Sloppy SI

Now that's what I call fact-checking.

 

The Rushin article was great this week. BUT, he said that the dads' first hole in one happened 16 years ago on David's seventh birthday. That was supposedly in June. Then in the last graph, it says David turns 21. Now I wasn't a math major, but if the dad's last hole in one occurred 16 years ago on David's seventh birthday, wouldn't that make David 23 now?

It's a somewhat small thing, but that type of stuff turns what should have been a great column just simply poorly constructed. Especially when such a small thing is so easy to catch.

Likewise, a few weeks ago - in the Piazza story from INSIDE MLB- they referred to Josh Bard as Jason Bard. I know he's no Alex Rodriguez, but it's not tough to fact check a name.

And a few weeks ago, they ran a huge picture of what was supposed to be Matt Kemp. But this picture was of a white dude. And last I checked, Kemp was black.

They even spelled Albert Chen's name wrong in a tagline recently. Albert Chin.

Every publication makes mistakes. But it's the big-picture mistakes that are inexcusable, in my mind. A misplaced comma here or another grammar error there, no biggie. But this type of stuff is what makes SI look horrible.

 

I'm amazed that sort of stuff happens. They have fact-checkers for just about everything. I was even called by one to go over some facts in a piece that made the section -- I wasn't quoted or anything, but I was involved with the story. Guy asked me four or five really specific questions. Don't know why the other stuff gets missed.

 

I have a few mistakes each week and I always run a correction the next week with every little screw-up. I use Impact font a lot, but the apostrophes don't show up in print unless you switch them to Arial Black. So "don't" will look like "don t" and I'll write a correction saying why that happened. I'll write a correction if I misspell a word, and I'll do the obligatory corrections for factual errors.

I don't go about having mistakes in my section, but it happens. Before this week I had 16-page sections back-to-back weeks. Not easy to write 22 stories and take 55 photos in 4 days and then design the section by yourself. Mistakes will happen

 

i caught the bard mishap and didn't reaaly think about it until i was checking my fantasy baseball teamthe next day. i love this magazine - been getting it since 6th grade - but the little shit they get wrong can drive me nuts sometimes. mispelling your own writer's name? considering they tag their stuff 99% of the time that's inexcusable. i would expect my local weekly paper to not screw that up.

 

For the heck of it, I am going to do a highly unscientific study of today's SI vs. Yesteryear. I googled 1976 Sports Illustrated (30 years ago) and picked this issue randomly.


I'm meeting some friends tomorrow, I'll have them bring one of their current issues, since I stopped subscribing. I'll post results here in a couple weeks.

 

One of the most glaring I ever saw was from about five/six years ago. There was a story recounting the 1983 NC State-Houston final, I think written by Rushin. Had Lo Charles' dunk overcoming a one-point lead. Game was tied when Dereck Whittenburg heaved the air ball.

 

I'm tellin' ya, you've GOT to get out of the Alcatraz Journal. That place will kill you.

 

This constant hand-wringing and bitching about SI is ridiculous. Thirty years ago, their deadlines were earlier, there was less breaking news type stuff save for the crap they put in the old scorecard that ran on the next to last page. They had more time to edit. Now they're throwing stuff in on Monday night and all 112 pages still magically get into your mailbox by Wednesday/Thursday.
Things slip through. It happens. As long as they don't a: makeup stories or b: get the score wrong I could care less if it's Southeastern Louisiana. Big picture people.
It's a fucking magazine. Now all you deskers make sure you don't screw up Timmy Jr.'s name in the subhead of your prep soccer game, OK?
He who has not spelled definitely wrong, cast the first stone.

 

Once you see Strock's tan and Schnellenberger's pallor, you'll never ever again confuse the two.