Little-Acorn
12-14-2007, 03:54 PM
Sounds like some broadcast station found a "list" of the people using steroids inbaseball, and didn't check very hard to see if it was legitimate before they broadcast it.
Oops.
How long before the non-users they publicly accused of using steroids, sue them?
Sounds sort of like the incident where disgraced broadcaster Dan Rather got some faked memos from some Bush-hater, pretending President Bush hadn't completed his ROTC committments thirty years ago. Rather broadcast them without a second thought, even though many people were able to almost instantly prove them counterfeit.
Only two differences: (a) Rather could be pretty sure the President wouldn't bother to sue him for his defamation. (b) the steroids user list published by WNBC, got at least some of the info right.
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http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1214071wnbc1.html
WNBC's Bogus Steroids Scoop
Pujols, Nomar, Varitek on phony Mitchell list published by station
DECEMBER 14--Shortly after ESPN broke the news yesterday that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte would be nailed in the Mitchell Report, WNBC-TV, the NBC affiliate in New York, blew the story wide open. "Newschannel 4's Jonathan Dienst has obtained the expected list of current and former major league players linked to steroids, according to George Mitchell's investigation," reported the station's web site at 11:23 AM.
The WNBC story then unspooled a list of 75 purported juicers, including Albert Pujols, Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek, Nomar Garciaparra, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, Milton Bradley, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Trot Nixon, Mike Cameron, Brady Anderson, Albert Belle, Kyle Farnsworth, and Wally Joyner.
The WNBC exclusive, which is reprinted below, was posted seven minutes after an identical list of names was published by the sports blog Deadspin, which reported that it had been forwarded the names by "about 25 different people" during the preceding hour. The list, which was whipping around via e-mail, "could very likely be one of those Web urban legends that somehow got around," Deadspin cautioned.
WNBC, though, showed no such reserve. The station reported that it had received the list from "two separate sources" (which was still 23 "sources" fewer than Deadspin). But after WNBC posted the list, baseball officials began refuting the story, with the station reporting that Major League Baseball brass said there were "several discrepancies between the list posted and Mitchell's list."
As it turned out, it was several dozen "discrepancies," with nearly half the names in WNBC's story not appearing in Mitchell's report. In fact, every name above--from Pujols to Joyner--can not be found in the Mitchell Report. The list was eventually yanked from the WNBC web site out of "an abundance of caution," the station reported in an updated story.
The station has yet to retract (or apologize for) its original reporting.
Oops.
How long before the non-users they publicly accused of using steroids, sue them?
Sounds sort of like the incident where disgraced broadcaster Dan Rather got some faked memos from some Bush-hater, pretending President Bush hadn't completed his ROTC committments thirty years ago. Rather broadcast them without a second thought, even though many people were able to almost instantly prove them counterfeit.
Only two differences: (a) Rather could be pretty sure the President wouldn't bother to sue him for his defamation. (b) the steroids user list published by WNBC, got at least some of the info right.
-----------------------------
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1214071wnbc1.html
WNBC's Bogus Steroids Scoop
Pujols, Nomar, Varitek on phony Mitchell list published by station
DECEMBER 14--Shortly after ESPN broke the news yesterday that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte would be nailed in the Mitchell Report, WNBC-TV, the NBC affiliate in New York, blew the story wide open. "Newschannel 4's Jonathan Dienst has obtained the expected list of current and former major league players linked to steroids, according to George Mitchell's investigation," reported the station's web site at 11:23 AM.
The WNBC story then unspooled a list of 75 purported juicers, including Albert Pujols, Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek, Nomar Garciaparra, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, Milton Bradley, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Trot Nixon, Mike Cameron, Brady Anderson, Albert Belle, Kyle Farnsworth, and Wally Joyner.
The WNBC exclusive, which is reprinted below, was posted seven minutes after an identical list of names was published by the sports blog Deadspin, which reported that it had been forwarded the names by "about 25 different people" during the preceding hour. The list, which was whipping around via e-mail, "could very likely be one of those Web urban legends that somehow got around," Deadspin cautioned.
WNBC, though, showed no such reserve. The station reported that it had received the list from "two separate sources" (which was still 23 "sources" fewer than Deadspin). But after WNBC posted the list, baseball officials began refuting the story, with the station reporting that Major League Baseball brass said there were "several discrepancies between the list posted and Mitchell's list."
As it turned out, it was several dozen "discrepancies," with nearly half the names in WNBC's story not appearing in Mitchell's report. In fact, every name above--from Pujols to Joyner--can not be found in the Mitchell Report. The list was eventually yanked from the WNBC web site out of "an abundance of caution," the station reported in an updated story.
The station has yet to retract (or apologize for) its original reporting.