Ben Simmons warming up against Atlanta in June 2021. Jun 20, 2021; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons warms up before game seven of the second round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

In any form of news that incorporates information from other people or outlets, it’s important to be extremely careful with sourcing. That’s led to condemnation for outlets like ESPN for actions like not including links to a podcast when quoting it. But there’s a bigger issue still when it comes to attributing information that the original source didn’t actually report. And that’s what Pennsylvania columnist Tom Moore (of The Bucks County Courier-Times and The Intelligencer (from Doylestown, PA)) took issue with FanSided for Friday:

Here’s the FanSided story in question, which was published Thursday, and which very definitely attributed a $308,000/day figure to Moore:

Moving forward, the team is planning to have Simmons suit up for the squad in 2021-22 too. With that said, Simmons remains unhappy with his current situation. Knowing this, per Tom Moore, Philadelphia will be ready to fine Simmons for each day he doesn’t report to training camp.

Indeed, Moore is reporting that the 76ers will be ready to fine Simmons $308,000 for each day he’s not at camp this fall. With things set to start later this month in Camden, it’s completely up in the air if Simmons will show up.

That FanSided story did not include a link to any writing of Moore’s beyond the tweet, and the tweet certainly didn’t include that $308,000 number. And Moore’s most recent column on Simmons, which FanSided did not bother to link to, also does not include that number.

But the story somehow felt very confident in that number for Simmons (seen above warming up ahead of a playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks in June), even including it in its URL: https://fansided.com/2021/09/16/76ers-plan-fine-ben-simmons-308k-per-day-camp. And it felt very confident in attributing that number to Moore, with a “Moore is reporting.” It’s unclear how this happened, but it’s certainly not a good look for FanSided or Perez. And it’s unfortunate that Moore had to publicly blast them on Twitter for attributing something to him that it doesn’t appear he actually reported.

(Update: FanSided later removed that number from their piece.)

[Tom Moore on Twitter; photo from Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports]

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.