Do Boston beat writers have a tainted legacy?

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I think we need to discuss the black cloud hanging over the head of Boston beat writers. Although I really admire some of the better players, such as Mike Reiss, and Shalise Manza-Young, unfortunately their accomplishments will forever be tarnished. We can never forget the glory years that they provided us with, but the bottom line is we will never know the extent of their deception and how much of a competitive advantage they had over other beat writers. Would Dan Shaughnessy really be a first ballot Hall of Famer today without the aid of false reporting?

Unfortunately, when John Tomase was caught deceiving the public in 2008, he offered little explanation. It started with a stonewalling and failure to make a public apology or explanation. It was followed-up by a vague apology without actually divulging any real facts. How long had he been cheating for? How many stories had been published without publishing facts? Ultimately, how do we know that Tomase, and the success of other beat writers, was legitimate?

The punishment handed down by watchdog organizations is believed to have used the largest font in sports writing history, and the Herald was fined an Ivy League internship in 2008:

Apology
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

On Feb. 2, 2008, the Boston Herald reported that a member of the New England Patriots [team stats]’ video staff taped the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed.

Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Herald neither possessed nor viewed a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, nor did we speak to anyone who had. We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification.

Apology - BostonHerald.com

Personally, I don't think this explanation is enough. Until the beat writers come clean one day, they will forever be haunted with the "cheater" label.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I felt personally deceived that speculation for months that if no tape existed Tomasse was dead man walking that Tomasse not only wasn't fired - he was actually allowed to enter the good old boy boston sports media network's version of the witness protection program and refuse to participate in any talk radio or televised situations where New England fans would have had the opportunity to endlessly harass him for the actual details of exactly who he talked to and what the Herald knew and not emerge until he could be safely promoted to his dream job covering the Red Sox...where the Herald continued to block his blog comments section along with their patriots bloggers comment sections in order to shelter their sports dept. from facing even verbal repercussions and to stifle their readers expression of their lingering discontent.

But then I've been getting deceived by the sons of Will McDonough for so long I have just come to accept that the majority of them survive if not thrive largely by deception. Hell, when the lone HOF voter in the region got canned by a competitor only to resurface as the dean of Herald sports scribes...

 

[Ron Sellers]

Ice Ice Brady:
:youtheman:


Will McDonough must be rolling over in his grave due to the current state of the Boston sport media in general, and specifically the rapid overall decline of sports journalism at the Globe.

 

[DarrylStingley]

John Tomase is a pariah. He should be hounded and tortured with what he did.

1. He caused a major buzzkill for Pats fans, players and coaches in the days leading up to SB 42.

2. He brought shame to the Patriots.

3. He was reckless in his reporting.

4. Many fans to this day assume the Pats taped a practice.

5. He was driven by the desire to get a scoop; ridiculous.

6. It is quite possible that his story distracted the Pats organization enough to have it contribute to the Pats extremely sub par play in that game. I am not saying that the Giants didn't deserve the win. I am not saying that there were not many other contributors. But it's not a far leap to think that Tomase's madness played some role in the outcome.

Write to this man. Tell him what you think.

[email protected]

 

[Garbanza]

How does Tomasse still have a job? It's bad enough that the plagerizing and hatred-agenda driven Borges, and the Lucchino azz-sniffing Shaughnessy do - but the fact that JT is still employed in a journalistic capacity boggles my mind. There is very little integrity amongst the Boston Sports media. Reiss is the best. Rappaport is pretty good too - I just hope his ever-rising twitter rep doesn't inflate his ego to the point where he thinks he is more important than the story (which so many of them so). SYM seems pretty real and honest. So many of them are just shameless forms of a evil. Lying, pushing their own agenda, more concerned with web hits than facts, egotisical, boorish...on and on. Ugh! They suck!

 

[Sicilian]

To have a just world, the punishment for greed and overambition must be equal to or greater than the reward for getting away with it. Unfortunately, it usually isn't, so there's no reason for anyone to be honest if they're good at being a sleaze. Sports reporting is no different.

 

[DarrylS]

Having grown old with the like of Gammons, Ryan and McDonough find many of the current writers woefully inadequate...

 

[AQPE]

Will McDonough must be rolling over in his grave due to the current state of the Boston sport media in general, and specifically the rapid overall decline of sports journalism at the Globe.

No offense to you Ron, but are you kidding me with this? I take a back seat to noone in my enjoyment of the many many scoops and unique insights that McDonough provided over the years, but journalistic ethics was not his strength. Reporting on a story about which you are personally involved violates the most basic principle of journalism. So does using your column to hype the financial interests of your business partners (cough cough Joe O'Donnell). This happened numerous times over the years with Will, most notably (from my perspective) in his definitive "I was there so I know" article roughly a month after the Kraft-Parcells fiasco (sorry, I don't have time at the moment to go back and get a proper citation for that article, hopefully you all are familiar with it). Again, I loved his reporting acumen, but to me the guy was a real mixed bag, putting it as nicely as I can.

On the more general point raised in the OP, we do ourselves a real disservice hoping for much from the local media covering the Pats. The way the game is played these days does not reward the amount of effort that is needed to research and report in a journalistically valid manner. The need for flashiness and loud voices that consumes even someone I think of as solid like Tom Curran, the banal "contrarianism" of Felger and Borges, that's what gets the market share, evidently. Those of us who would rather deal in the world of facts presented in proper context may be dinosaurs at this point. Fortunately for us, we have forums like this one to counterbalance the local media drivel.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Keep posting AQPE

 

[RobertWeathers]

No offense to you Ron, but are you kidding me with this? I take a back seat to noone in my enjoyment of the many many scoops and unique insights that McDonough provided over the years, but journalistic ethics was not his strength. Reporting on a story about which you are personally involved violates the most basic principle of journalism. So does using your column to hype the financial interests of your business partners (cough cough Joe O'Donnell). This happened numerous times over the years with Will, most notably (from my perspective) in his definitive "I was there so I know" article roughly a month after the Kraft-Parcells fiasco (sorry, I don't have time at the moment to go back and get a proper citation for that article, hopefully you all are familiar with it). Again, I loved his reporting acumen, but to me the guy was a real mixed bag, putting it as nicely as I can.

On the more general point raised in the OP, we do ourselves a real disservice hoping for much from the local media covering the Pats. The way the game is played these days does not reward the amount of effort that is needed to research and report in a journalistically valid manner. The need for flashiness and loud voices that consumes even someone I think of as solid like Tom Curran, the banal "contrarianism" of Felger and Borges, that's what gets the market share, evidently. Those of us who would rather deal in the world of facts presented in proper context may be dinosaurs at this point. Fortunately for us, we have forums like this one to counterbalance the local media drivel.

With regard to journalistic ethics, there is no doubt that Willie walked a blurred line.

But his reporting was pretty damn good and had more meat on it's bones than anything that is regurgitated by the current lot of hacks that claim to be journalists. 90% of these folks are barely above blogger status IMO.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Having grown old with the like of Gammons, Ryan and McDonough find many of the current writers woefully inadequate...

Agree 100%

 

[billdog3484]

i'll never forgive that jerk for coming out with that story days before the super bowl. i felt like he ruined the excitement. forget the fact that it turned out he had nothing, thats a different story. he couldnt wait until after the super bowl, just showing it was all about him not the truth

 

[Michigan Dave]

Self-serving douche worthy of shame and ridicule.

 

[fgssand]

Self-serving douche(S) worthy of shame and ridicule.

'
Fixed your post for you as, sadly, it applies to mostly all of the sportswriters in this town.

My father used to say they write with poison ink in their pens as they seek to embarass, discredit or simply make a mockery of athelete, ownership, management and fan in this town.

They are (with a very few notable exceptions, reiss, ) a winey, pathetic bunch that could do so much more for sports in this town.

 

[RhodyPatriot]

No offense to you Ron, but are you kidding me with this? I take a back seat to noone in my enjoyment of the many many scoops and unique insights that McDonough provided over the years, but journalistic ethics was not his strength. Reporting on a story about which you are personally involved violates the most basic principle of journalism. So does using your column to hype the financial interests of your business partners (cough cough Joe O'Donnell). This happened numerous times over the years with Will, most notably (from my perspective) in his definitive "I was there so I know" article roughly a month after the Kraft-Parcells fiasco (sorry, I don't have time at the moment to go back and get a proper citation for that article, hopefully you all are familiar with it). Again, I loved his reporting acumen, but to me the guy was a real mixed bag, putting it as nicely as I can.

On the more general point raised in the OP, we do ourselves a real disservice hoping for much from the local media covering the Pats. The way the game is played these days does not reward the amount of effort that is needed to research and report in a journalistically valid manner. The need for flashiness and loud voices that consumes even someone I think of as solid like Tom Curran, the banal "contrarianism" of Felger and Borges, that's what gets the market share, evidently. Those of us who would rather deal in the world of facts presented in proper context may be dinosaurs at this point. Fortunately for us, we have forums like this one to counterbalance the local media drivel.

Well said and 100% on the money. Will McDonough was as "compromised" a reporter as they came.

And I also agree that this new media trend, loud = credibility is nonsense.
No one in the local media represents this trend more than Felger.
It's embarrassing how every story draws a breathless look at me response from that element of mediot nation.
Dale Arnold says it best. Guys like Felger are all about having **** measuring contests. It's tedious!

 

[Rob0729]

I know Tomase gets all of the ire for fans for the whole walkthrough, but I think he has unfairly gotten all of the blame. Not to rehash issues and I do believe he deserves a huge part of the blame, but the whole issue was set in motion days before his story.

People seem to forget NY Times sports writer and defacto Arlene Specter press secretary on Spygate affairs. It was his story that introduced Matt Walsh to the world and intimated that he had damaging evidence that would bring down Belichick and the Pats. That was the catalyst of all the events that happened that week and started the unholy alliance between Bishop and Specter where Bishop issued Specter's press releases in forms of actual news stories on the Spygate issue.

People also seem to forget Mike Fish and ESPN.com. He was sitting on a Matt Walsh interview where Walsh claimed he had very damaging evidence vs. the Pats, but refused to say what it was or show it to anyone unless he was paid. ESPN rightly sat on the story because it didn't reach the proper level of journalistic integrity to release since they had no idea what the evidence was or whether it really existed. That all changed after the Times story where ESPN rushed out the story because they wanted to get it out before they were scooped by anyone else throwing journalistic integrity out the window.

It was those two stories that set Tomase's piece in motion. He had a source who told him about the walkthrough (which was an old story to begin with since most of the media and many of the Pats fans already new the rumor and PFT reported it as a rumor back when Spygate orginally broke). Tomase (I am assuming some of this) must have assumed Walsh had the walkthrough tape and incorrectly put two and two together. Now what he did was wrong at a lot of levels, but this story was already a runaway train before Tomase's piece. It just totally derailed and became a disaster after that.

What Tomase's story did really is just give Walsh's false claims of new and damaging evidence credibility and identified the evidence Walsh "had" against Belichick (at least in a lot of people's minds). But the Walsh stuff was already out there and the Pats were already under the microscope.

Again, although I think Tomase deserves his share of the blame, he gets far too much blame for the disaster. I personally blame Greg Bishop, the NY Times, and Arlen Specter for the whole thing more than anyone else for their suspiciously times article. Bishop and the Times get a free pass by Pats' fans where they should get more blame than Tomase and the Herald. Personally, I feel the NY Times' legacy is tainted from Spygate.

 

[seven]

I don't go to the Herald, ever.
Doesn't add up to much, but that is it.
I have no idea why Tomase still has a job in Boston.

I would like the rest of the story, who set him up?
maybe some intrepid journalist could come up with that?
because i believe he was set up.
He bit, the paper bit, we suffered, we still hurt from this.

Tomase and the paper were so deliriously happy they had something, they ran with it, without evidence, the weekend of our Super Bowl.
Our super bowl.
The Boston paper ran with this, the weekend of our super bowl.


It completely drained me, I ended up turning off the TV till game time.
I would bet it had a similar effect on the team. It became more than a mere distraction, and there was of course no defense, what could anyone say?
They became then just battered with questions, accusations. There was an
explosion of hatred for the team, everywhere.


I will never forget it.

Tomase needs to be somewhere else.
It is baffling that he is not. Not from the perspective of fictional "journalistic ethics". There are none. It is get the story, print it. It is even worse today with the net.

But why was there not a lot of pressure to remove the guy?
We cannot do much about the general state of affairs, but there must be some way to collectively remove Tomase to Peoria, or wherever.

The worst to me is the other journalists, saying "he was just doing his job".
His job as a creep? Too many of us have accepted this standard of creepiness.
The biggest creeps get the biggest prize.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

Tomase and the paper were so deliriously happy they had something, they ran with it, without evidence, the weekend of our Super Bowl.
Our super bowl.
The Boston paper ran with this, the weekend of our super bowl.


It completely drained me, I ended up turning off the TV till game time.
I would bet it had a similar effect on the team. It became more than a mere distraction, and there was of course no defense, what could anyone say?
They became then just battered with questions, accusations. There was an
explosion of hatred for the team, everywhere.


I will never forget it.

This. Exactly. And I'll add, especially if you happen to live outside of NE, no one allows you to forget it. Can't tell you how many times I hear things like, "well it was easy for the Pats when they were taping everyone's practices and knew all the plays...". It's one thing to read it in some 'Comments' section on Yahoo or wherever, but when someone says it in person, I still feel as enraged as I did that weekend!

So, in answer to the original question: yes.

 

[satz]

I do not think so!!. come on man compared to say the US media claiming Saddam had wmd every where and it will be found in a day.

 

[satz]

I do not think so!!. come on man compared to say the US media claiming saddam had wmd every where and they will find in a day.

so every thing is relative ,at that time maybe he thought that was correct and went and published. we all do mistakes ask BB about the damn tapes lol. its like who is going to throw the first stone thing.