Inside Higher Ed publishes Socolow column on getting scooped
Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism Michael Socolow wrote a column for Inside Higher Ed about what it’s like to put a lot of time and research into a book project, only to get scooped by another writer. Socolow began collecting material in 1999 for a possible book on the U.S. crew team that competed at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. In 2012, Slate accepted Socolow’s pitch to write a story about the team, ahead of the 2012 London Olympics. The story took off on the web and Socolow started getting calls from New York literary agents. Only after interest in a possible book deal abruptly subsided did Socolow learn that another author had already inked a big contract to publish a book on the same subject. Socolow was dismayed to see some of his research material end up in that book, “The Boys in the Boat,” which went on to become a New York Times bestseller. There’s a silver lining to the story though. Socolow reshaped his proposal into a broader narrative that uses the story of the rowers to tell a larger, historical tale about the beginning of global sports broadcasting and the role Nazi radio authorities played in its birth. “Six Minutes in Berlin” will be published later this month by the University of Illinois Press.