Pittsburgh Trib debacle

I'm not so sure about the bridge-meet-flames thing, outofplace. I just looked around the Trib website to see if there's anything about the screwup -- a correction or even an explanation. Besides the AP story that Mr. Redenbacher posted above . . . there was nothing. I don't have the newspaper to scour it more closely, but if they aren't going to acknowledge the fuckup to the readers . . . well, that's the worst thing they could do.

Compared to other things happening around the world, the identity of the Steelers' coach is really not that big of a deal. But to a paper that looked as if it had about 10 stories on the new coach in the paper today, the Grimm news (ha ha) was serious enough to address. It is chickenshit to just act as if nothing had happened. They appear to have no integrity, but from what I've heard about that newspaper, that's no surprise.

Newspapers get stuff wrong, and this was a biggie. Prisuta should have been told to write a column to explain how this happened. They owe something to their readers, not to other journalists. Someone beat me to it, but I have a feeling his source was someone other than Grimm or Rooney -- someone with second-hand knowledge -- and he got burned. Only Prisuta's and the newspaper's integrity is at stake now.

 

Ike, I meant the Trib's relationship with the Steelers, not just the simple fact that they got the story wrong. As bad as Prisuta's story was, I don't think that is the Trib's biggest problem.

Monday's story and reporter Kevin Gorman's comments on a local sports TV show seemed like attempts to paint some dishonesty by the Steelers as the reason for the incorrect story by Prisuta. And from Dan Rooney's quote, he obviously took that as bringing his organization's integrity into question. It reads like he is angry and he has a right to be.

I would think the entire sports department could have problems with the Steelers. And the attempts at spin just brought Scott Brown and Kevin Gorman into the mess as well.

 

OK, sorry about that. I thought you were talking internally.

Unless we work there, I don't think any of us will find out what the repercussions will be in the Trib's relationship with the Steelers. I'd imagine Dan Rooney wouldn't be too helpful to the Trib from now on. I'm wondering if the Steelers made an effort to find who was the incorrect source.

I didn't see the incorrect story, but it sounds as if the Trib used only one source, which as we all know is playing with fire. I still think it's important for Prisuta, or the editor, to acknowledge the mistake publicly. No matter who's to blame, they still got the story wrong.

If what they're saying is true and the Trib is somehow blaming the Steelers for getting the story wrong, well, that's just too bad.

 

So far, the Trib's response has been pointing fingers or ignoring the story altogether.

Interestingly enough, I see stories by Prisuta and Gorman today online. Reads like both were at the press conference yesterday, so I give them credit for that.

 

Well, given their jobs, they would have to be. I wouldn't give them too much credit for that.

 

Prisuta had a column from the presser, no mention of the snafu.

 

Neither is a beat writer. Brown is. He is the one who wrote the follow-up that included some spin on Prisuta's incorrect story. But he absolutely had to be there.

The Trib could have hidden Gorman and Prisuta and sent another columnist and backup reporter. They have others on that staff who have done work with the Steelers. Besides, we rip on people for hiding on this board. I thought I should point out that Prisuta and Gorman didn't do that.

 

Point taken.

 

Take this or leave it, but I just spoke with a friend of a friend who works there. Apparently the source was Grimm, leaving the paper with little recourse other than to bite its tongue. If that's true then that's got to be tough situation to be in if you're the reporter.

Sorta hope he doesn't read this website.

 

Why does that leave them no recourse? If it was Grimm, why not say so? That's a better option than saying the Steelers offered the job and then changed their minds, making a bad situation worse.

 

So if Grimm told you he was hired but not to name him as a source, you would name him anyway? I would consider it if I was the paper but it might do more harm than good. Got to consider all the consequences of revealing a source.

 

you can't name him, but I'd at least have some sort of explanation the next day

not a correction per se, but something trying to explain to the readers what the process was