In the fluid situation that is the NFL labor mess, mistakes are being made -- including a big one in the ESPN report that we cited just moments ago.
During the 1 p.m. Eastern SportsCenter, ESPN broke in with an on-screen graphic saying, “BREAKING NEWS: Court grants temporary stay of players’ injunction, reinstates NFL lockout.”
With that graphic on the screen, ESPN’s John Clayton reported that “The doors are going to be closing very, very quickly.”
But during the 2 p.m. SportsCenter, ESPN changed its graphic to, “DEVELOPING STORY: Court expected to decide whether to grant temporary stay of players’ injunction, reinstating NFL lockout.”
Clayton also changed his reporting to say that the decision hadn’t come down yet.
“Well, a stay at least is still being decided by the Eighth Circuit Court,” Clayton said. “A decision, according to sources in the clerk’s office, should come down this afternoon.”
My own guess is that someone in ESPN’s newsroom saw the report from Michael Silver of Yahoo that we referenced in our previous item, and that the report was misunderstood: Silver’s report said that the players expect the owners to get the stay, not that the stay had actually been granted.
So we’ll keep our eyes on the latest developments. And we’ll try not to jump the gun.