Links: ESPN has Donnie Walsh’s back?
What if he’s not coming to New York after all?
Late last night, I saw on ESPN’s score-crawl-thingy that the Knicks were hiring Donnie Walsh as their new GM. So I logged onto ESPN.com to see who it was that broke this news. Chris “The Machine” Sheridan? Marc Stein? Henry Abbott?
As it turns out…nobody did. According to ESPN’s story, it just reads “a source told ESPN.”
Hmm…strange, I thought. But everyone seemed to be taking the story as gospel.
This morning I got up and went surfing the net for more info. But according to Yahoo! and the AP, all the info is based on that same ESPN report.
According to Newsday’s Alan Hahn, the reason ESPN’s story apparently wrote itself is because whoever got the news over at ESPN was “an executive-level figure at ESPN, not someone at the reporter level.”
ESPN executives don’t have names?
They obviously don’t have to say where their info came from, but there’s a reason reporters put their names on things that they write. So that when they’re correct, they’ll build trust with their audience. And so that when they’re wrong — like when ESPN’s own Kirk Herbstreit swore Les Miles was leaving LSU for Michigan, which turned out to be wildly incorrect — the reporter can take the blame for passing on wrong information.
But on this story, ESPN is asking us just to believe them because they are what they are.
And that’s not good enough for me.
The old saying is that where there’s smoke there’s fire, and that’s especially true with the New York media, who will jump all over a story like a pack of wild hounds. But on this one, they’re all going with what ESPN reported.
Hmm…
Meanwhile, I just spoke to someone with knowledge about all this mess with the Knicks and Pacers and was told there’s a “very good chance” Walsh won’t come take over the Knicks, and that as of last night Walsh had no idea what he was going to do. Still, today SI.com’s Ian Thomsen is reporting a deal is done. Even though Newsday reported that as of 10 a.m. this morning nothing was done and there was “nothing clear” about Walsh’s future. And the Pacers are saying nothing is done.
But a mysterious source at ESPN is still telling us it’s a done deal.
Choose your own adventure.
For a network so quick to pat themselves on the back when they break any sort of news, I just hope ESPN does the right thing and tells us where the rumor came from, or at the very least who we can blame if the story ends up being wrong.
As ESPN’s own ombudsman wrote just a few months ago after the Herbstreit/Les Miles debacle…
All we know for sure is that ESPN’s reputation as a reliable source of “scoops” has taken another blow. When viewers respond to the phrase “a source has told ESPN” with a “we’ll see” attitude, as many who write me say they now do, it undermines the efforts of ESPN’s entire staff of producers, editors and reporters.
Hey, at least they’re learning from their mistakes.
Or not.
We’ll see…
• Chris Sheridan gets the Line Of The Day for this sentence in his story about all this…
“In a world where illogic trumps logic every time Dolan needs to make a decision, it would make perfect sense — in a Dolanian way — for Walsh and Thomas to be reunited in New York and to pledge to work together.”
Lyrical and funny. Nice.
• Khalid is being conspicuously quiet about his Sixers storming through the NBA right now. If my Hawks had finally moved over .500 and won 8 of their last 10, I’d hire a plane to fly a banner over Manhattan to make sure every knew about it.
I just think it’s especially funny that the Sixers fired Billy King and immediately started winning games without making any other major moves.
Khalid swears he’s going to break his silence with a blog post. We’ll see…
• A few other cool links. This is what happens when you strap a camera onto an elephant.
• You guys better not cop an atitod with me. For reel, sun.
• This isn’t good. I’ve flown a lot, but I’ve never been on a flight where part of the wing broke off and hit a window of the plane.
• Finally, if you’re over in Spain, keep an eye out for this Ricky Rubio special airing on Canal+’s Spanish-language channel. They sent a camera crew here to the SLAM Dome a few weeks ago and interviewed me for the show. That’s right, SLAM is on “Informe Robinson” this week! Si!
29 Responses to “Links: ESPN has Donnie Walsh’s back?”
Mar.25 at 3:30 pm
Russ Bengtson says:
When has ESPN (or any other outlet) ever been reliable? I love curmudgeonly columnists like Sam Smith and Peter Vescey, but they’re wrong way more than they’re right. I don’t believe ANY rumors until the press conference.
Mar.25 at 3:37 pm
Ryan Jones says:
Give ‘em a break, Lang. Just yesterday, Simmons admittedly that he’d erroneously reported hating OJ Mayo last year. Turns out he’s totally cool with him.
Mar.25 at 3:37 pm
Ryan Jones says:
*admitted
Mar.25 at 3:38 pm
TADOne says:
I wonder what exactly an ESPN executive does?
Mar.25 at 3:41 pm
H to the izzo says:
Ryan Jones is not a big fan of Bill Simmons.
Mar.25 at 4:00 pm
Jack says:
Where’s all this “Mark Jackson may coach Knicks” coming from?? Same ESPN source based only on the fact that Jackson played on the Pacers while this dude was the GM? It
Mar.25 at 4:01 pm
Sam Rubenstein says:
another funny espn rumor gone wrong was that they messed up the Bill Parcells going to Atlanta thing… while he was an employee of espn.
Mar.25 at 4:12 pm
Ryan Jones says:
Nice call, Sam. With that precedent set, I think Bobby Knight should claim that the network misreported his prediction of Pitt winning the tourney. You know he totally meant UNC.
Mar.25 at 4:13 pm
Lang Whitaker says:
And that it was unlikely Michael Vick was going to be indicted.
Mar.25 at 4:37 pm
Russ Bengtson says:
If they made Bobby Knight a SportsCenter anchor I might consider watching again.
Mar.25 at 4:59 pm
Ryan Jones says:
espn just reported that Bob Knight is wearing a sweater vest. Bullsh*t. I saw the f*cking sleeves! How do they not catch this stuff?
Mar.25 at 5:11 pm
Tommy Patron says:
It would be difficult for ESPN to suck any harder. I ONLY watch ESPN if there is a critical game I can’t get any other way. Unfortunately, they have the ponderous over-pontificator Mike Tirico holding Hubie Brown hostage.
Mar.25 at 5:43 pm
Captain America says:
ESPN is a target rich environment. Certain reporters are vastly better than others.
Mar.25 at 5:44 pm
Captain America says:
Bobby Knight with kick your azz if you don’t watch him, pay attention!
Mar.25 at 6:00 pm
adams says:
Regarding journalism ethics and proper conduct, how do you justify accepting gifts and invitations from shoe companies like you guys regularly do? “Everybody does it” is not really a good enough answer for me.
Mar.25 at 6:11 pm
Justin Adler says:
I thought espn’s only purpose was to debut Jay-Z music videos
Mar.25 at 6:45 pm
Joel O's says:
I think Khalid’s trying not to jinx the Sixers. Truth be told they’re playing really, really well for a team with as many flaws as they’ve got (eg. shooting guards who can’t shoot). Good for sixers fans though. The last time Philly put together a winner it was also a team of misfits plus one star playing their butts off every night…
Mar.25 at 6:50 pm
Joel O's says:
What do you guys think Walsh will do for the Knicks? If Thomas still stays, won’t the team stay dysfunctional as ever? I know the Pacers have been really respectable and at some times great, even, over the past 2 decades up until the silly Detroit brawl happened… but I really wonder what Walsh can do after so much negative momentum for the Knicks. He’ll have to revamp the team, make a serious effort to get rid of bad contracts and bad attitudes in order to regain respectability.
Mar.25 at 8:14 pm
albie1kenobi says:
i wonder if the woman laughed when she saw the “threatening” notes. it’s kinda tough to be a hardass when you have to explain your threats.
also Lang, did you get interview in Spanish?
Mar.25 at 8:24 pm
THE Mutha Freaking ALLRIGHTS says:
I wonder if Mitch Albom has any insight into Donnie’s future?
Mar.25 at 8:24 pm
John says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB1jNJN81zE
Mar.26 at 12:25 am
Rubens says:
so izzo is that a report? espn style?
Mar.26 at 2:40 am
Russ Bengtson says:
The problem is a combination of two things–too many outlets, and no accountability. In this day and age it’s better to be first and wrong than late and right.
Mar.26 at 9:14 am
Elyse says:
I feel like Ric Bucher is the king of misreporting. Kobe will never play in a laker uniform again?
Mar.26 at 10:05 am
Ryan Jones says:
adams, when have you ever heard anyone at Slam claim to be ethical or proper? I’m wearing some free Rbks as I type this, you big dummy.
Mar.26 at 10:06 am
Ryan Jones says:
And please, let me know if that’s a good enough answer for you. If it’s not, I’ll totally send my closets full of sneakers back to Oregon. Honest.
Mar.26 at 10:25 am
Ryan Jones says:
Wow. I totally just sounded like Russ right there.
Mar.26 at 2:57 pm
SLAM ONLINE | » Links: Wait, what happened to Donnie Walsh? says:
[…] You guys already know about that, right? After all, ESPN had it on their scorecrawl thing, had it on “SportsCenter,” ESPN News, gave it the full multi-platform treatment. And I even wrote about it yesterday. […]
Mar.26 at 8:47 pm
Eazy-Yi says:
Oh?