The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winners are the Miami Herald and two of its writers, Madeline Marr and Columnist Greg Cote. They get today's award for their recent writing and coverage of the recently finished NBA Finals.

We'll start with Ms. Marr first. She reports the following in a piece about what celebrities at one of the games.

Team owners Micky Arison (Heat) and Mark Cuban (Mavs) found an ingenious way to beat Miami traffic. The gazillionaires both came by boat and docked on opposite sides of the arena.

Only one problem, Mark Cuban doesn't have a boat. The Mavericks owner says so in his blog.

Well guess what guys.

I dont own a boat.

Never have. Never will. I rented one once. Rowed one a couple times. Thats it.

My apologies to the real owner of that boat who is getting pestered with helicopters and people trying to corner them.

The Herald has since issued a correction.

The far worse instance of slip shod journalism was done by Mr. Cote. He wrote the following after Sunday's game.

''We Wuz Robbed!'' has long been the handiest excuse of teams that cannot find a decent reason for their collapse that doesn't involve the ignominy of a mirror. The convenience of alleging bad calls, or even willfully biased officiating (you'll recall the Seattle Seahawks conducted a remarkable seminar in early February), also is the blame-dodge of choice among teams that cannot bear to properly credit the opponent.

And so there it was for all to see past midnight Sunday in Miami's downtown bayfront arena: the sourest, saddest, sorriest display by a losing team that you'd ever wish to witness.

Not the loss itself; that was rather valiant. The reaction to it.

There was Cuban, whose billions can buy just about anything but a mortal slump by D-Wade, careening onto the court in a blue Jerry Stackhouse jersey after the final buzzer, screaming profanely at referee Joe DeRosa.

Cuban then turned to Stern and other NBA officials who were seated at the scorer's table and was overheard to shout venomously in the jubilant din, ``[Bleep] you! [Bleep] you! Your league is rigged!''

The last statement is outrageous.(I came close to giving Cuban a knucklehead award this week for the above) But is it true? Greg Cote defended his writing on a radio talk show but he also admitted the quote was third hand information. Told to a source who then told Cote. Cuban denies saying this at his blog.


You can believe Cuban or Cote. I tend to believe the former, the NBA would have taken far more serious action against the owner if the quote was true.(The NBA fined Cuban a quarter million) Cote should have said in his column it was third hand information.

What we have here are two cases of shoddy journalism brought on by the Herald's zeal to cover the hometown team. Do the most basic standards of journalism apply to celebrity and sports writers? They should, however they very often do not. TFM has shown the continuing error filled work of one sports publication. Accuracy and sourcing should matters whether you're covering the President of the United States or a high school volleyball match. Anything less and a publication's journalistic integrity can be seriously damaged when standards aren't upheld either because of laziness or because the subject matter isn't considered important enough. Every subject should use the same standards.

For not taking journalism seriously, Madeline Marr, Greg Cote and their employer The Miami Herald are today's Knuckleheads of the day.

Hat tip- Don Surber and James Joyner at OTB Sports who supplied all the links. Thanks guys.
Open Post- Bright & Early, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Mudville Gazette, Samantha Burns,