Ray Rice and the elite sports press

I'd rank this several notches below Jayson Blair and Howell Raines. It's shoddy reporting, yes, but frankly I'm surprised King hasn't gotten played like this earlier given his water-carrying MO. The amazing thing is that this centers around a washed-up Ray Rice.

 

Barry Petchesky at Deadspin has this video of Mort from July talking about the tape. Listen to how precisely he describes it. The only chance the NFL hadn't seen this tape is if Mort developed sources with the Atlantic City PD, which I'm kind of guessing is a no.

https://twitter.com/barryap1

I know the NFL has millions of suckers and a media machine that's the best in the world, but there really can't be any reasonable doubt here about whether they saw the tape.

 

Yeah, it's not plagiarism, or fabrication. But, those are death penalty offenses, and should be incredibly rare.

This is as bad a job of reporting as you can do, and it deserves consequences, whether or not it's a big star who committed the offense.

 

King is either lying to protect a source and more than likely SI knows this.

or

The source burned him and King is taking his lumps for it. My guess is it's the first one.

Obviously, not a banner day for King, but some of the outrage here is pretty stunning. Do you honestly think Mort and PK should be fired over this?

 

So, what should happen? Nothing?

I'm not sure what Moronsen's defense is. King admittedly has no defense.

Shouldn't there be some consequence? He gets to just say "my bad" and move on? Can't there be something between nothing and getting fired?

 

Mortenson's defense might me: "I was right. They watched the video. They're lying."

 

My only question here is did they see the tape or was what was on the tape described to them? Because, there is no way possible someone could have adequately described what was on that tape.

Don't get me wrong, I think they saw the tape.

 

If a source lies to you, the obligation switches from confidentiality to naming him or her, as a matter of self protection. If someone you trust misleads you, they're the villain, not you. You are guilty of the universal human failing of bad judgment about who to trust.

 

No Starbucks or Microbrews for a month.

To Mort's credit, he did say, "Yes, Somebody had seem that video."

Jane McManus said something similar and said the source's story changed from July to September.

As usual, if we find out anything of substance on this, it will likely be on Deadspin, TBL or one of the other similar sites.

 

That's not that far off from what he's saying. What's the world coming to when the person doing the most honorable thing is Mort.

 

I know the video is shocking, but how does it differ from what we already knew happened in the elevator between them? We always knew Rice dragged his unconscious to-be wife out of a casino elevator after he clocked her inside. We knew that he punched her out. Why did seeing it even if it was the first time (and I don't believe that) make the NFL jump from "2 games" to probably ending Rice's career?

As I wrote yesterday, there were articles in the spring and summer that quoted unnamed people who said what exactly happened in the elevator, now verified by the video. So, somebody had seen this. Probably several people. But the fact remains, everyone knew what happened and should have already been dealt with by the team and the league as it was yesterday. It's only because of the video and the backlash that the NFL and the Ravens acted yesterday.

 

Roger Goodell should have paid attention to Jason Whitlock in 2011:

Goodell’s ability to serve as leader of the NFL is compromised by his insistence on being the face of NFL discipline. The role might make him popular with his high-profile media puppets, but it makes him extremely vulnerable with the players.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe DeMaurice Smith and the players’ union are so weak Goodell can do whatever he likes. Based on the ground surrendered by the union in the labor dispute and the length of the new agreement, Goodell owns Smith and the union. For some reason, CNBC’s Darren Rovell is the only guy willing to discuss in detail how bad the new deal is for the players.

At some point, NFL owners might recognize Goodell is the one guy who can awaken the players to how badly they were recently hoodwinked. It might take three or four or five years, but one day Goodell’s discipline role is going to backfire in a big way. Goodell is going to give the players the backbone they lost when Gene Upshaw died.

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-will-pay-for-his-power-trip-090711