It is the offseason so I'm taking the liberty to go a little off-topic and I'm going to comment on Anthony's commentary over at The Daily Norseman. The ESPN / SI / Yahoo / anybody else and their coverage of the Brett Favre saga has progressed PAST ridiculous. Here is a quick recap of the coverage by the main stream media we go to for information...
Rich Schwartz of Yahoo! Sports reported in May that Favre would stay retired -- a report that was fishy at the time and has now been revealed as downright wrong. Shooter reported about a month ago that Favre was preparing to undergo surgery -- that report was directly contradicted less than 24 hours later by Ed Werder, and we still don't really know who was right. In early May, Zulgad and Scoggins reported that Childress had hopped on a flight to Hattiesburg to meet with Favre -- but that never happened. Peter King told us on Memorial Day that the Vikings wanted a decision from Favre before June 1st -- whoops, wrong again. And finally, Werder and Chris Mortensen reported on Monday that a deadline of this week had been imposed on Favre by Childress -- a report Chilly called "not even close."
People are just throwing crap against the wall and just HOPING they are right. And for WHAT? Do they want to be the first to report something accurate? Again, I turn to Anthony...
But really, does it matter who's first to the punch? Do you remember who broke the news of the Jared Allen trade, the Randy Moss trade, the firing of Mike Tice, the hiring of Brad Childress? I sure as hell don't. Would we really prefer a do-whatever-it-takes media climate in which reporters relentlessly push to be the first to break stories, or would we prefer a responsible sports media that values getting it right and building trust with its readers?
Anthony is absolutely right. Nobody cares who was first because even if ESPN reports is first, Yahoo!, CBSSports, Fox Sports and everybody else will also be reporting the same thing within minutes. If the mainstream media wants to hold themselves AS a higher standard than your typical blogger, then they really should hold themselves TO a higher standard in their reporting. This is their full-time job, do it accurately. I fully recognize that mistakes are made here at TDG (typos, lack of research into MLB draft rules, etc), but one should keep in mind that we are lucky to get an hour a day to post something of any substance. These guys have all day, please take the time to give us good information. ESPN is blatantly making up information and others are just plain guessing then masquarading it as fact.
I'm not intending to post on bloggers vs. main stream media. The intent here is to point out the idiocy of the reporting on Farvegeddon. Keep going to The Daily Norseman to get your daily Favre craziness.
- This Bleacher Report report is going down his preseason top 50. He has the Gophers coming in at 39th and talks about the importance of Royston and Carufel at their respective positions.
- SEANTREL HENDERSON NEWS! Notre Dame is not in his top ten which is pretty huge considering all highly ranked players out of Cretin go to Notre Dame. As of right now the key to landing Henderson might be that we have offered his buddy J.D. Pride (who the Gophers have offered).
- SLAM magazine has published their final Fresh 75 list of the year. Royce White ends up 24th and Rodney Williams finished 41st.
- Spring depth chart has been released Syracuse.