BadMoFo
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 7,672
- Reaction score
- 3,663
I know several people here have alleged that the Broncos videotaped before. Well, looks like it's not true.
Yahoo! Sports apologizes for story alleging Broncos cheating
By Jeff Legwold, Rocky Mountain News
Originally published 08:44 p.m., March 5, 2008
In the end Broncos coach Mike Shanahan got exactly what he wanted from Internet giant Yahoo.
Yahoo posted a public apology to Shanahan on its website Wednesday for naming Shanahan in a story about cheating in the NFL. A Sept. 13 story had said Shanahan had hired someone to videotape San Diego Chargers practices and that the NFL knew the videotaping had occurred and took no action.
The apology read:
"We apologize for any embarrassment that the Sept. 13, 2007 Yahoo! Sports story 'Ancient Antics' has caused for Mike Shanahan. Yahoo! has retracted the segment of the story that asserted that Mike Shanahan was involved in cheating as the Denver Broncos coach. Yahoo! has stringent editorial standards in place to prevent this type of error, and we regret the lapse in our protocol that allowed this to happen.
Editors at Yahoo said the paragraph of the original story that had included Shanahan had been removed from the website and the archives on Tuesday.
Shanahan's attorney, Harvey Steinberg, said Wednesday night Yahoo had now done enough and Shanahan would take no further action.
"He appreciates the acknowledgement, the retraction and the apology by Yahoo and considers this matter over,'' Steinberg said.
Shanahan, Steinberg, had sent a letter dated Feb. 26 to Yahoo corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., demanding an "immediate'' retraction and apology from Yahoo for the original story.
The letter called the paragraph regarding Shanahan "completely untrue and without foundation.'' The letter also said "Coach Shanahan has never engaged in any such practice, let alone even discussed the possibility of any such activities. As a result, this article is defamatory and libelous.''
The letter also said Shanahan was not contacted to comment on the story before it was published.
Yahoo! Sports removes line in story about alleged Broncos spying
Mar 5, 12:30 am EST
DENVER (AP)—Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday removed a paragraph in a nearly 6-month-old story that alleged secret videotaping by the Denver Broncos after coach Mike Shanahan’s attorney sent a letter to the Internet giant demanding a retraction.
Yahoo! Sports editors also added a note saying the paragraph in the Sept. 13 article did not meet the site’s editorial standards, spokeswoman Nicol Addison said.
The story, written when the videotape cheating scandal involving the New England Patriots dominated the news, had been cited by various media outlets around Denver in recent weeks.
“We took immediate action to eliminate the content from our site as soon as we became aware of this matter,” the editor’s note said.
Without citing sources, the paragraph alleged the San Diego Chargers added security on a hill next to the team’s practice complex because Shanahan hired spies to videotape the Chargers’ practice. The paragraph also said the NFL knew about the alleged taping.
In a letter sent Feb. 26, Shanahan’s attorney Harvey Steinberg called the paragraph “completely untrue and without foundation” and the article “defamatory and libelous.”
After the paragraph was removed, Steinberg said: “I appreciate Yahoo’s acknowledgment of their mistake and I’m glad they took the first step in righting the wrong.”
Greg Aiello, the NFL’s spokesman, also called the article inaccurate.
“We are not aware of any such video and no one in our office has seen the video,” Aiello said in an e-mail.