ARLINGTON, TX – DECEMBER 21: Dez Bryant #88 of the Dallas Cowboys celebrates his touchdown against the Indianapolis Colts in the first half at AT&T Stadium on December 21, 2014 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has become one of the most criticized media figures out there this week thanks to his comment on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan last Friday that a potential video tape of Dez Bryant may be a reason the Cowboys haven’t yet signed him to a new contract. That comment appears to have sparked the current uproar about Bryant, and the story gained even further life after ESPN’s Adam Schefter told ESPN Chicago’s Carman and Jurko Monday that he’d been working on a story about the Bryant videotape for months. Several rumor sites have since been discussing what’s supposedly on the video (Terez Owens called it “supposedly Ray Rice worthy” Tuesday morning and later updated to “five times worse than the Ray Rice video”, while music producer Jaywan tweeted that Bryant’s former friends were shopping the video around), and more actual details have emerged. In particular, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport managed to use an open records request to gain an incident report from the Lancaster (Texas) Police Department about the 2011 Wal-Mart incident supposedly in question. Whether video of that incident still exists, and whether it will ever be released to the public, remains up in the air. However, most of what’s come of this so far is people going after Florio for his role in this. Here are a few examples:

The Big Lead’s Ty Duffy, “The Instant Historian: Confirming Dez Bryant Rumors Exist Is Now Journalism?

It has been a while since the Instant Historian attended a journalism ethics class – Twitter did not yet exist. Folks were worried about “blogs.” It was basically the Bronze Age. But, standard operating procedure then, when presented with a multiple-hand rumor no one had verified was don’t f*cking report that. Don’t tiptoe around reporting it on a technicality. Don’t update the public with your reporting progress on that which you cannot report. 

…Whether it meets the legal or technical definition for slander is beside the point. Florio de facto implicated Dez Bryant for a crime with no reportable evidence. It doesn’t matter that Bryant is just a football player with a checkered past. That’s a gross abuse of journalistic power. The story may prove true. That does not justify the ethical disregard with which this story came out.

SportsGrid’s Eric Goldschein, “Mike Florio Is Getting Killed In The Media For His Handling Of The Dez Bryant Video Rumor

“In many journalistic circles, his handling of the situation was a cardinal sin, and no backpedaling on his part will do anything to change that.”

There are also videos of Jason LaCanfora, Doug Gottlieb, and Jim Rome’s roundtable ripping Florio for this (via Goldschein’s piece):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJrJIatwDco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC15lIyw-0M

There are some valid points in the criticism. If Florio’s comments had no foundation, that’s a big problem. However, it’s worth looking at precisely what he said in detail. Here’s exactly what Florio told 105.3 The Fan last Friday (via Goldschein):

“YOU’RE CORRECT, YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT… IT’S ONE OF THE, I GUESS I WOULD SAY BEST KEPT SECRETS IN THE MEDIA BECAUSE NO ONE’S REPORTED IT YET. BUT THERE IS A STORY THAT ALL OF THE MAJOR INSIDERS KNOW ABOUT, THAT WE’VE KNOWN ABOUT IT FOR MONTHS, IT INVOLVES A VIDEO TAPE, AND I DON’T KNOW THAT IT EXISTS, I KNOW PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TRYING DESPERATELY TO GET IT, I KNOW THE COWBOYS ARE AWARE OF IT, AND BECAUSE OF THAT AND POSSIBLY OTHER REASONS THE COWBOYS HAVE BEEN VERY RELUCTANT TO COMMIT MAJOR MONEY TO HIM. THAT’S BEEN KIND OF THE OPEN SECRET AMONG MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA.

“AGAIN, I DON’T KNOW THAT IT DOES EXIST, I’M TELLING YOU THAT’S WHAT THE TALK HAS BEEN, AND NO ONE HAS REPORTED ON ANY OF THE DETAILS… THERE MAY ULTIMATELY BE NOTHING THERE… I DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT THE TAPE EXISTS, LET ME BE 100 PERCENT CLEAR.”

Florio says he doesn’t know that a tape exists. He knows that major insiders have been chasing it for months (which has been completely proven true), that the Cowboys are aware of it and that it’s a reason they haven’t signed Bryant to a long-term deal. Those last two haven’t been completely confirmed yet, but Rapoport wrote that “Cowboys officials have been aware of this incident for some time” and that “the pattern of off-the-field issues is one reason” they haven’t made him a better offer. There’s nothing in those initial comments from Florio that’s been proven false so far. So why is everyone attacking him here, aside from his past history of doing questionable things?

The issue here is reporting standards, and media members are blasting Florio for his supposed lack of them. However, it’s worth remembering that every outlet’s threshold for what deserves publication is different, and that higher thresholds aren’t always better. It would absolutely be ideal to have unbiased primary source evidence (like the videotape in question), but that isn’t always obtainable, and it isn’t always worth holding off on reporting anything until you get that. A far better test than “do you have the best possible evidence?” is “are you sure of what evidence you do have?” Sometimes, waiting until everything falls into place can get you beaten to the punch.

A key recent case in point comes from former Toronto mayor Rob Ford and the video of him smoking crack cocaine. That existence of that video was first reported by Gawker on the evening of Thursday, May 16, 2013,  but in very loose terms. The report gained credence when the Toronto Star revealed later that night that two of their reporters (Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan) watched the video on May 3, which really helped start the scandal. The Toronto police didn’t confirm that the video existed (and that it was as reported) until Oct. 31. Ford didn’t admit to smoking crack (and in fact, denied it vehemently) until Nov. 5. The video still hasn’t been released to the public. Saying that nothing could be reported without the video itself would mean the Ford story still wouldn’t have emerged. Saying that nothing could be reported until the police verified the video meant it wouldn’t have happened until October. Reporting the existence and contents of the video (both of which were later confirmed) when they did was crucial for both The Star and the story, and they would have been better off reporting it as soon as their reporters saw that video, beating Gawker to the punch. Is reporter testimony the best possible evidence? Of course not. But while verifying the existence and contents of a video of deeply disturbing behaviour from an elected official isn’t as good as having the video itself, that information is very much in the public’s interest to know, and holding it back in the hopes of getting a more perfect story is problematic.

Go back a few decades and consider the Watergate scandal. In particular, think about the reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post, which was later immortalized in their book All The President’s Men and the subsequent Dustin Hoffman/Robert Redford movie of the same name. Woodward and Bernstein’s success in covering Watergate wasn’t particularly thanks to one explosive story (although they had several of those), but rather dogged persistence and a flurry of smaller stories, reporting what only they could confirm at any given point. (It turns out they did get a couple of things wrong, but those errors were relatively minor.) What was also notable in their coverage was their use of anonymous source “Deep Throat,” (revealed decades later to be FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt Sr.); they never referred to him that way in the paper, and his information was given on “deep background” (no identification of the source, no quotes from the source, not for use on its own, typically to be confirmed elsewhere before reporting). Woodward and Bernstein (and famed Post editor Ben Bradlee) used that information skillfully, confirming what they’d found and reporting only what they could verify, but having that kind of a source helped them follow rumors in the right direction, and it helped them establish crucial facts without actually having hard evidence of them. That played a big role in their coverage, which eventually proved vital in forcing President Nixon’s resignation. If Woodward and Bernstein had waited for the perfect evidence before reporting anything, they might have been scooped, or the story might never have come out.

Cases involving elected officials and an NFL wide receiver obviously are a little different, but there are examples closer to Bryant’s too. A similar case happened in sports even earlier in 2013, with Deadspin beating ESPN to the news about Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend. ESPN reportedly had all the necessary information to report the story, but got scooped because they were trying to get Te’o to agree to an on-camera interview before publishing it. Would an on-camera interview have been nice? Sure. But the essential pieces of the story were there, and they were noteworthy; not on the same scale as Ford’s case, of course, but given how many glowing media profiles had played up Te’o being inspired by his girlfriend’s supposed death, the sports world deserved to know that the story was fake.

Consider the Ray Rice case. Yes, it was TMZ obtaining and publishing the video that ultimately created the firestorm of public backlash that led to the Ravens cutting Rice. However, the incident itself was reported on well before that. In fact, part of the issue with the NFL’s initial lackluster response may have come from media caution. If more of the disturbing details of Rice’s actions in the elevator had come out before the video was released to the public, perhaps the NFL and the Ravens wouldn’t have been so light on Rice in the first place.

A lot of the concern about Florio’s actions seems to step from the idea that what he said isn’t newsworthy. From this corner, that’s hard to see. Yes, Florio didn’t have proof of the contents of a video, or even that the video existed. He didn’t claim to. He claimed that media were chasing a story about Bryant’s actions in a video (true), that the Cowboys were aware of it (seems to be true), and that it was a factor why they hadn’t given Bryant a new contract (seems to be true). Sure, that may not meet everyone’s bar for publication, but it has some merit. Moreover, it’s fascinating to see the argument that it’s fine for media to know about these rumours, but that they can’t repeat them to the public. If media members are being obvious enough in their chasing of this story that everyone inside the bubble knows about it, why shouldn’t people outside the bubble know?

The idea of presenting only solved and finished stories rather than ones in progress is very old-school thinking, but it’s not even completely accurate for media outlets with the highest publication barriers. Those outlets will still report on police and government investigations, charges being laid, and trials, all of which are stories in progress. Sure, the progress of media investigations hasn’t typically been reported on (by either the outlet in question or its competitors), but why shouldn’t it be? Why isn’t “ESPN is looking into story X” as notable as “the NCAA is looking into story X” or “the police are looking into story X”? All are varying forms of investigation eventually reported to the public. Yes, this shouldn’t be done at the very first step (for both legal and ethical reasons, an outlet would never want to report they were looking into something that ultimately wasn’t true), but once you know something for sure, there can be merit in reporting that. Outlets absolutely need to be careful to only report the facts that they can prove, but it can be worthwhile to get even a few of the facts out there rather than waiting to try and tie it all up in a pretty bow. A lot of the griping about Florio seems to come from those annoyed he stole ESPN’s scoop (or whoever would have eventually gotten there first), but that’s on those outlets for not getting something in sooner.

It’s also worth considering the consequences of media inaction. This is particularly important in political stories (if you don’t get the facts you do have out there before the next election, voters don’t have all the information that should be public), but it can matter in sports stories too. A player’s continued participation when you have solid information that might lead to his suspension or dismissal may be fine under the “don’t report incomplete stories” idea, but it violates another media tenet, “don’t become the story.” Say a few things go differently in this year’s playoffs and the Cowboys win the Super Bowl with Bryant in a starring role; it later emerges that Schefter and the others who have been “working on this for months” had information that would have caused the league to suspend him. What about those fans who threatened to boycott the NFL if it didn’t expel Ray Rice; if Bryant’s actions were really “five times worse,” don’t they deserve to know he’s under investigation and yet still playing?

There’s no perfect solution here, and balancing the public’s right to know with the need for accuracy is a tightrope every journalistic outlet will have to walk for the foreseeable future. It’s also not definite at this point that Schefter and others did anything wrong by not reporting their investigation into Bryant sooner; if Bryant is ultimately vindicated, their path may look good in retrospect. The amount of outrage directed at Florio for making, what look at this point, to be very provable and newsworthy statements is quite staggering, though. Whatever comes from this, the takeaway should be that you always don’t need a surveillance video to have a story, and you don’t need to put every story in a perfect, self-contained package. There can be a lot of merit into reporting what you know concretely as soon as you can, rather than investigating for several months in pursuit of the perfect story and getting beaten to the punch.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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