Guest Column: Why Does ESPN Refuse To Call Out The “Mort Is Full Of Crap Report?”
By “Jason From Indiana”
Editor’s Note: “Jason from Indiana” has made several appearances on Radio J-Dub, and we have added him to the contributing staff here at Dubsism. This decision was made as Jason will be our resident expert on the shenanigans of the main stream sports media.
Jason listens to just about every major sports podcast out there, and his main claim to fame is that he has been Twitter-blocked by almost everybody at ESPN.
Yes, I know everyone has “Deflate-gate” fatigue, but listen, it’s not going away. I’ve been yelling this for months, and thanks to this opportunity from Dubsism, I’m going to take up this cause since none of the gasbags at the ESPN seem to want to do it. What better time to do it than now that we are waiting to get results from this the federal court hearing?
Mortensen, shown here demonstrating the gap between reality and his report.
I’ve said all along that the original report by ESPN’s Chris Mortensen after the AFC Championship game last year was the lit cigarette that started this dumpster fire. He, of course, is the one who reported that 11 of 12 footballs used by the Patriots were under inflated by 2 pounds, and that none of the Colts balls were under the legal limit of 12.5 psi. Well, not only did that turn out to be completely false, but because he stuck to this story as long as he did, it led us to the witch-hunt that has the NFL headed to federal court with arguably it’s biggest star over some serious bullshit.
Of course, when he got got balls-deep in hot water for cancelling a radio interview with Boston-area sports radio station WEEI, that’s when he finally admitted he could have “vetted this story better.”
Does anybody really wonder why he bailed on the Boston radio interview? He knew he was going to get carved up worse than a ham at a Sunday brunch buffet.
Mort did come out of hiding to appear on “The Dan LeBatard Show,” another ESPN-owned outlet where he was pretty sure he get friendly treatmentwould property by the way, on Monday to discuss this. If you heard it, you’d understand why he cancelled on WEEI. If you didn’t, here’s a summary. Bumble, stumble, blame my source… Bumble, stumble, don’t blame me. Rinse, lather, repeat.” It’s like he was doing his best “Nathan Thurm” impression.
That makes it sound like this was a minor mistake. Right. Mort’s original story was about as accurate as Stevie Wonder at a shooting range.
What’s even better is that Mort felt the need to delete his original Twitter post about this. So, why did he wait six months to do it? Because that post is the “smoking gun” in all of this. His actual tweet reads “NFL has found that 11 of the Patriots footballs used in Sunday’s AFC title game were under-inflated by 2lbs each per league source.” This was tweeted on January 21st, and was deleted just a few days ago.
Part of the problem here is Mort’s so-called “sources.” Those of us who aren’t sheep and don’t blindly believe everything we see and hear, especially when it’s coming from the World Wide Bottom Feeder (as ESPN is known around the halls of Dubsism) call it, aren’t buying any of Mortensen’s refusal to take ownership of what he did.
I’ve heard the argument that journalists shouldn’t give up their sources and I know they sometimes get bad information. I get that. But just parroting anything anybody tells you is not journalism. I realize that reporters have to get their information from somewhere, but they also have a responsibility to check the information out. Is anybody old enough to remember the movie “All the President’s Men?” The reporters in that movie, Woodward and Bernstein, had to have 2 sources on everything. and they had to double check. And triple check. And double-check the triple-check. And they still had to fly that past an editor who sole job was to keep shit like this “Mort is full of crap report” from happening. Yes, I get this doesn’t rise to the level of unseating a corrupt president, but you can’t tell me this doesn’t feel bigger than Watergate just by the way it’s been reported.
Now look, if Mort had just come out and said “Hey I got some bad information,” I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem. When asked by LeBatard about the tweet, Mort’s response was “I didn’t correct it on Twitter, which was a mistake. Twitter, I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Really? Twitter has been around since 2006. And while I, myself, freely admit I don’t exactly know all there is to know about Twitter, deleting a tweet isn’t rocket science. But even if I give Mort the benefit of the doubt, you’re telling me there’s no one at ESPN who could have helped him out? Why would they want to leave that thing out there if it was false? I mean since when has a small thing like the truth been allowed to get in the way in Bristol?
That’s why it may not be fair to lay the blame at Mort’s feet exclusively. After all, the World Wide Bottom Feeder is in bed with the NFL. And I get it. ESPN is paying the NFL $1.9 billion a year to televise Monday Night Football. While it will be said, many have speculated that Keith Olberman’s contract was not renewed due to his continual slamming of “Fidel” Goodell, mostly stemming from the botched Ray Rice case.
Hmmm…A botched case for Goodell? The Hell you say… That’s why they went went wall-to-wall with this nonsense for weeks.
But my noticing of Mort’s challenges with the truth go way back, which is why I don’t get this bunk about people defending him as a “respected journalist.”
There was the time he reported that the Indianapolis Colts would be moving to Los Angeles. Oh yeah, except for that little thing called Lucas Oil Stadium.
There was the time he appeared on Colin Cowherd’s (talk about hacks) show right after the Patriots traded Matt Cassell to Kansas City. In that deal linebacker Mike Vrabel was also included. When asked by Cowherd why Vrabel was included in that deal, Mort’s response was “I really don’t know. It’s kind of a head scratcher.”
I’m just a fan with a computer, but even though it wasn’t expected, I wasn’t surprised by that deal. Vrabel was scheduled for a million dollar roster bonus that upcoming year, was past his prime, and anybody that knows anything about Bill Belichick knows his philosophy of letting a player go a year too soon rather than hanging on a year too long. Well, not anybody I guess. Apparently, your supposedly “senior NFL Insider” didn’t.
As far as “Deflate-gate” is concerned, was Was Mort a pawn? Possibly. Even probably. The question is was he an unwitting pawn? Nobody really knows the answer to that, but there is also the fact the NFL itself could have corrected the “Mort is Full of Crap” report. Either of them could have told us why 3 of 4 Colts balls tested at THAT SAME halftime were also under 12.5 psi? They both could have told us why the refs decided to stop measuring them after 4 balls, according to the Wells report. All we want is something called real reporting.
So basically what we have here is someone fed bad information to a reporter. Who or why is subject to speculation. Then said reporter didn’t check out his information. Then the reporter goes into hiding while neither the league nor ESPN corrects said erroneous reporting. Mort strikes the match, ESPN provides the fuel, and Goodell watches the world burn. Full disclosure. I have been a Patriots fan since 1984. The Super Bowl isn’t new to me. They were few and far between before Brady and Belichick of course. But I took it as a personal affront that this time around I didn’t get to enjoy the build up to the game, nor have I been able to truly enjoy and celebrate the victory. Because of this nonsense.
I wonder if Mort knows how to block people on Twitter. I just may have to find out.
Jason from Indiana’s opinions are his own and may or may not reflect those of Dubsism. For example, Jason refers to Goodell as “Fidel,” whereas Dubsism has a long history of calling him”the Kommissar.” You can contact “Jason From Indiana” directly on Twitter at @jbhickle.
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