On the "Sideline" section of your St. Petersburg Times sports section this morning you will find a piece on Tampa sports radio station WDAE-AM 620 suspending morning show host Dan Sileo. His Clear Channel bosses did so after his on-air comments yesterday about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being in financial trouble because of massive financial losses incurred due to investing with fraudster Bernie Madoff, which the Bucs vehemently denied.
If you click on "The Animal's" web site this morning you'll see the station issuing a retraction for Sileo's remarks.
Sileo said members of the Glazer family (the Buc owners) had lost well over $400 million due to Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
I wrote about this non-story yesterday afternoon, after the St. Pete Times proudly was pumping this report at the top of their web page.
WTSP- Channel 10 also deserves criticism, as I wrote yesterday. The CBS affiliate led off their noon newscast breathlessly reporting the story, that as of now, seems to have come out of Sileo's imagination.
On the Times web page, they originally updated their story with a denial from their spokesman, followed by team co-chairman Joel Glazer blasting the report as completely baseless.
I see the Times' Eric Deggans this morning is also weighing in on the shoddy reporting. Eric mentions the sports blog Deadpin and WFLA 970as having also participated in the free for all.
I'm not sure if Dan Sileo's career here as broadcaster in Florida is in jeopardy at all. He's hardly the first sports show host to float some absurd rumor – but apparently, enough folks in the more established media took it for gospel, without checking any other sources, to report it. This does happen in sports journalism all the time, particularly when it comes to potential trades, for example.
When it comes to politics, I think most media organizations take time to check things out. For example, two weeks ago, respected former USF St. Pete Political Science Professor Daryl Paulson said on a local television show that Congressman Bill Young would not be running for office in 2010. Paulson actually named who would run as a Republican in his stead.
The Times ran an article (never alluding to Paulson)about rumors (which are omnipresent when it comes to Young and retirement) that included a denial from Young's office.
This reporter ran a blog post that did include Paulson's allegation, but featured a denial by Young's office, as well as a comment by the man that he claimed would run in his stead if Young retired. (That man, David Jolly, did confirm to CL he would run if the longtime Congressman stepped down).
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2010.