Did you hear that Joe Paterno died? Yesterday, several journalists nationwide participated in a game of "adult" telephone. This situation resembled a typical game of telephone where the ending message is completely different than the beginning message. Only this time, the original message was also wrong and I'm referring to esteemed news outlets, not kindergartners.
Today writers from well-respected media outlets let down the public when they committed a series of unscrupulous acts. The inaccurate story begins with a tweet and leaves a trail of destruction that goes down like this:
1. Devon Edwards, the managing editor of Onward State (Penn State's newspaper) tweeted that Joe Paterno had passed away.
2. CBS Sports pounced on Edwards' tweet, but took full credit for the story.
3. Within minutes of CBS Sports' post, Mark Viera of the NY Times tweets that the story of Joe Paterno's death is "absolutely not true". Viera received confirmation from Paterno's spokesperson.
4. CBS amends the story to include this development, but retains the words "Joe Paterno dies" in it's headline.
5. Paterno's sons tweet that their father is alive and "continuing to fight."
6. CBS Sports issues a retraction and changes the title to "Reports of Joe Paterno's death refuted by family."
7. Devon Edwards resigns from the newspaper.
8. CBS issues a retraction.
9. Huffington Post and other news outlets that followed in CBS Sports' defunct footsteps by writing catch somewhat of a break with CBS Sports the clear fall guy for this snafu.
For a more detailed timeline check out SportsRantz.com
What were you thinking CBS?
CBS Sports' author, Adam Jacobi, reads some tweet from a college kid and thinks he hits the Blogging lotto with this story. He greedily claims the story as his own. It is only AFTER the story is dismissed as fake that CBS Sports cites Onward as its source. It appears that Jacobi did not find it necessary to cite the source until he had to cover his own ass. Besides, what better way then to pass the buck to the overly zealous college senior who broke the story. But what did I really expect from an author whose Twitter bio reads, "Striving for equality and perfect cromulence. I hope I entertain you." As SportsRantz aptly pieced together, cromulence is word created by a Simpson's episode meaning, "legitimate, authentic, and acceptable."
This situation is not CBS's first rodeo when it comes to sleazy news reporting as the TV station heavily promoted an "exclusive interview" with one of Penn State's head football coaches. CBS's story fell short in three ways: (1) NBC had an "exclusive interview" with a different coach the night before; (2) the interview lasts barely a minute; and (3) the heavily promoted interview conveniently takes place during Sweeps month. A word to the wise for CBS: Get rid of your bottom feeders. This type of writing belongs in the National Enquirer. But I digress.
Devon Edwards resigns from the newspaper. Read Edwards' resignation letter here. Edwards, a senior at Penn State majoring in political science and sociology. Devon Edwards is likely to become the Steve Bartman of Penn State. Moreover, this epic fail will probably preclude him from ever holding a fruitful writing position unless he uses a pen name. He better stick to online classes for this Spring Semester. Ironically, Edwards berated the Wall Street Journal earlier this year for recirculating old media news of Paterno. Mr. Edwards, you may dislike spelunking* (defined by Urban Dictionary as "the act of exploring the missing condom deep after penetration") and your clothes coming out of the dryer still wet, but I dislike a journalist that reports inaccurate facts. Oh, and I can solve your spelunking dilema--wear condoms that fit.
In closing, Joe Paterno, 85 years old, gave his life to coaching football at Penn State and left there after 46 years disgraced. His accomplishments marred by the recent scandal. The scandal that created a global news frenzy. This rapid behavior by writers was evident again last night. Without bothering to check the validity of this fact, many writers jumped at the chance to write about Paterno's death as if it were the latest siting of Brangelina. Both of these authors should be ashamed for their ghoulish behavior and grimy attempt toward generating traffic. Meanwhile, let's give our support to Paterno so that he can continue his fight for his life.
*Based on Edwards bio on Onward State. You can learn more about his interests and follow him on Twitter (doubt that he'll have much to say these days).
Filed under: sports
Tags: CBS, CBS Sports, Edwards, Joe Paterno, National Enquirer, Onward State, Penn State, twitter
"Esteemed" news outlets?
I think more like "steamed, overcooked and done", might describe most of the media today.
If politics is show biz for the ugly, then media are stages for the stupid.
Nice work...as usual.
I love twitter, but this is an example where twitter can go wrong.
I stumbled upon something on WGN radio, which was apparently about this, where even Dean Richards said that it is a journalist's responsibility to verify a story before going with it, and someone at CBS didn't.
If you want to get into this, CBS has a history of irresponsibility, including, more infamously, the Dan Rather episode of the Bush National Guard commander's letter, which bloggers said, and ABC proved, was typed with Microsoft Word, even though it was purportedly dated in the 1970s.
As far as premature announcements of death, there was the Wikipedia episode of someone announcing Chris Benoit's wife's death as a joke, until it turned out that the whole family had been killed by Chris. Then, the joker had his computer seized by the authorities. This tweet at least seemed a bit more bona fide than that, from the continuous crawl on about 4 ESPN outlets Saturday that Paterno "was in serious condition and asked to say goodbye to his family, according to a family spokesperson."
Even from your perch, you can see that this sort of "tweet journalism" isn't journalism, but I'll bet that the vast majority of self proclaimed journalists, both on Chicago Now and the Tribune think it is.