Late last night the iconic St. Louis sports reporter, Bernie Miklasz broke the story that the Rams are to be purchased by a relatively late-comer to the Rams sweepstakes: Illinois businessman Shahid Khan.
Awesome! Big story! …however all was not right. As the racists came out of the woodwork to comment horrible things about the likely new Rams owner on the STLToday.com comments section, a Thursday war of words between the media was brewing.
It all started with an article on Fox2’s website where they credited Post Dispatch competitor Globe Democrat with the scoop:
Well that’s just not cool, and Bernie took to Twitter to slap Fox 2 with a rolled-up newspaper:
“I want to thank Fox 2 in St. Louis for giving credit to a competitor on the Rams’ story — which I broke. Wonderful. And so ethical.” #
Followed up with a quick Twitter jab to the ribs of the Globe Democrat by mocking their earlier scoop that proved to be, well, totally wrong:
“By the way can someone tell me when the Richard Chaifetz press conference is? Thought he was buying the Rams. LOL.” #
This by the way is why we love Bernie.
By Thursday night it had gotten to the point where Globe Democrat sports reporter Rob Rains decided to write a whole article about this deal. In it he defended the Globe Democrat for saying:
Globe-Democrat.com acknowledges that the Post-Dispatch reported the agreement to sell the Rams first on Wednesday night and we congratulate them for breaking the story. Making that acknowledgement, however, does not mean that the other media outlets in town, including Globe-Democrat.com, are going to ignore the story and act like it never happened.
No, it made us, and our NFL writer, Howard Balzer – a veteran of 34 years in the media and one of only 44 media members in the country to serve on the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee – go to work to see if we could get our sources to confirm the story.
That is, in fact, exactly what happened. One of Howard’s sources told him shortly after midnight that he could confirm the story. Howard wrote it, and the Globe-Democrat.com’s story went online about 2 a.m. Our story was based on what our sources told us, and what we found in researching Shahid Khan’s background, not what the Post-Dispatch was reporting. Our story included the price range of the sale, and the fact Khan had some IRS issues in his past.
Ok ok ok. Everyone take a freakin’ breath. First, I don’t think anyone has accused anyone else of “stealing” stories. The problem here was fair attribution. Fox 2 gave the credit to the wrong reporter and we don’t blame Bernie for being pissed after working on a scoop like that for as long as he did.
Oh and Rob can’t take a joke, so he had to reference Bernie swipe:
There were some attempts at humor posted on message boards and twitter throughout the day Thursday referring to a story last week that identified Dr. Richard Chaifetz of Chicago as being a member of a group that was bidding on the Rams. Globe-Democrat.com did not make up that story. We reported what we were told, plain and simple, including from Chaifetz himself.
Ok, cool. You were still wrong though. When I was six I was pretty sure Ninja Turtles were real, and I even had a source, but turns out that was moronic. Note to Globe-Democrat: Please do not source me on your soon to be “Ninja Turtles are Real!” story.
Dear, St. Louis Sports Media:
Chill out. Don’t be dicks. Take a joke. Don’t take yourselves so damn seriously. No one wants to read an article about how you are sad.