a bit of other filler on top just so the whole front isn't all K-Rod) I'd say the Post did it better just by dint of going balls to the wall. Yeah, photo sucks, hed is nothing special, but at least the arrest dramatically grabs the entire front, nice and clean, nothing else previewed except whatever that tiny type along the bottom is.
Plus, even if "Man Up" is more rooted in the actual story i.e. it's a direct quote, "Cuff Love" is punnier, possibly more grin-inducing, so it's a better hed whether or not the Post's version of the events proves to be wrong (which is totally plausible, maybe probable, ha).