Letter in Dec. 22's SI

Read this letter in the Dec. 22 edition of Sports Illustrated. I've never really seen a letter like this in Sports Illustrated.

Future of Hunting
"I was disappointed that Matthew Teague's story on hunting (A More Dangerous Game, Nov. 24), which discussed the death of my son Kenton, contained information that was simply not true. Teague described a phone call between mother and son and included supposed quotes from that conversation without first verifying their accuracy with me. He tarnished a treasured memory of the last conversation I shared with my son."
Lori Carnegie, Oshawa, Ont.

 

Wow. I remember that story. The woman's son was killed by wolves. I assume the writer was a freelancer. I also assume he'll never write for SI again, if he really made stuff up. I'd really like to know more of the details here.

 

that was the kid killed by the wolves, yes? thought it was a great story - disappointed to see in the letter it wasn't entirely accurate. no editor's note on the letter, though?

 

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1148866/index.htm

 

I enjoyed that story too. Doesn't a big mag like SI have fact checkers that call and verify things like that?

 

Back in the day, yes.

 

Seems pretty irresponsible to just run the letter without comment from the editor. I'd no more believe one person than the other, but SI should at least comment on whether the comment is justified. If it's not, it obviously shouldn't have run the letter in the first place.

 

What hurts worse - getting eaten by wolves or getting thrown under a swiftly moving bus by your editors?

It's a shame, because the quote in question is an extremely negligible part of the story. You could have removed it from the piece and it would not have been affected in the slightest.

I'm guessing what happened, from the way the story read, is that the writer spoke with the father, who relayed his version of the conversation between the mother and son, and the writer simply took it as gospel.

Seems like a fairly innocent mistake, although it's a good reminder to think long and hard before you put something in quotations that you didn't hear for yourself, regardless of how it affects your "narrative."

On a sidenote. . .

I enjoyed the story, but after thinking it through, the whole premise -- that this young man died because people don't hunt enough -- to be something of a quantum leap. Although I very much enjoyed the final two sentences.

 

I find it awfully difficult to piece together why a writer would do that -- if he did.

 

You're kidding, right?

 

Sorry. Can't agree with those who said it was a good story.

The basic premise of the story: We should be able to kill animals anywhere we humans want, lest we be killed, and restrictions on hunting are wrong.

This incident did not occur in downtown Chicago. It was in an outpost in the middle of the frozen north. The animal did what it was supposed to do.