Today, Bernie Miklasz did for the world of sports media what William Ligue Jr. and his son (the infamous, extremely white trash father and son duo who attacked Kansas City Royals base coach Tom Gamboa) did for Chicago White Sox fans.
This may sound hyperbolic, but when a story becomes that big, it can create an entire script or schema for a subset of people. Miklasz horribly besmirched the name of college basketball journalists everywhere.
Bernie reported that Matt Painter left the Purdue Boilermakers for the Missouri Tigers without any sources or any confirmation. Now that he’s proven to be on the total opposite side of truth, will there be repercussions for him? Where’s his retraction?
Let’s say one of my blogging brethren tried something like this. They’d be crucified and we’d all have to hear for 24 hours just how awful “new media” is and how “bloggers” are ruining the news cycle and reporting rumors instead of news. But because this is a newspaper guy doing it, not to mention one who does a radio show for The Mothership, the Evil Empire of ESPN, nothing will happen.
By Paul M. Banks
Bernie Miklasz is still employed somehow? This isn’t the first time he’s “reported” whatever he likes without substance and yet he’s still somehow a wildly respected sports reporter with almost 17,000 Twitter followers. People have the nerve to say internet media is bad…where’s the warranted critique for the newspapers?
To his credit, Miklasz did apologize on Twitter, with a series of tweets including the last two.
And I know that isn’t good enough for many of you. But my embarrassment is profound.
And
Something changed and I have no idea what it was. Thanks for listening.
But again you can’t “un-ring that bell.” Once you put something out there, you or your employer must be held accountable. If the rest of us have to play by the rules and report facts, not rumors as facts, then you should as well.
You can go on your radio show and back-pedal faster than a meth addict in a spinning class about this, but it doesn’t make it right.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
He does a regular guest spot each week for Chicagoland Sports Radio.com You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank