Meet Eric Nadel, Broadcaster & PRO for the Texas Rangers

Eric Nadel has been the radio sports announcer for the Texas Rangers for 33 years. He is sharp, smart, funny and to some very important people. Eric is still in disbelief that the Rangers didn’t win the World Series this year.

Eric has known what he wanted to be in life from a very early age; get paid to announce baseball games. Upon graduating from Brown University, Eric held a few jobs including one with a minor league hockey team for six years.

Eric doesn’t have a degree in journalism, but he knows about being ethical in his broadcasts. He doesn’t have a degree in public relations, but he’s charged with portraying the Rangers in a positive light.

Here are a few things Eric shared with my media ethics class this past Wednesday: his first duty is to the audience, and also to the team. After all, who signs his paychecks? Eric says his job is not to release breaking news to the public, but he may talk about information that has already been published.

 He mentioned the 2009 incident involving Josh Hamilton as one instance where he had to think both about the audience and the team’s image. Eric says he learned that pictures of a half-naked Hamilton in a strip club were released on a website prior to a game. He had to decide whether or not to mention the incident in his broadcast and how often he was going to refer to it. He is fortunate to have a boss who is a public relations professional, and saw the importance of being honest with the crowd about the Hamilton affair.  Eric did what he thought was best for both the audience and the team, and led his presentation with details from Hamilton’s press conference. He told the truth, but didn’t repeat it.

·         Be aware of what is happening at your organization or in the news

·         Seek to know the truth from a firsthand source if possible

·         Verify with your boss if they want that information release, and build an argument for your position if your boss disagrees with you

·         Tell the truth, once people are aware of the truth, not mentioning it makes you look shady

·         Remember you don’t have to be repetitive once you’ve told the truth.

Make no mistakes; while Nadel may seem to you like a spin master for the Rangers, he says he is sometimes critical of them. He remembers his first years on the job when he was less likely to criticize the team. Not only was he new at a job he wanted to keep, but he had a personal relationship with many of the payers who were about his age. Now he is older than all the players, and only maintains a cordial and impersonal relationship with them, something which enables him to criticize them when necessary. At the end of the day, it always helps to be independent from your sources if you want to remain a fair and unbiased source of information. Eric Nadel shows us that there is a way to associate with your sources, yet tell the truth about them.