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Flawed media prolongs "Spygate" |
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
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By TERRY NAU Sports editor The NFL’s never-ending “Spygate” story is a tale that can be spun in many directions.
From a national perspective, the question of whether the New England Patriots “cheated” in any way over the past eight seasons has harmed the team’s image. Owner Robert Kraft’s franchise has fallen from the loveable bunch who refused individual attention prior to the 2001 Super Bowl – into a paranoid, Nixon-like operation that used all the modern video technology available to win three Super Bowls in four years.
Around New England, people feel the Patriots have done nothing wrong, or at least done nothing that a lot of other teams around the league haven’t been doing themselves. The Patriots were looking for every edge they could find and if that means advancing their video technology to enhance their pre-game preparation, well, what’s wrong with that? We’re living in an era of heightened technology, on the field and off. If the Patriots were the first to combine cutting-edge technology with old-fashioned preparation techniques, what’s the big deal?
The middle view is that the NFL substantially fined the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick last September when “Spygate” accusations were first made public by the New York Jets’ franchise. The Patriots were caught red-handed filming the other team’s defensive signals – and they paid a serious price. They lost a first-round draft choice and Belichick had to cough up $500,000 in fines out of his own pocket.
This story hasn’t gone away yet because Sen. Arlen Spector (Rep.-Pa.) revisited the case during the recent playoffs, demanding a deeper investigation by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. And so we were treated on Tuesday to the spectacle of Goodell interviewing former Patriots video technician Matt Walsh, who then flew to Washington to meet with Sen. Spector later in the day.
What’s fascinating to me about this whole story is how it has split the ever-growing media industry into two camps. To appreciate this, you have to understand that old-school media procedures -- if applied -- involved reporting this story from an objective standpoint.
But the media world has changed in recent years. Old School is out. New School is in. The modern media take sides to enliven the telling of a story. Objectivity has become boring. It doesn’t sell.
The New York media, of course, has attacked the Patriots from every angle. The saucier tabloids in New York City have called Belichick “BELI-CHEAT” in large headlines on the back page of their sports section.
ESPN.com has allowed Philadelphia-based reporter Sal Palantonio to write a onesided story attacking the Patriots without presenting a counter viewpoint. All over the country, newspaper and website writers and reporters have taken sides instead of trying to get at their version of the truth.
And here in New England, we’ve been treated to the sad sight of a Boston Herald reporter hung out to dry because he wrote a story saying a source had told him that the Patriots had filmed a “walk-through” practice session of the St. Louis Rams prior to the 2001 Super Bowl contest. And that story, thin as it was, got into print because his editors were in a rush to sell newspapers.
That tape does not appear to exist, according to Matt Walsh’s testimony on Tuesday.
The Herald’s story has been fodder for Boston talk-show radio pundits ever since it was first printed. And now that reporter John Tomase appears to be wrong, they’re ready to run the guy out of town. Some of them want the Patriots to sue the Herald for ruining the team’s reputation.
Nobody, least of all me, is going to defend the Herald’s publication of a story that appears to be poorly sourced. I think it’s important to note that the urge to be first with a story in this era of instant media could have pushed the Herald into publishing a story nobody else would run with.
Newspapers should be better than that. And they used to be. But the stakes have changed over the past decade. Larger newspapers are losing readers by the thousands each year. Many of us now turn to the Internet for our immediate news fix. Newspapers are wondering where they fit in this strange new world. Here’s my answer – we should still be the place where readers go to get some perspective on a story. Because perspective is something that talk radio and dot.com sites do not consider important. They just want to be first with something. Shame on the Herald for falling into that camp.
Sadly, there has been very little objective reporting of “Spygate” among New England media outlets. Talk show hosts who have written books on the Patriots always end up supporting the local franchise, even if it did get nailed for breaking NFL rules last September. WEEI radio program directors dare not criticize Belichick because they might lose access to the head coach for his weekly appearance during football season.
Here’s the bottom line: The Patriots broke NFL rules last September and were penalized by the commissioner. The “SpyGate” story has dragged on because Matt Walsh surfaced with hints of illegal activity by the Patriots that he apparently has failed to back up in his meeting with commissioner Goodell. And everyone from a U.S. Senator to radio talking heads down to the average football fan has weighed in on a topic that should have been put to rest last September.
Instead, “SpyGate” has become a typical story of the Internet Age, a tale that is hard to kill because the often-flawed media will not leave it alone. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 17 May 2008 )
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