This morning, our former colleague and current good friend MDS pointed out a curious development at another football news and information web site, NationalFootballPost.com.
Last week, NFP proclaimed that Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford would enter the NFL draft.
Yesterday, Bradford proclaimed that he wouldn’t.
Today, the NFP story is sharing Jimmy Hoffa’s PSL at the Meadowlands.
Will Brinson of FanHouse discusses the situation right here; we spent way too much time writing a way longer post that delves into the Bradford situation, another recent NFP error, and a new claim by Mike Lombardi that ESPN ripped off his Wednesday tidbit that the Cowboys might cut T.O., when in reality ESPN was ripping off its own report on the same story from last week.
Since a lot of you don’t really care about these “inside baseball” aspects of football media, we’ve set the thing up as a separate article that won’t clutter up the Rumor Mill. But we think that every journalist and broadcaster who frequents this site will be interested in taking a closer look at the problems arising from selling rumor as hard news.
NFP COVERS UP BRADFORD BLUNDER?
Posted by Mike Florio on January 15, 2009, 12:24 PM EST
19 Responses to “NFP COVERS UP BRADFORD BLUNDER?”
Seriously? Does it really matter what another site is reporting? Isn’t PFT above that?
Oh yeah, cause this site has never made a mistake like that.
In that article you conclude: “I’m not a trained journalist, but I know that that’s not the way to run a media operation.”
Mike- any media outlet that has something called the “Turd Watch” and has a humorous “Pic of the Day” already has questions of its’ over integrity.
While I find you site entertaining and informative, you often stoop to speculation (clearly labeled though) and outright muckraking. You take journalistic integrity so seriously yet your posts are full of immature jokes, snide comments, base speculation and often make a huge deal out of a mnor point.
Try to keep your prospective in all this….
I am not a trained and educated broadcaster/journalist but I have taken classes focusing around this very issue. What Lombardi is doing is not just bad journalism, but it is tarnishing the image of similar sites/editors. I have never visited the Post, nor do I plan to at this point, but you would think that he might want to check himself before his entire site is deemed ludicrous and untrustworthy. As sites like this and blogs around the country are finally beginning to get a foothold amongst mass media, the last thing we need is someone like Mike pulling this crap.
Isn’t Terry Bradshaw dead? Thought I heard that somewhere too.
The point is that Lombardi made mistakes and just removed them without admitting it or making a clear retraction which is what all media outlets must do if a report turns out to be false or unfounded. This is cowardice in the journalism world.
Kind of dumb. He is not going to improve his draft stock much no matter what he does, but he could always lose a chance to make 30 million by turning it down now. He is a lock to be a top 5 pick. Why risk it for a BCS championship?
Tebow should go back and prove he can throw like Bradford. The high profile college players that are not projected in the top 10, but could be if they wait a year should, but unless you can improve your signing bonus by more than a few mil, you should go pro as soon as you can. It can all disapear any instant, even playing around with the inlaws after eating some mcLunch. He can always pay his tuition with the money, and buy all hte jewlery he wants. A SB ring dwarfs a bcs title ring in status and bling.
That’s why we only look to collegefootballtalk.com for all our news and information…. and we never tire of those shameless plugs for CFT either.
i love how florio keeps trying to perpetuate this pissing match between pft and nfp (and specifically lombardi). lombardi is generally regarded as someone with pretty good credentials since for several years he, you know, worked in the league. it seems that less and less pft has the inside scoop on anything and is simply just a place for critiques of football news stories/espn reports
“daivos says:
January 15th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Seriously? Does it really matter what another site is reporting? Isn’t PFT above that?”
Bravo. That made me laugh out loud.
Non-story.
Enough said.
Lombardi’s as bad at journalism as was in NFL front offices. It wasn’t his only screw-up yesterday.
http://rumorcentral.theobr.com/?p=410
It’s appropriate to publish a retraction or a correction, is it not..?
Rivarly between PFT and NFP building?
@ Florio
“our former colleague and current good friend MDS”
Awwwww
Florio:
Your criticism for Lombardi’s alleged cover-up of the Bradford storyhas no basis whatsoever. The most sensible way to read the Bradford draft story is this: Bradford did plan to come out after the BCS championship–so both Lombardi and his sources are correct; except that Bradford got his azz whooped by Florida, so the sore loser changed his mind. Hey, this happens to every other non-graduating pro-prospects, right? These kids might have made up their mind but changed it when circumstances changed. Sounds pretty normal to me; therefore Lombardi and NFP have nothing to apologize for. And you and other senseless readers made something out of absolutely nothing.
@2rockerglory . . . .
first, they didn’t condition the decision on oklahoma winning or losing.
second, why not acknowledge that bradford had a change of heart instead of pretending that the report never existed?
it’s a matter of basic integrity. and integrity is something that is lost only once.
Florio:
How can NFP’s report condition on the decision if it is very conceivable Bradford himself did not conceive his allegedly prior decision (sorry, I know this is a mouthful) on winning or losing, but later changed his mind about it after the loss to Florida? I am not saying this is what happened but it is a very reasonable way to look at this story. Again, it could very well be that sources very close Bradford tipped off NFP when all along Bradford in his mind was assuming that he was going to win the BCS trophy and prepared his announcement of entering the draft with “I have accomplished everything there is to accomplish at this level” and rode off into the sunset. Well, things did not go according to plan and Bradford probably changed his mind.
Most reporting we read do not condition on anything. For example, lets say you got tipped off by John Herrera and Amy Trask that Tom Cable is definitely Al Davis’ guy for the head coaching position. So you print the story ahead of everyone when nobody could say for sure (though there was speculation, as in the Bradford’s case). Well, lets say Jim Harbaugh just got fired by Stanford tomorrow when Jim’s contract extension never got “finalized” and Stanford just got sick of Jim fishing for potential NFL jobs. Well, Al loves Jim Harbaugh and the old man changed his mind (because he didn’t know Harbaugh would be totally available), and he wants Harbaugh to be the man. In this situation, no reasonable reader should fault and question you nor your credible sources. I know this example is more far-fetched (it appears that Harbaugh will “finalize” his deal and stay at the Farm….for now), but I think you can see my point.
Now I do agree with you that perhaps NFP could just leave their piece in there; getting rid of it just seems weird. Perhaps they shouldn’t have printed the story in the first place just to be on the safe side. I don’t know. But it just seems more far-fetched that people like Lombardi and Brandt would just fabricate the Bradford story just to get more hits, which, in the grander scheme of things, is not the biggest story really. They are professionals and Lombardi, even if he breaks the story, does not really gain any more or less credibility (he is really a football executive rather than a reporter if you know what I mean?)
@2rockerglory . . . .
i never meant to suggest they fabricated the report. i think they were just flat wrong and instead of admitting it they opted to try to cover it up.
if there was an explanation (like “our source was wrong,” which others have used), then they should have provided it. it was a bad move to pretend the report was never made.
basically, they faced a test of character. and they failed.
maybe next time they’ll pass. but it’ll be hard to trust them going forward.