The Big Lead posts false story about Billy Donovan's real estate struggles

Did anyone else catch this? Apologize if it's already been pointed out.

Looks like The Big Lead posted a story about Billy Donovan "tearfully" talking about his struggles with the tough housing market.

Problem is, the story the site posted was actually satirical.


http://thebiglead.com/?p=4645

 

BuckW, can you explain that photo reference to me?
It comes up all the time, and I must be lame.

 

Thebiglead's been busted on here plenty of times for his shoddy "ethics". On one of those occasions (I think the Matt Leinart rumor posting), Double Down posted the Fozzie photo ("Sources! Sources!") in response to TBL's defense that he got the story second-hand from another rumor-mill and so it wasn't his fault if it wasn't true because "he just linked it", etc., etc.

 

These fuckers are SOOO lucky they are not held to the standard that the permanence of ink on paper requires.

 

If TBL didn't suck off media types by "interviewing" them with softball questions via e-mail, nobody here would read his site to begin with. So the fact that he screwed up this one is a dog-bites-man story to me.

 

Frank, I don't think it's a matter that TBL fucked up this story. It's that he's routinely posting bullshit and then raising his hands and claiming it's an honest mistake when SJers call him on his bullshit.

 

I understand that. My point is that the only reason his incompetence and lack of ethics come to our attention is because some in our business have a narcissistic need to check his site regularly to see if he's blowing another sports columnist this week. His blog would have zero traffic otherwise, and his inability to discern satire from a real news story would happen without our knowledge or interest.

 

Frank, I agree with you. I just wish someone would sue TBL for libel.

 

Frank, what exactly do you mean by "blowing another sports columnist this week"?

(And thanks for catching me up, BuckW.)

 

I didn't mean you somehow missed the fellatio photos. I mean it's pretty obvious that to attract our attention, TBL panders to our self-absorbtion by regularly interviewing sports writers. And if he didn't, probably no one here would look at his blog.

 

For those interested in the history of the TBL/Fozzie photo, here is the thread and exchange that gave birth to the picture. From that day forward, it has been my official one-man protest about The Big Lead's shitty ethics.

As I've said before, I really don't care that TBL posts false shit and that he mainly gets traffic because he posts pictures of Megan Fox's vajayjay and Adriana Lima doing the splits, I just want sports writers to stop taking the site seriously. If you're going to do the Q and A, know who you're getting in bed with. Everyone who did one previously -- Jones, Wickersham, Drehs, Wilbon, etc. -- gets a free pass. TBL wasn't posting stuff then about who Matt Lienart was impregnating.

But if you do an interview with him now, you care more about your ego than you do ethics.