Ray Rice and the elite sports press

Sorry fellows. Should have stated contrite as in damage-control mode.

 

If people want to call Schefter, Mort, PK etc... Toadies for the NFL, I get that. I'm not saying I completely agree, but I get it.

But what do you want them to do? You want King to out his source and make him a scapegoat because he changed his story to protect his boss, and his own ass? What does that accomplish?

A NFL PR guy was forced to resign earlier this year because of a story that ran on MMQB. Apparently, King and some of the others at MMQB were just devastated by this. MMQB had done nothing wrong, but an innocuous anecdote turned into news of the day for a weekend or so, much to the surprise of the author (Bedard) and the PR guy was forced to quit.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the stories that Mort and PK had in March were accurate. When their sources come back six months later and tell them they got it wrong, what are they supposed to do?

 

For as much scorn as ESPN gets, Sports Illustrated should get called on the carpet, as well. (I see that the Moderators did not like my sly attempt to dredge up the Tom Verducci thread.)

King is in bed with the NFL. Verducci takes a goddamned paycheck from MLB, and is allowed to rip other leagues in comparison to MLB without disclosure(!).

I mean, holy shit! At least ESPN is an NFL rights holder. What is King, Verducci, and SI's excuse for being lapdogs of the people they cover?

 

They're all in bed with the leagues they cover. All of them. Perhaps at different levels, but all of them are guilty of this.

It's why if there is an interesting investigative piece that comes out about any of the major college or professional teams, it's usually a safe bet it's not written by anyone who covers that sport as a beat.

 

King also works for NBC, which broadcasts the highest-rated show on television (Sunday Night Football) every week.

 

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I doubt SI has much interest in calling to the carpet their highest paid writer. Now if Dick Deitsch had more balls -- like, the size of Michelle Beadle's? -- he might call out a colleague for journalistic incompetence. But Deitsch is too busy taking copious notes about First Take and Twitter stalking Darren Rovell.

 

I don't want King to do anything. I want to see SI take some action.

There big star just admitted he got a story wrong because he didn't follow proper procedures.

Can we at least get a statement out of SI admonishing him? Is it crazy to think he should be suspended for some period of time?

What are the consequences for Peter King, and why is journalism so often a consequence free zone?

 

Maybe they don't want to rush to judgment here on what happened with King's source. Whether we know about it or not, it seems safe to say there's going to be major repercussions in the league's relationships with the reporters who cover them the most closely. They might not be able to flat out say, "So and so mislead me or lied to me," but that's obviously what happened.

 

Honestly, is there really a need for anonymous sources in most cases of sports writing and reporting? Because what we often get these anonymous folks talking is about gossip.

"A source said Team A wanted to trade this player."

"Anonymous GM said he wouldn't draft this player because..."

"According to sources, Coach Joe Blow hurt Player John Doe's feelings in the locker room."

Look, I understand the talk about contracts, because in that case, you have a legitimate interest in explaining to people the details, when most people here the dollar amounts and assume the player gets all the money.

But talking about what trade talks happened, what GM doesn't like a player, or whatever locker room argument happened, are not about informing the public, but creating controversies to get people talking.

As far as the Rice ordeal is concerned, the lesson to be learned is to be very careful when trusting anonymous sources, and to at least demonstrate you made the effort to double check what they say. And if you attempt to contact another source for comment and can't reach that source, then say so.

Most of all, sports reporters need to stop worrying about losing sources if they upset somebody. If you report something that is accurate, double- or triple-checked, and a source argues with you about it, you have firm ground to stand on. If the source refuses to talk to you for a while, so be it. Most sources will eventually get over it and talk to you again, knowing that you were just doing your job.

 

I'd take King's apology and owning it over the "they LIED to me and I'm FURIOUS" CYA butthurt spin I've seen elsewhere.

 

A good starting point to King recalibrating would be to unhitch himself from
his NBC Sunday Night gig and perhaps drop off the HOF selection committee.

 

King has admitted he failed to confirm his sources suspicions, and reported them as facts. What do we have to wait for?

If you want to assume King is lying to cover for his source, fine. Let Peter fall on the sword if he wants to, but make him fall on the sword.

And, even if the source did tell him that the NFL saw the video, King still needed to at least try and confirm it. He didn't call anyone else, by his own admission.

This is bad. It's about as big a failure as you can have. If there's no consequence for this, then what do you have to do to face some consequences?