LeBatard column on the media

For far more than 20 years, a whole lotta big schools have had a steady stream of arrests and other malfeasance. If Sean Taylor was going to have a propensity for trouble, he would have had it pretty much anyplace he went. People have phones and Internets, ya know. And people can drive long distances if they want to see their friends badly enough. OK, Miami has had some characters, but there are so many examples proving that the Canes are not an anomaly.

 

Learn to read, though.

You talk about his prep-school upbringing.

I, on the other hand, gave you the facts.

Had nothing to do with "cred"... had to do with your lack of knowledge in writing the line.

 

The 'Canes have everyone beat, by leaps and bounds.

 

I don't have the NCAA Abstract of Arrests in front of me, so I dunno how they all stack up. I'm just saying the assertion that being at Miami made bad things inevitable for Sean Taylor is simplistic. What happened to Sean Taylor long before he came to Miami made bad things inevitable for him.

 

I love the Brett Favre comparison.

Brett Favre's addiction to painkillers won't be mentioned in his eulogy...

Uh, it would if he died of an overdose...

Also, nice Darrent Williams comparison. It might work if Williams was shot in Stillwater.

What do we expect from DLB?

 

Sean Taylor's past being mentioned isn't the issue. It's how his past was initially mentioned in conjunction with what happened to him, which mostly was assumption and conjecture. As in, since A + B is there, it's got to equal C. As in, well, since it's rich, spoiled, white athletes at Duke, two black strippers, OF COURSE, they had to rape her. That's just what happens. We're again assuming, without reporting or really knowing. Admittedly, no one in the media knew him, yet that didn't stop certain people from conjecturing about unsavory friends, and breaking away from "the hood." We don't know who his friends were, who he hung around with, or who he was. Even his Miami teammates admitted he was a bit of a different bird and they didn't always know what was going on with them.

Again, it's no shame not to know. It is a shame to make stuff up as you go along.

 

Early in my career, some news event like this happened -- I don't remember which one -- and the media, as we do, rushed to judgement. I asked a veteran coworker, "What gives us the right to judge?" He half-joked, "Because we're morally superior."

The longer I live and work in the business, the more of a joke that seems to me.

 

I've watched columnists condemn athletes for DUIs when they also have one. I've seen writers condemn athletes for using a questionable racial term in between calling a female copy editor the c-word behind her back...

Are some of us complete hypocrites? Absolutely... I just don't buy the Duke LAX comparison because with Taylor, there was a long history of crime and getting into trouble. That's why the conclusion is being drawn.

But, if Michael Vick gets eaten by a HIV-infected pit bull days after he's released from prison, I'm sure that will be a coincidence as well...

I don't believe that DLB believes everything he writes. I think he does this to get close to athletes so he can tell them, "Look, I'm the guy who defended Ricky Williams after he berated a cop, so you know I'll always support you..."

 

Jemele, your argument is sound, but in this day of media lunacy, it's incredibly naive.

And you're smart enough to realize as much.

Yes, people probably shouldn't speculate after such a tragic event -- I hope people aren't making things up -- but this is the "water-cooler" journalism that talk radio, blogs and ESPN have created.

That's the only thing that bothered me about DLB's column. I consider the man one of the top 5 talents in the business today, but he has a voice in this type of journalism, whether he acknowledges it or not.

 

Quite a few journalists will be using the Duke LAX defense for the next decade or so.

 

Great column. Thanks for posting this.