Monday, April 28, 2008

In journalist math, Doug Smith > Peter Vescey

From the grog:


A work of fiction

Okay, so I don’t know Peter Vescey that well, maybe met him twice in my life and he’s become entirely irrelevant around the NBA, but what he did Sunday was absolutely unconscionable.

The drive-by on Sam Mitchell, you can read it here, was shocking not only because it’s wrong but because a purported responsible journalist cannot fabricate direct quotes and get away with it.

And that’s just what that was, an entire fabrication of a scene that never, ever took place. I spoke to half a dozen people yesterday who would have been in that room and it simply didn’t happen.

It’s funny to me, big shot columnist, who should know better, writes fiction and doesn’t seem to care. If I’m quoting somebody, I know they said the words. If I’m making an assertion like that – as bogus as it was – I’m checking first.

And I think we all know now that Mr. Vescey deals in fantasy rather than fact. And this one instance entirely diminishes every other single word he writes.

He's referring to this tasty tidbit:

Yesterday's La Gazzetta dello Sport claimed Mike D'Antoni could wind up in Toronto with former Suns exec Bryan Colangelo should Phoenix make him the designated scapegoat for its playoff failures and Sam Mitchell be fired by the Raptors. Both men have two years left on their deals. Money owed is a major concern or complication. Once alleged imperfections start to leak out in the local media, which is the case in both circumstances, time is about to expire. The whispering campaign regarding Mitchell is supposedly he's not a hard worker or on top of the league's current events. A few months ago, before the Raptors were to play the Lakers, he addressed the team by telling them, "We'll worry about the guy who got 81 in a second, but first I want to talk about Andrew Bynum and how he killed us last time." A hush engulfed the locker room. "Hey, coach," Chris Bosh interrupted. "Bynum's been out for weeks with an injury."

Petey, Douglas Alexander Merriweather Smith just called you a hack! But seriously... you just made this up. Making things up is for rip-off sports journalism blogs with readerships of 8, not fifth column of enlightenment, the exalted New York Post.

Par example:

Last night, sources report, Peter Vescey was spotted leaving a late night meeting of the Manhattan chapter of the NAMGLA, the National Association for Man/Goat Love Acceptance. When asked to confirm his membership in the group, the New York Post columnist replied "You'll never understand how passionate goat love can be until you've grabbed a doe by the horns until she yelled 'naaaay.'"

See? Fun. But made up.

Remember when Peter Vescey did the halftime show on the NBA on NBC? I don't even think Bill Walton would work with the guy these days and he's fucking nuts.


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