May 14, 2008

I don't think the story had any impact on the Pats' performance in the Super Bowl, but boy could the timing have been any worse! I would've expected something like this from the Globe, owned by a NY paper, but not the Herald.

Of course, this is not going to exonerate the Pats in the court of public opinion, I'm sure the haterade will begin flowing here very shortly, but I think the people should give the devil their due. What the Pats have done is special, they are not the first team to cheat, nor the first team to be caught, but no one can take away all of their wins nor their place in history as a dynasty.

Let the piling on begin!

posted by crqri at 8:36 AM CDT on May 14

Don't hold your breath waiting for the "Who was spying on the Pats" story to break in the national media. Only the Patriots do bad things.

posted by yerfatma at 9:43 AM CDT on May 14

The fact that the Herald reported this without first finding further proof of the tape's existence is still inexcusable. When you're at a newspaper reporting to thousands of people about (most of their) favorite football team, you better be pretty darn sure you're right, ESPECIALLY when you're saying something bad about them.

I still haven't really decided what I think about the whole Spygate thing. Yeah, the Patriots "cheated". But yet apparently they didn't actually break any rules, and now apparently they're getting off without any punishment. If it works, it works, I guess. And besides, tapes or no tapes, to be able to execute as well as they did is still a credit to their ability and the coaching skills of the Hoodie.

posted by boredom_08 at 9:56 AM CDT on May 14

Today's apology doesn't reveal the source who burned the paper with false information.

I think genuine contrition on the Herald's part requires the name of the source. I don't understand why papers don't do this when they're used as a conduit for lies.

rcade -- fully agreed. The concept of source anonymity and the unwritten rules around it should be revoked when it is found that a source has lied. That it is not so allows a "high ranking Pentagon official," "CIA source with security clearance," "senior White House adviser" and assorted other douchebags and miscreants to lie, and to use the press to spread their lies, with impunity. Would outing liars really have a chilling effect on getting sources to speak off the record? I doubt it. At most, it would keep the liars from commenting off the record, which is a good thing any way you look at it.

posted by holden at 11:09 AM CDT on May 14

The fact that the Herald reported this without first finding further proof of the tape's existence is still inexcusable.

Depends on the source. If their one unnamed source "close to the team during the 2001 season," was actually the janitor's brother...then yes, that would be inexcusable to publish this without following it up. However, if that source was say, an assistant coach or someone in the video department, then I think it's ok for them to publish that info with no other confirmation.

posted by bdaddy at 11:18 AM CDT on May 14

Are you calling Sen. Spector "Comcast"?

posted by rcade at 1:25 PM CDT on May 14

As Will Bunch wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News, "If you simply took Specter at face value, and assumed his passion for grilling the NFL in his official Senate capacity is the passion of a jilted fan, that alone would be an outrageous abuse of his authority. But the truth is much worse, because Specter's interest in this issue dovetails far too closely with those of his two largest contributors, whose employees have given his campaign more than half a million dollars to keep him in office. I believe if there's any Senate hearing involving the NFL and Arlen Specter, it ought to be the Senate Ethics Committee, looking at a potential link to these donors." (Sports Illustrated)

While I agree that the use of anonymous sources, or relying too heavily on one possibly misleading informant (cough cough, Curveball), is one of the serious problems mainstream media in the US needs to wrestle with, there is part of me that feels a little sorry for John Tomase and the Herald. Tomase isn't a hatchet man, he's actually a pretty good reporter. Meanwhile, I don't blame the Herald for running a story potentially harmful to a hometown team on the eve of a big game -- given how much we rely on beat writers and other reporters for our information on our favorite teams, don't we want those reporters to deliver the unvarnished truth, not a team-approved PR edition a la mlb.com? I don't want my local papers to cover up for my favorite teams or take their stories at face value, I want them to investigate and if dirt is being done, expose it. For instance, reporters from the Indy Star should be leading the charge to find out what exactly happened with Marvin Harrison, his Belgian hand-cannon, and Philly malcontents a week or so ago. So I don't hate on the Herald for betraying the Pats with this story, I only hate on them for running a half-reported, bogus "scoop." My beef with them is as an armchair media critic, not a sports fan.

The Herald has admitted its mistake and apologized, and will no doubt by punished by the animosity of the die-hard sports fans that make up a large percentage of its readership. Tomase's name is mud in Boston right now, on a par with Mike Fish and Gregg Easterbrook, if not Walsh himself. It would be ironic if the same Patriots fans who desperately want Spygate to go away persist in rubbing this mistaken story in the face of the Herald for months on end...

posted by Venicemenace at 1:39 PM CDT on May 14

He wears the hoodie to hide the tentacles, THX.

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the Globe today.

posted by lil_brown_bat at 4:31 PM CDT on May 14

Egads, it won't die. Let's post another link about Clemens and another one about Bonds today just to maintain cosmic balance.

That said, this is actually an interesting sports journalism related event. Good for the Herald to apologize in such a large way - as opposed to in a sentence in their "corrections" section.

They should not have published a story on such shoddy evidence regardless of the timing, and the apology doesn't necessarily fix anything, but it was the right thing to do and they deserve some credit for that.

posted by Joey Michaels at 5:03 PM CDT on May 14

Goodell has really done a disservice to the league and the Patriots with his handling of this incident. He has made this seem like a huge cover-up even though the Pats have already been punished. Why request the tapes after you have punished them and not before? Why keep changing the story as to how long the Pats have been doing this taping? Why destroy all the tapes and notes? Why does he keep on giving the impression that no investigation is necessary. The NFL has always been so savvy with its handling of the media and big PR issues (see steroids). It is shocking how badly managed this was.

posted by bperk at 10:57 AM CDT on May 15