Can you blame fans for being so hostile towards Tomase? Everytime I see anything associated with the Herald, I remember what Tomase did. I avoid them at all costs. Unfortunately that Super Bowl and Tomase's BS report will forever be linked. We fans rely on the reporters who cover the team to give us valid and "factual" information. Is that to much for a fan to ask?
No, I understand that people were angry about the story. I don't expect them to forget it. I know I was mad as hell - not so much at the time it was published (hey, it could have been true, after all), but certainly a few months later when it was all proven to be BS. Especially when you consider (as you pointed out) that Herald management, who clearly drove a ill-sourced story to the front page to cash in on the Pats success and visibility while the whole world watched, hid behind their sacrificial lamb as if the idea for the story was his and his alone. They're punks. They always have been.
No, expecting valid and factual information from reporters should not be too much to ask. but I would argue that it
is naive in this day and age. We do so at our peril, especially when we look to a failing enterprise like the Herald. They're clearly desperate. Still, there's a few people out there that have demonstrated they can be trusted - Mike, Gasper, SMY, Doug Flynn, our own Chris Price, Karen Guregian, others - but in my life as a Pats fan, folks like this have been the exception and not the rule.
I understand people were angry but I really believe its time for everyone to move on. This is the best time of year for me, with football back and the Pats back at it, and I don't want to be stomping around pissed off over something that should be in our rear view by now.
We didn't come to football and the Pats because of any reporters, we came because we loved the game and the team. Yet when I see the comments section of any Tomase article, I have to wonder what it is that
those people love. I think they love having something to be outraged and indignant about, far more than they love the team they purport to defend.