Whitney Houston: An Accident the National Enquirer Was Waiting to Happen

It's Not Like They Knew What Was Going to Happen, But.....

The latest issue of the National Enquirer came out just a little too early for the only celebrity story that really matters right now. But you just know they're foaming at the mouth waiting to hit the send button on the presses for the next edition. To wit:

As TV Stations Go to Cover Dolan's Elevation to Cardinal, Let's Hope They Ask the Right Questions

As Chief Mouthpiece for Archbishops Losing Hearts and Minds on Contraception Contratemps, He Has a Lot to Answer For

It's a big week ahead for New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who on Saturday is set to be elevated to cardinal. Local TV and radio stations are taking proper note and are devoting considerable resources and correspondents to covering the event, including live coverage at, yawn, starting at 4:30 a.m.
Obviously, this is a big deal. But let's hope that the stations don't jump the gun on deifing Dolan. No doubt, Dolan makes for good media. He's avuncular, more of the people than many higher-ups in the Roman Catholic Church and is often shown having a good laugh even at his own expense. However, make no mistake. There is Dolan the people's cardinal, and there is Dolan the extreme conservative who has lead the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the lead agitators against the Obama administration's rule requiring Catholic hospitals and universities to provide free insurance coverage for contraception.
It has been Dolan who has made this into a battle over religious liberty and a blatant infringement on First Amendment rights, when it is nothing of the sort. It is not a battle over insurance coverage, but over contraception itself. No one should be fooled by Dolan's somewhat conciliatory words today after he landed in Rome. As The New York Times reported,

Archbishop Dolan said in a brief interview that “there are so many unanswered questions” regarding the compromise, and that it was “too early for us to give a judgment one way or the other.”

At the same time, Dolan made it clear the compromise to limit the religious institutions' exposure to the coverage by having it provided directly by insurance companies was still too much to countenance.
In other words, little or nothing has changed about how the bishops and Dolan feel about this, regardless that most of their female parishioners--98 percent by one Guttmacher Institute--have used birth control.
The media covering Dolan's elevation should not be so awed by his red hat on Saturday to not confront him with these and other questions. A change in title does nothing to change that.

Whitney Houston Shows Why Newsrooms Never Assume Nothing Will Happen Over the Weekend

Meanwhile, a Call for Less Fawning Coverage; Don Lemon, We're Talking to You

While jumping in between the cablers' Whitney Houston coverage last night, it was clear the networks had learned from others' past mistakes. Then again, they made some new ones.
At least their programming dictated that there were live bodies in the newsroom for breaking news, though it's safe to say the crew at MSNBC was skeletal because the net was settling in for its weekly dose of prison reality shows. But they were at least nominally up to the task of covering the ultimate demise of a pop diva turned 40-car pileup.
Nowadays, nobody assumes it's going to be quiet on the weekend. Heads were rolled--or, at least, shuffled when I was working at CBS and there was no one from the TV network who was ready to go on the air late Saturday night on Labor Day weekend in 1997 when Princess Diana was on the losing end of an escape from paparazzi in Paris.
The network eventually had to rush in Vince DeMentri, an anchor from WCBS-TV to fumble his way through reading wire service bulletins until Anthony Mason was rustled up to head up coverage. Meanwhile, at CBS News Radio, where I worked, London bureau chief Adam Raphael and Paris correspondent Elaine Cobbe were riding herd on the story. Raphael was first in the U.S. to confirm that Diana was dead.
So, now every network always has a correspondent in the building at all hours who can go on the air on short notice. And so it was last night.
As the cable nets went balls-to-wall with Whitney well past midnight, they gradually gained their footing after playing the same, tired file tape they had. Gradually, they scared up more while frantic bookers tried to find someone, anyone, with anything relevant to say.
Most of the coverage I saw was fairly even-keeled. A notable exception, however, was CNN's Don Lemon, who was a little too start-struck. That was painfully evident when he was interviewing professional has-been Jermaine Jackson about Whitney/Michael parallells, and Lemon was name-checking any connection he had to the former pop royalty in an effort to establish his bona fides with Jermaine. It was a treacly interaction from a newsman who ought to know better.
Of course, that was then. And after the requisite tribute on the Grammys tonight, the media will inevitably rev into "it's-a-shame-but-not-exactly-a-shocker" mode. In fact, that's already started, as this story on Yahoo indicates.

You just know that this will be the only story on TMZ this week, while Entertainment Tonight, Extra and Access Hollywood have likely commissioned new sad music while they show Whitney montages. The juxtaposition of an erratic addict who could not discard her demons as opposed to the divviest of pop divas with scary talent is a great story. Now the Don Lemons of the world have to be prepared to cover it from all sides.

Best Buy, Worst Packaging

It May Not Be Easy Being Green, But You At Least Have to Try

I was only too happy to take advantage last week of an offer to buy $50 worth of iTunes gift cards from Best Buy for around 42 bucks, with free shipping to boot.

Despite the recent tsunami of bad PR that BB suffered because it didn't fulfill some holiday gift orders, I hit the send button and my cards showed up today, just five days after I placed my order.

So thanks, all you blue-shirted minions toiling away in a Findlay, Ohio, warehouse to dispatch my booty. But no thanks for sending two gift cards in a 5 x 9 inch box, complete with bubble wrapping and seven copies of an ad urging me to buy a new smartphone and in return receive, wait for it, a Best Buy gift card!

And all of this packaging meant paying more to UPS to get the gift cards to me. Of course, that's not my concern. I just want cut-rate music. But now I have to dutifully break down a box and ensure it and the excessive collateral that came inside make it to the recycling bin.

I'm down with that. Still, I wonder how many people really are. I can imagine that a fair bit of this crap gets thrown away with the regular trash and finds a permanent home in an overcrowded landfill.

It doesn't have to be that way. It can't be too hard for Best Buy to also use best practices to be a steward of the environment. It might even prompt more people to shop in the stores, even those you royally pisssed off when their flatscreen didn't make it to the door last week.

Homeland Didn't Make a "Killing" With Its Finale, But....

A Little OMG at the End Wouldn't Have Been So Bad

After staying up late-ish to watch the finale of "Homeland," I got another good reason to justify the $13 a month I fork over for Showtime and its companion channels.
This was taut, seat-of-your-pants storytelling from start to almost finish, with a pitch-perfect cast (career highlight for Mandy Patinkin, left) who deftly took on scripts that found just the right mix of tension without verging into comic-book melodrama.
Let's face it (spoiler alert). Even if you knew the show was renewed for another season, you couldn't be completely convinced that Brody wasn't going to blow himself, the evil vice president and lots of other D.C. V.I.Ps to smithereens. Sure, it would have been a very different show, but that's, er, show(time) biz.
After all, "Boardwalk Empire" offed a major character in the second-season finale (sorry, Michael Pitt) and it will need to change direction.
That we now get a different brand of psychological thriller on "Homeland" is fine by me, though exactly what kind is hard to say, if this interview with executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, is to be believed.
As for the ending: it wasn't the letdown that was the finale of the rookie season of "The Killing," which essentially gave loyal viewers the finger with a cop-out ending that had lots of folks saying "WTF," but not in a good way. Rest assured, I'll be glued to AMC when it returns, but we all deserved better.
For "Homeland," it wasn't that it wrapped with any false twists. It's that it didn't twist at all at the end, as if it ran out of steam, signaled it was getting ready to regroup (just like Carrie, after she receives her electroshock therapy) and faded to the credits. This is a show that's more bang than whimper. It didn't act that way at the end, though Gansa defended that approach to TV Line:

"It was actually something that I learned working for Howard on 24, that there’s a lot of merit in the denouement of the story. In 24, the big event often happened in the penultimate episode or early on in the last episode, and there’s a lot of wonderful ground to cover after it’s over — and in certain ways, that’s where the character really comes to the fore."

Meh. But I'll be back, looking to say "WTF" in a good way.

And the Award for Best Crocodile Tears Goes to.....

NORTH KOREA!!!!!!

Vecsey (Don't Call it A Retirement) Departure Shouldn't Be Excuse for Times to Can Sports Column

What Made Sports Section Distinctive Shouldn't Be Abandoned



The New York Times brass has shown themselves indifferent, if not downright hostile, to the sports column. Maybe it's because the stars who pen the column cost too much. Maybe it's easy to discard when the news hole shrinks. Maybe it's just plain dumb.

George Vecsey penned his final regular column on Saturday (that the Times would not showcase such a lamentable occasion in the Sunday paper tells you a lot). That means only Bill Rhoden is the only regular "Sports of the Times" columnist left.

Yes, there is pointed analysis about a particular sport without it verging into a full-fledged column, e.g. Tyler Kepner "On Baseball," etc. And this is not to say the section, for whatever its flaws on coverage of local teams, is not well-written.

With the likes of Ben Shpigel, Mike Tanier, Jere Longman and Bill Pennington, among others, cranking out copy, writing is the least of the Times' problems.

But a column is destination reading in a sports section. If you operate on the premise, as the Times does more aggressively than any other major paper, that many readers need less game-day coverage, then a column provides those points of differentiation that may be the only thing saving the section from irrelevance (that massive takeout by John Branch on the death of hockey goon Derek Boogaard is another way).

It was bad enough that the Times booted Harvey Araton from his column in 2009 after 15 years, briefly reassigned him to do features elsewhere in the paper, then brought him back to write for the sports pages. He's done a lot of extended enterprise pieces, and a lot of those On (fill in the sport), er, columns. But the lack of hubris is apparently too much to overcome for the Times to put him back as a columnist. Sports editor Joe Sexton would do well by taking this step, and finding a brash third voice as well (Wallace Matthews, anybody?).

As for Vecsey, it was a great ride. That he will still be writing for the Times on occasion is cause for comfort. But I'm sure that he is the last person who views himself as irreplaceable. The Times needs to prove him right.

CNN More Lucky than Good for Broadcast of Herman Cain Campaign Implosion

When Bookers Get Lucky

Michael Calderone on HuffPo has the scooplet on Herman Cain's appearance yesterday on CNN. Cain was initially portrayed as rushing to the network's Washington studios to pre-empt Ginger (my 15 minutes are almost up) White's accusation that she and Cain did more than exchange pleasantries over pizza for 13 years.
Taylor was interviewed by WAGA-TV in Atlanta and Cain parried with Wolf "Blitz" Blitzer on "The Situation Room" that he's known White for a long time, just not in, you know, that way.
Well, CNN had actually booked Cain on Sunday to appear the following day. Calderone reports:


[D]uring a commercial break Monday after the first of three segments, CNN producers began to see tweets referencing an upcoming story by Atlanta TV station WAGA that included an interview with the woman making these new allegations. Producers then contacted a Cain staffer in the network’s greenroom, according to Washington DC bureau chief Sam Feist. While seated during the commercial break, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Cain about the forthcoming Atlanta report. The candidate acknowledged that his campaign had been contacted about it and would be willing to discuss it on air.

Getting the go-ahead, Cain and The SitRoom became one.

The Blissful Ignorance of Fox News Viewers

Turns Out, They May Know Fewer Facts than the Hosts

Not that watching Fox News Channel causes brain cells to leak out, or at least I don't think so, but here's a fun fact emanating from a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
Seems that the average Fox viewer is likely to know less about crucial current events than someone who doesn't watch any news.
Can I get a "Duh"? Or, because it's Fox, how about a "D'oh!"
Granted, the poll confined itself to asking about the Middle East. But those who watch Fox, according to the pollsters, were 18 points less likely to know that the Arab Spring that sprung in Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak, and 6 points less likely to know that Assad was still in charge in Syria.
In contrast, according to FDU: people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12 points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen
to NPR are 11 points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Assad.
Duh, indeed.

Harassment Not on the Menu at National Restaurant Association

Bad Day to be Flack as Dining Lobby Takes Flak from Cain Harassment Allegations

So, Herman Cain fessed up to being accused of sexual harassment, just not having harasssed anyone.
In fact, he says he's been "falsely accused," following the weekend bombshell report from Politico, citing two women who accused Cain of inappropriate behavior when he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
Politico said the women received "five-figure payouts" in return for their silence. What say, you Herman?
“If the restaurant association did a settlement, I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much. If there was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers at the restaurant association."
You might wonder what the restaurant association (sorry, can't say NRA) has to say about all this. Keep wondering. If you go to its online press room, the lead story is Restaurant Performance Index Rose Above 100 in September, as Sales and Traffic Levels Improved. In other words, the type of story they'd rather be commenting about, not the one people want to know about.
Fun fact: Three of the top four leadership positions at the association, chair, vice chair and president/CEO are filled by women. Who must really be loving this story now.

Another Morning Reboot at CNN

Maybe They Should Call the Show "America Yawning"

Had a bit of a chuckle reading today's report in The New York Times about how CNN is going back to the drawing board yet again to figure out how to get someone, anyone, to watch its morning programming.

Again? Yes, again.

Not that the current offering "American Morning," is bad. It's not, but it's never been a category killer. And with the 800-pound Lauer and Co. keeping NBC solvent, the Fox & Friends comedy show and other comers, well, it's just too damn hard for Nielsen to give you a hug that time of day.

But CNN soldiers on. "American Morning" will apparently be sacrificed on the "we tried" altar. And now for something new or, at least, newish. From 5-7 a.m., Ashleigh (I'm Still Here) Banfield and Chicago import Zoraida Sambolin will anchor a block for the bleary-eyed, followed by a 7-9 a.m. program headed by American Morning alumna Soledad O'Brien (above) and "an ensemble," as Broadcasting & Cable puts it. O'Brien will also continue doing her well-received documentaries, her primary role since being kicked offf the dawn patrol in 2006.

So, I'll ask the $64 question: how will these shows be markedly different from American Morning? I know, damn good question. CNN isn't answering, at least not yet. But I wouldn't get tied up in a knot contemplating the possibilities. Granted, I don't have the answers either to what may be an unsolvable riddle.

When there are only so many eyeballs to go around that time of day, many of whom are tuned to top-rated local shows, CNN, without a defining personality to create destination viewing, is destined to be an also-ran when there is no breaking news.

It's a question I'll no doubt have to think about more, while I have a cup of Morning Joe.

Don't Fear the Reaper at CVS

Hopefully, Just the Spirit of Halloween and Not Reinforcement of Warning Labels

Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County, N.Y., like to think of themselves as Halloween Central. With good reason.

After all, T-town is where Washington Irving resided and drew his inspiration for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," where the saga is retold in The Old Dutch Church--which figures in the story--by master storyteller Jonathan Kruk.

Phillipsburg Manor--a local historic restoration--has a scare fest called Haunted Hollow, which got greedy and supplanted a more sedate affair that included a headless horseman riding around on a big-boy black horse. Kruk used to tell his story as part of the festivities there. But now he's a separate admission, and Phillipsburg Manor is no longer a place for kids, you know, the ones for whom Halloween matters the most, to go this time of year. But that's for another rant.

It doesn't take much for other locals to get into the holiday spirit, including the local CVS. I did find it a bit disconcerting, though, that when you walk in the door, greeting you is a full-sized grim reaper. Enter if you dare. Actually, it was a bit of foreshadowing, as I had a nightmare of a time trying to get a prescription filled there because of computer glitches and clerical incompetence.

Fortunately, the guy with the scythe should be gone by tomorrow, replaced by more optimistic signs of the times, namely the ones offering 50 percent off bags of Halloween candy. Three Musketeers to the rescue in the nick of time.

Financial Times Not on the Job with Jobs Death

What Happens When a Paper Goes to Bed in London and Nobody in New York Can Wake it Up

I don't know when the edition of the Financial Times that shows up at my door six mornings a week goes to bed.
Actually, now I have a pretty good idea. It's way before the first bulletin about the death of Steve Jobs first started clearing the wires around 7:30 p.m. ET.
Not to worry, dear chaps, I understand the FT is a British enterprise even if it is printed in 23 cities across the globe. It appears the basic guts of the paper remain the same, at least in print whenever they wrap up for the day in London.
Ordinarily, that would not be a problem, except when it is, like when breaking news hits relatively late in the U.S.
To be sure, the FT has a sizable editorial operation on this side of the pond and an outsize influence and presence in relation to its circulation. But there apparently is no way for anyone here to remake a front page before the U.S. press run.
Yes, the FT is playing catch-up online as we write. However, major events like the Jobs death point toward the need for a more-nimble print product as well. When you charge $2.50 at the newsstand, readers are entitled to more than what you were able to get into the paper before the editors in London called it a night.

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Cookie Monster

Good Pickup by Network to Nab the Big Bird, er, Cheese at Sesame Workshop

The NPR board of directors showed it was adept at swimming against the tide when it scooped up Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell to lead the network.

Knell is cut from the mold of former ABC News prexy David Westin, a lawyer without news experience, but who, as one NPR board member said could "gain the respect of journalists."

We'll see about that, but Knell could be a propitious choice at a perilous time for NPR, what with the Republican sharks on Capitol Hill smelling blood where NPR's funding still resides safely in the federal budget.

As someone well-schooled in non-profit broadcasting, Knell necessarily blends the pragmatism and often tight-fisted fiscal management that such a job requires, while having a deft hand schmoozing deep-pocketed foundations and left-leaning trust-fund babies for checks with many zeros tacked on for good measure.

Having been at Sesame Workshop for two decades, Knell knows that the product must be the last thing sacrificed when times are tough. Sure, there aren't nearly as many original "Sesame Street" episodes produced as in years past (just 26 a year, compared to north of 100 in the show's early days). And its unholy alliance with the PBS Kids Sprout channel, laden with inapproprite commercials (Gerbers insurance for children, anyone?) is regrettable if potentially lucrative.

But overall, Sesame Workshop remains a solid, laudable enterprise whose good intentions are usually matched by its output. That NPR can say the same should make at least one aspect of Knell's job easier.

I Know It's a TV Show, But...

"Person of Interest" Has a Disinterest in New York Geography

I finally caught up tonight to the pilot for "Person of Interest."

I'll be back, and not just to see what other alumni from "Lost" besides Michael Emerson might show up (CBS has become quite the resting place for "Lost" alumni, with Daniel Dae-Kim and now Terry O'Quinn hanging ten on "Hawaii Five-O").

The show hummed along, even taking into account my lightning touch with the FF button on the DVR. Having the likes of J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan at the reins will do that for you. And having Jim Caviezel and Taraji P. Henson in the cast doesn't hurt either.

My beef: the show has the budget to flaunt the fact that it's filming in New York. And with so much of the plot depending on tiny details, you'd think the producers would at least attempt some verisimilitude, even if the premise of the show--a billionaire hires a former special forces op to stop murders he knows will happen--is incapable of same.

That's why we don't want to see a Manhattan D.A. getting out of the subway at Rockefeller Center to go to her office, when the real office is downtown. That's why we don't want to hear about a prison inmate in "county lockup."

County lockup in Manhattan? Fuhgeddabout it.

And when we see Caviezel's character riding the 6 train and is menaced by a bunch of hoodlums, anyone in the Big Apple knows that it's virtually impossible to be alone in a car at virtually any hour. But at least there was a Death Wish-esque payoff to the scene.

I know. It's a TV show, get over it. Well, at least it's not like "Law and Order" habitually giving addresses that would actually be in the Hudson River. At least not yet.

At least try to keep it real, though I'll give them a pass if the Dharma Project shows up in a future episode.

South Park Creators Split on Which Episodes Were the Crappiest

They Hate The First Three Seasons, But With an Exception

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly has a take-out on the 15-year anniversary of South Park, which cleverly includes creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone rating their favorite episodes and those they say had the biggest sucking sound.
In the latter category are 53, count 'em, 53 episodes, at least in the eyes of Parker. That's the sum total of the first three seasons.
"Okay, we were like 26, 27. But it's like Really? We thought that was funny? We thought that was well-written? Oh my God, this is terrible."
On the other hand, in rating the 15 best episodes, Stone cites the first episode of season two, the classic "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus."
"I love that episode. It's so f...ing weird, and it's so different, and the fact that nobody else really liked it makes me like it more."
For those who need their Stone-Parker fix, the pair have said there will definitely be a "Book of Mormon" movie. In the meantime, I'll settle for the show, though my tickets won't get me in until April.

When Your Business Model is Held Hostage by ESPN

Dish Network Crying Foul Instead of Uncle

Cable and satellite TV companies take a perverse pleasure in bitching and moaning about how much they have to pay to carry the ESPN suite of channels, which is already nearing five bucks a subscriber. And that's without the $15.2 billion in additional coin the gang in Bristol will fork over to the NFL for the rights to Monday Night Football through 2021.
Since Disney doled out the cash for less-than-altruistic reasons, there's every expectation that subscriber fees will be jacked up once again to pay the pigskin tab.
Now, the New York Post reports Dish Network doesn't want to play ball and may pull the plug on the Worldwide Leader in Sports. But can it?
I mean, it could, but is that the satellite equivalent of hari-kari. This is ESPN, not the Cooking Channel or Current TV. It's ESP-friggin-N, as in no way can you not have it as part of your channel offerings.
Actually, Dish's threat has a proviso. It would reluctantly pay the presumably higher fee if it could put the ESPNs on a higher-priced sports tier and not as part of its basic cable package. It's obvious why ESPN wouldn't want that. But would it risk losing access to Dish's 13.5 million subscribers? On the other hand, would Dish suffer mass defections if ESPN wasn't on its roster?
The company may take that chance. It already took a hard line against regional sports networks, which is why you don't see YES, MSG or SNY--and why Dish probably doesn't have much penetration in the New York area.
But ESPN? C'mon. Dish may have to suck this one up. If it doesn't, you know DirecTV will be ready with open arms---and satellite dishes of its own beaming down ESPN. Sure, it won't be cheap, but not having the network will be a lot more pricey.

Why Ben Bernanke Should Not Cancel His New York Times Subscription

Story Placement Shows How Fed Chief's Claims That Consumers Doth Protest Too Much Ring Hollow

On the front page of today's Business Day section of The New York Times, there's an article headlined Fed Chief Describes Consumers As Too Bleak. Ben Bernanke gave a speech yesterday in Minneapolis, where he said, sure, there are reasons to be depressed about the economy, for all of the obvious reasons. But as sort of a bizarre coda, he tacked on: "Even taking into account the many financial pressures they face, households seem exceptionally cautious."
You think.
The way Bernanke sees it, consumers are in panic mode and hoarding cash. They believe the sky is falling, when clouds are merely darkening.
He's entitled to his opinion, but being as trenchant a student of economic history that he is, Bernanke should also know that perception definitely bleeds into reality.
As evidence, the article at the bottom of the same page headlined Customers Hurting, Wal-Mart is Bringing Back Layaway. Seems enough customers have given up on credit cards and used up their gift cards.
As Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer told the Times: It just tells us the customer's still struggling, as they tell us about their concerns with energy prices, housing prices, the job security .... it tell us that this is a fragile economy and the customer needs our help."
I don't know how many Fed chiefs have ever stepped foot in a Wal-Mart. Bernanke could sure use a visit.

Yahoo Sports Unleashes a Tsunami on the Hurricanes

The Once-Mighty Miami Herald Scrapes an Omelette Off Its Masthead Playing Catch-Up

Check out this big-time, kick-ass story from Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports about a college football booster gone rogue.
In this case, it was a convicted Ponzi schemer named Nevin Shapiro, who over eight years lavished dozens of University of Miami football and basketball players with gifts, entertainment, rides on his yacht, and a healthy supply of hookers. Not surprisingly, all of this is a no-no under NCAA rules.
Seems that Shapiro got all cheesed up over the fact that a lot of his "friends" suddenly lost the ability to return a call after he got in trouble with the law, and decided to spill the beans to Robinson, after abandoning the idea of a tell-all book.
Robinson spent 11 months reporting the story, including 100 hours of jailhouse interviews with Shapiro. In addition:

"In an effort to substantiate the booster’s claims, Yahoo! Sports audited approximately 20,000 pages of financial and business records from his bankruptcy case, more than 5,000 pages of cell phone records, multiple interview summaries tied to his federal Ponzi case, and more than 1,000 photos. Nearly 100 interviews were also conducted with individuals living in six different states. In the process, documents, photos and 21 human sources – including nine former Miami players or recruits, and one former coach – corroborated multiple parts of Shapiro’s rule-breaking."

Kudos. The sweat equity paid off in dividends. It's a great read.

As for the Miami Herald, well, you can only imagine the cursing emanating from the sports department. So, the main story today gives credit where credit is due and basically gets reaction to a story that cleaned the Herald's clock. Columnist Greg Cote also weighed in pondering the tenuous future of the high-profile football program in Coral Gables.
The Herald can play catch-up. But the damage has been done. Robinson has left town.

Revisionist Journalism--20 Years Too Late

Ari Goldman's Mea Culpa for Times'--and His--Crown Heights Riot Coverage

During the time he spent as a religion reporter at The New York Times, I rarely found fault with the work of Ari Goldman. He knew his beat, especially on Jewish matters, and made the most of the space he was given, usually in the Saturday editions.
In the latest Jewish Week, Goldman recounts what it was like covering the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago, precipitated by a black youth fatally struck by a car, which led to an Australian yeshiva student being stabbed to death.
It was an ugly episode in New York City, which spilled over into how it was covered by the local papers. Goldman writes about how he was among those who covered the riots, but was dismayed to find his dispatches ignored or rewritten. Goldman said much of the violence was driven by anti-Semitism. Yet, he says, the Times' initial coverage portrayed it as a full-on race riot.

I was outraged but I held my tongue. I was a loyal Times employee and deferred to my editors. I figured that other reporters on the streets were witnessing parts of the story I was not seeing.
But then I reached my breaking point. On Aug. 21, as I stood in a group of chasidic men in front of the Lubavitch headquarters, a group of demonstrators were coming down Eastern Parkway. “Heil Hitler,” they chanted. “Death to the Jews.”

Yet, he held his tongue. Apparently, he was a good company soldier who liked his job a little too much. But he had a change of heart:

“You don’t know what’s happening here!” I yelled. “I am on the streets getting attacked. Someone next to me just got hit. I am writing memos and what comes out in the paper? ‘Hasidim and blacks clashed’? That’s not what is happening here. Jews are being attacked! You’ve got this story all wrong. All wrong.”
I didn’t blame the “rewrite” reporter. I blamed the editors. It was clear that they had settled on a “frame” for the story. The way they saw it, there were two narratives here: the white narrative and the black narrative. And both had equal weight.

So, the Times eventually straightened out the narrative, at least to Goldman's satisfaction. But many Jewish Week readers were left wondering why Goldman waited 20 years to tell his story? He's been a former Times employee for well over a decade, and yet only now we're first hearing about this--a potentially important teaching moment for journalists now and in the future.
As one commenter noted:

Mr. Goldman should have the necessary courage to name the pusillanimous editors he is castigating with his recollection. There is no corrective measure better than public shaming. Blaming an institution in this generalized way is a weak tea for a story that is 20 years old.

Goldman harshly questioned the motives of his editors. Now, it behooves him to provide answers for his silence two decades later.