Great job, Chris Mortensen

Well, at least he got something right.

 

I actually put this more on his bosses than Mort. I was watching when he first came out with the news Eli would be out 3-5 weeks. He said it, but it was well-couched. I think he said something like: ``I'm hearing from several team sources that the Giants are worried it could be 3-5 weeks, but the they don't know yet and don't want to release anything until they're sure.'' Twenty minutes later, ESPN starts running the news that ``ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports Giants QB Eli Manning will be out 3-5 weeks.'' After that, everyone started playing off of it and it became fact.

Mort was originally a print reporter -- and a damn good one -- and he did what we all do when we hear something, but know that things could change: he put the news on a source and qualified it. That way, if things changed, the source is wrong and not the reporter. But once that hit the airwaves, his bosses turned it into a headline and ran with it. All Mort could do was jump on board and cross his fingers his source ended up being right.

 

That only impresses me if he has the intestinal fortitude to name the source. Either put your own name on it or put the source's name on it so that when it turns out to be wrong we'll all know who not to believe in the future.

It's one more reason print is superior to electronic media. TV and radio have to fill those 30 or 60 minutes every time even if it means stretching the truth or putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 5. If you don't have the story for print on deadline, you call marketing and tell them to plug with a house ad.