You should go say this to KFP's face rather than from the internet behind the safety of a screen name.Not even close to angry. Just think it's cowardly to say something on the internet from the safety of a screen name. Say it to their face FIRST. Then you can say it as much as you want. If it is something you won't say to their face, then STFU. It's a simple concept. I've lost a lot of family members to cancer. Including my father. There is just no need to say shit like that. None. Just ignore someone if you don't like them.
Eh, tweets can just get deleted.I'm not trying to stop you from doing anything. Go for it. Until you get your moment to look him in the eye and really put him in his place, tweet a fuck you and die at him. Assuming the cancer hasn't seriously impaired his ability to see, that tweet will probably ruin his day.
If you're going to take 7 1/2 months to formulate a response to someone's post, one would hope it would be worth waiting for.This is uncalled for and way over the line. You don't have to like him. You don't have to care. Doesn't matter who you consider "better" people. Just ignore him. Fuck him? Seriously? Go say this to his face. Talking shit on the internet hiding behind a screen name or over the phone when you don't have the balls to do it face to face is pussy. If unfortunately he succumbs to this disease, you are willing to go to the funeral and say these words to his familys' face as well right?
I spent way too much time last night wondering how you would respond. This is pretty good.Give me your phone number. I'll call you and tell you to die right now.
Aww, you're such a charmer.Actually I prefer the corner your mother and wife frequent.
Not even close to angry. Just think it's cowardly to say something on the internet from the safety of a screen name. Say it to their face FIRST. Then you can say it as much as you want. If it is something you won't say to their face, then STFU. It's a simple concept. I've lost a lot of family members to cancer. Including my father. There is just no need to say shit like that. None. Just ignore someone if you don't like them.
I've lurked on SoSH almost every day for thirteen years and this is the funniest fucking thing I've ever read here. My toddler was puzzled as to why daddy was laughing like a maniac at his phone. I explained but he didn't quite grasp it so I'll try again when he's four."Say it to his face, don't hide behind a computer!!!"
Shortly thereafter makes unfunny mother insult using the computer.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe your father just isn't returning your calls? You sound unsufferable. I wouldn't blame him.
Oh...and fuck Mort.
The 'like' feature was made for comments like this. Bravo BBNYYF.Did it ever occur to you that maybe your father just isn't returning your calls? You sound unsufferable. I wouldn't blame him.
It eventually spawned banned's response, so I'd say well worth it.If you're going to take 7 1/2 months to formulate a response to someone's post, one would hope it would be worth waiting for.
He should do a parody of that Gatorade commercial with him crying and reading Peyton's letter, but with him sitting next to his wife reading mean tweets.Disingenuous journalist publishes false information that he refuses to clarify and is sad because he's called out for it. Film at 11.
He can but he won't.Mort can apologize for his error without outing his source.
And of course, he adopts the lazy trope of associating an entire fan base with its most loathsome elements, which frankly bothers me much more than him clinging to his discredited report.
I completely disagree. If he outs his source, he can take a stand that he will no longer be used by league or team sources to smear opponents and otherwise settle all family debts. A man with integrity would say, No I will not be used as a tool to settle petty disputes.He can't 'out' his source or his career is over- no one would ever talk to him again, on or off the record.
I completely disagree. If he outs his source, he can take a stand that he will no longer be used by league or team sources to smear opponents and otherwise settle all family debts. A man with integrity would say, No I will not be used as a tool to settle petty disputes.
This is correct.He can't 'out' his source or his career is over- no one would ever talk to him again, on or off the record.
This is, unfortunately, not how journalism works.I completely disagree. If he outs his source, he can take a stand that he will no longer be used by league or team sources to smear opponents and otherwise settle all family debts. A man with integrity would say, No I will not be used as a tool to settle petty disputes.
Which is why real journalism is dead as we know it. Mort only cares about access, not about truth or integrity in his reporting. If he has to be the league's cabana boy once in a while in their continuing efforts to smear and attack the most successful franchise in modern league history, he figures it's a small price to pay.This is, unfortunately, not how journalism works.
While this may be correct for the broader profession, it doesn't apply to Mort, who has never practiced journalism in his life.This is, unfortunately, not how journalism works.
Hey, I've been making the case around here that we should remember these guys care about access and clicks not truth since Theo walked out in the gorilla suit. I wish they were something else, but hoping for an old-line guy like Mort to grow a conscience sadly isn't going to happen.Which is why real journalism is dead as we know it. Mort only cares about access, not about truth or integrity in his reporting. If he has to be the league's cabana boy once in a while in their continuing efforts to smear and attack the most successful franchise in modern league history, he figures it's a small price to pay.
Access is seriously overrated. When was the last time Mort or Peter Fucking King used their unprecedented access to actually tell us something new and interesting? Deadspin crushes the shit out of those guys in terms of info and reporting every day. Have Mort and King done any work on pushing the league on its shabby concussion protocols? On lowering PED use? On getting the players some mental health help? Of course not, the only thing they've done with this access is to parrot Herr Goodell's increasingly laughable assertions that everything's hunky-fucking-dory over in the NFL offices. Roger says jump, Mort says "How high?" Peter King says "Jump? I haven't seen my feet in years!"
Burn the whole thing down.
I hear what you're saying and that would be a ballsy gesture for sure.I completely disagree. If he outs his source, he can take a stand that he will no longer be used by league or team sources to smear opponents and otherwise settle all family debts. A man with integrity would say, No I will not be used as a tool to settle petty disputes.
That's not right and it's unfair. He was a real sports reporter for the Atlanta J-C and has the awards to prove it. He's broken as many NFL exclusives stories as anyone in journalism. He's not a hack like Brian Windhorst or some made up TV talking head. He's done lots of actual reporting for a long time. That's why this Tweet kills most of the rep that he built over his decades long career. He looks like a stooge or company man now. Was not always the case at all.While this may be correct for the broader profession, it doesn't apply to Mort, who has never practiced journalism in his life.
With all due respect, I disagree.That's not right and it's unfair. He was a real sports reporter for the Atlanta J-C and has the awards to prove it. He's broken as many NFL exclusives stories as anyone in journalism. He's not a hack like Brian Windhorst or some made up TV talking head. He's done lots of actual reporting for a long time. That's why this Tweet kills most of the rep that he built over his decades long career. He looks like a stooge or company man now. Was not always the case at all.
You're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't feel like defending the guy but multiple decades of good work should gain you something. He did make a mistake and he refuses to correct it or apologize for it. That's on him and will always be but you have no idea of what actually happened leading up to that Tweet. I'd love to hear the story one day but we're just guessing. Also, many reporters get stuff wrong all the time and rarely issue any apologies for it. The most common apologies or retractions on the kind of scale we're looking for are usually forced by legal actions or threat of legal actions.With all due respect, I disagree.
A reporter who comes into potentially explosive information doesn't just rush off and post it on Twitter. He (or she) looks for independant conformation of the veracity of their source. Then he tries to get a second source. Then he weighs the importance of the information against the damage that could be caused by publishing incorrect information. Perhaps he even discusses it with his editor to make sure that there is nothing that he is missing.
By contrast, Mort ran to Twitter and blasted out false information.
But let's ignore all that and focus for a minute on how a real reporter deals with making a mistake. Once he realizes that he is wrong - that he has been used in order to advance an agenda - he goes public. Not necessarily with the source, but with general information relating to how and why he believed at the time that the information was true, and why he has come to doubt the accuracy of the information. And he issues an apology.
Whatever he may have been 30 years ago, Mort ceased being that decades before he decided to act like a hack and do the bidding of an NFL league source with an agenda. He deserves his fate.
I think he may have been a real journalist at some point, but he hasn't been one for a bunch of years now---he is and has been a stooge and a company man for, at least, the last decade. What's a 'real reporting' story he has had in that timeframe?That's not right and it's unfair. He was a real sports reporter for the Atlanta J-C and has the awards to prove it. He's broken as many NFL exclusives stories as anyone in journalism. He's not a hack like Brian Windhorst or some made up TV talking head. He's done lots of actual reporting for a long time. That's why this Tweet kills most of the rep that he built over his decades long career. He looks like a stooge or company man now. Was not always the case at all.
Is there an example where a journalist went to jail to protect a source who lied?People have gone to jail for several decades to protect their sources so I don't think that is why good journalism is dead.
What I hate is that ESPN, Mort, Exponent, Goodell and the NFL are trying cover up their mistakes by saying that the only ones who think they did anything wrong are mean band wagon fans of the cheating Patriots who say mean things to people with cancer and no one in the media is saying 'well you spread and perpetuated dishonest information.'Everybody on twitter that has any level of fame has mean stuff and death threats sent to them. I bet Mickey Mouse and Skittles have death threats on there. Anonymous internet posters are 90+ % normal people, a few percent overactive attention seeking assholes.
Speaking of loading a post with unfounded assumptions ....You're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't feel like defending the guy but multiple decades of good work should gain you something. He did make a mistake and he refuses to correct it or apologize for it. That's on him and will always be but you have no idea of what actually happened leading up to that Tweet. I'd love to hear the story one day but we're just guessing. Also, many reporters get stuff wrong all the time and rarely issue any apologies for it. The most common apologies or retractions on the kind of scale we're looking for are usually forced by legal actions or threat of legal actions.
[Mort's defense on LeBetard's show] But that’s only partially accurate. From that point forward, Mortensen and ESPN were indeed careful to use the phrase "significantly underinflated" and not reference the original report of the balls being underinflated by 2 PSI each. But the original tweet and story that contained that reference remained in public view, without any clarification
http://dynamic.espn.go.com/blog/ombudsman/archive?month=march-2016To those looking for a smoking gun around some kind of ESPN-NFL collaboration in impugning the Patriots, I don’t have it. But that doesn’t mean you’re crazy for wondering whether something was afoot. The sources of Mortensen’s story were inside the NFL, and the league never made any attempt to refute the incorrect reference to 2 PSI in that story.
My understanding is that the cancer has been edited out of his system, so we're good here.I was as pissed as anyone about deflategate, but is it maybe time to get over it? Or at least stop talking about it in a thread about the guy having cancer?
I'm sure there is. But since these people didn't turn over their sources by the very nature of being jailed, we have no idea of knowing whether they were lied to or not. So it's a somewhat disingenuous premise to start from.Is there an example where a journalist went to jail to protect a source who lied?
You're approaching Alex Jones levels at some points there.Speaking of loading a post with unfounded assumptions ....
Look, there a few key differences between Mort's tweet and the contention that he is a journalist:
Comparing this to reporters who "get stuff wrong all the time and rarely issue apologies" completely misses the point. This wasn't about an inconsequential mistake, it was the core of the issue. By leaving his tweet out there for months while the NFL imposed a media blackout on the topic, his false tweet became the sole reporting on the subject. He literally could not have made a mistake that was more consequential.
- We know that either Mort was manipulated by his source to get incorrect information out to the public or that Mort made it up. I'm being charitable, so I'll go with the former.
- We know that Mort figured this out when the Wells Report was published, because we all did at that point.
- Mort has never acknowledged either of these two points. Instead, he eventually deleted his tweet and issued a mealy-mouthed explanation that essentially claimed that he was right, just not precise. Which is not how a journalist handles being used to disseminate false information.
With that as content, I cannot come up with a single comparison to Mort's behavior here. Once the truth was revealed, both Mort and ESPN knew that he had been manipulated to drive a result. Unsurprisingly, they decided to protect the business relationship rather than follow journalistic ethics, which demanded a public apology/retraction.
Based on this, I can only conclude that either (1) his tweet isn't considered an act of journalism by ESPN (2) sports reporting isn't held to traditional standards of journalism, or (3) both.
We're all entitled to our opinions, so your thoughts on Mort are fine. But I come down definitively on the side of "fuck that hack, I'm not buying his 'journalism' defense because he's a mouthpiece and nothing more."
I get that he's never going to out his source. That doesn't make him a journalist.
Edit: And the more I think about it, the more I am angered by his weep-fest about the meanie Pats fans. (Which does not include me, FWIW.). His career should be have been ended by this.
Good that the cancer is gone, but maybe we should change the title since this thread is no longer about that, if it ever really was?My understanding is that the cancer has been edited out of his system, so we're good here.
And for the record, we're not really talking about deflategate, which I agree is beyond boring at this point. This discussion is about the responsibilities of a sports reporter to be accurate and adhere to the norms of his (theoretical) profession.
My last post on this subject will be to caution you to dispense with the ad hominems.You're approaching Alex Jones levels at some points there.
I think it's fair to say that he put out information from people that he trusted previously and got burned. His real sin isn't so much that incorrect Tweet (although that turned out to shape the narrative quite a bit), it's not going back to get to the full story and set things straight. My guess is that his sources in the league clammed up and told him to wait for the Wells Report which ultimately (although fraudulently) vindicated his position. In order to fix his Tweet he would have to give up his sources, tear down the Wells Report and burn every bridge he has with the league officials. He's not going to do those things and as a consequence that has destroyed his reputation forever. You'll just have to live with the solace that his prestige within (and without) the industry has been permanently shattered.
No one hated that Tweet or the league's silence more than me, go back and read my posts in the Benghazi thread, I was furious. But he's not part of a conspiracy, he's a reporter who got burned. It happens.
I'm doing none of those things. Take a deep breath.My last post on this subject will be to caution you to dispense with the ad hominems.
As I pointed out, it's fine to disagree and have a vigorous discussion. Telling me that I am turning into Alex Jones is not having a vigorous discussion about our difference of opinion. It's you trying to marginalize me, and I do not appreciate it.
Knock it off.
Oh, how to tiptoe around this... let's see if I can.Once the truth was revealed, both Mort and ESPN knew that he had been manipulated to drive a result. Unsurprisingly, they decided to protect the business relationship rather than follow journalistic ethics, which demanded a public apology/retraction.
I don't think you understand what a false premise is.I'm doing none of those things. Take a deep breath.
You wrote that he may have made stuff up or is not a journalist. Those are both false premises although I do agree with some of your conclusions.