Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Sportswriter

I find it curious that mainstream media can find time to complain that bloggers are ruining news when some newspapers can’t even accurately report the score of the SUPER BOWL.

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper actually printed “Colts 31, Saints 17″.

Whoops.

If you are any other American who has television, radio, Internet or friends you probably know that the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. It was kind of a big deal. The Colts were favored, the Saints had never even been to a Super Bowl, the city rallied around the football team that they nearly lost after the devastating Hurricane Katrina and no New Orleans professional sports team has ever won a championship. Ever.

Is this okay? No. Hell no.

Virginian-Pilot editor Denis Finley apologized to his readers:

We blew it. Big time. Readers of Monday’s Sports front saw the score for the Super Bowl as Colts 31, Saints 17. The mistake was repeated on Page 9. It doesn’t get much worse. The whole country watches the Super Bowl, the whole country knows the score, and we get it wrong? Preposterous. Unbelievable. Embarrassing.

I write about sports for a living and I can tell you right now that while I just had the number of posts I write a month slashed in half what I actually write still needs to be factual. You know why? Because even living in the D.C. suburbs, while I bet two-thirds of my neighbors could not name our representative to congress, I would be willing to put money down that 99 percent of them know that our football team is the Washington Redskins.

Besides the fact that they need a writer who can accurately report a major championship score, the Virginian-Pilot could also use some editorial help. I guess that it what happens when you cut almost 200 jobs in your newsroom.

Dear Traditional Media, this is just one of the reasons you are dying.

Another reason? Your online edition was edited immediately. If it weren’t for your printed, tree-killing newspapers we wouldn’t even have a picture of the error.

But we do.

I am not saying that there aren’t bloggers out there who publish things that aren’t true. I’ve seen it happen more than once. What I am saying is that the score of the Super Bowl is a pretty big deal. It only happens once a year and Nielsen reported that 106.5 million people watched the game on television this year.

Let’s try to at least get the big things right, okay newspapers?