Entries with the tag: new+york+daily+news

The Best Defense is a Stupid Offense

From John Dellapina’s Blueshirts Blog:

Finally, for all those from other media outlets and newspapers who have sarcastically dismissed our initial web story about Sean Avery’s hospitalization since the Rangers refuted it Wednesday afternoon, I wonder:

Was your initial reaction that the story couldn’t have been correct or did you simply race up to the MSG Training Center to get player reaction? And, did you call the hospital and/or Avery’s representatives to get the real story or did your “reporting” simply consist of taking the team’s word for what happened?

Fortunately, the intrepid men an women of the press who have exposed baseball’s steroid problems didn’t similarly regurgitate what they were told by people who understandably want their businesses viewed as beyond reproach.

Geezus.  My congratulations, Dellapina—for entirely missing the point.

(And more here and here)

Standards for Online Journalism - Sean Avery and The NY Daily News

The reports on Sean Avery’s medical condition this morning started off at a furious pace with words the NY Daily News (reporters John Dellapina and Larry McShane) had to have known would incite a frenzy:

Rangers bad boy Sean Avery, unconscious and not breathing, was rushed to a Manhattan hospital Wednesday morning in cardiac arrest just hours after his team’s playoff loss, sources said.

By 12:30pm Eastern Time, the NY Rangers issued a statement denying these facts, and confirming rumors that were already circulating: that Avery was in fact suffering from a lacerated spleen.  A serious condition, but one that did not involve anything as extreme as Avery not breathing for any period of time. 

By early afternoon, David Shoalts at the Globe & Mail was quoting a NYR spokesman who stated that “[Avery] walked into the hospital and was not on a stretcher.” And Steve Simmons at the Toronto Sun spoke with Avery’s agent, Pat Morris, who says the condition was never life-threatening.

Almost certainly, this was an entirely innocent mistake by the Daily News, but a profitable one for their website, and they’ve not handled the situation very well in general.

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