Ray Rice and the elite sports press

I'm not going to get into details, but one of my reporters, at my request, did this once. We were far from a national news outlet, but it does and should happen when it's obvious the source lied with malicious intent.

In this situation, there's little doubt in my mind that everyone, from the top of the NFL league office on down to PK and others, never thought the video would surface, so they saw it and hid behind the "trust us, there's more to it" shtick.

The real question is, as Dick put it earlier, why all of this misdirection and dishonesty for Ray Rice and not someone else?

 

King's own writer from MMQB had knowledge of the video on February 20th
when he sent this tweet:

Source says police have yet-to-be-released video of Ray Rice knocking fiancée unconscious before dragging her. Expect a suspension.

6:44 PM - 20 Feb 2014

Clearly King and the other elite NFL writers were also aware of the video
and likely had viewed it.

Where they erred was sitting back and waiting for The NFL instead of driving
the story and calling for a lifetime ban of Rice.

Too many in a position to know better were mute and just let The NFL
spin machine try and do it's work.

King has fallen into the Tom Verducci category in terms of having little
credibility left.

 

I disagree. But, it is possible that this instance makes a lot of people in a lot of different jobs re-evaluate how they do things. Or, more likely, they all hope this goes away soon.

 

I'm sorry, but how is this clear?
I don't see how it's clear they "likely" viewed it.

 

That's the thing. Nothing is clear here.

Mort or King or someone else could call out the person who told them they'd seen the video from inside the elevator. They won't do that though. They don't want to get their sources fired.

 

This ....

If you have a source you trust. This is all you are going to rely on.
Should King have checked? Hell yes.
As noted, a phone call to the league office: Hi, Did the commish or anyone associated with Rice's discipline see the video?

He - and others whiffed on this on - but everybody missed the big story, which Christine Brennan has hit upon this morning: We need video to know what DV looks like? And are we going to allow other NFL players to skate, while Rice is hung?
Was everybody focused on Rice and not the other DV offenders in the league, still suiting up?

The NFL is going to be in PR free fall for the next few weeks as it tries to sort this out and clean things up.

Good Fucking Luck.

 

Would be funny if Goodell was the source. He's only been commish for 7 years and some of the writers we're talking about covered him before the big promotion and probably used him as a source when necessary.

 

Let's be real here: King, Mort and others don't care that a video exists or what's on it. They care about being the ones to tell you there's "more to the story." They want to be seen as "insiders," whose "sources" keep them plugged in the way we could never be.

That's how you get duped.

 

"Get two sources" is one of the foundations of journalism.

 

Why is it a Red Herring?

At the time - this was a far cry from Watergate - asking or even assuming they had seen the video was almost mop up duty. Rice had been arrested and charged. There was criminal investigation and everyone sees him dragging her (unconscious) from the elevator by her leg.

I don't think the source lied. I think he assumed.