Journalism is dead

There was a time not too long ago when those who wrote for mass audiences were held accountable for their words, back when words like slander and libel meant something.

These days, writers - actually, bloggers - can write essentially whatever they want with little or no consequence. The example I'll use is the story on Deadspin that is gaining momentum.

A.J. Daulerio is an editor and writer for Deadspin and recently posted a story about Brett Favre sending pictures of his private parts to Jenn Sterger, the Florida State football groupie turned sideline reporter for the Jets. According to the story, Sterger had a casual conversation with Daulerio when the subject of Favre came up.


Sterger said Favre, who is married, was sending her flirty text messages and eventually sent him pictures of him in the buff. Sterger asked that the story not be made public and didn't want to go on the record, but it was too juicy for Daulerio to keep under wraps.

So far, no such pictures, text messages or voice mails have been made public, therefore there is no concrete evidence. But why would a blogger care about hard evidence?

Is this where journalism is going? This is why newspapers are dying? That's a pretty sad state of affairs. A story like this is what you'd normally see in the National Enquirer or Star Magazine, yet people don't seem to care. They simply want the scoop, whether it's there or not. Wake up, people.

I don't know if the story is true or not (I'm leaning toward no, only because Sterger has always been and will always be an attention-starved person), but as journalist, I wouldn't go with a story until I was convinced it was true.

On a side note, I'm sick of all of these sports stories with unnamed sources. These days, getting the story out and getting it out quick is the name of the game. Unfortunately, that means using "a person close to the situation" as the major source. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but it bothers me greatly.

Last year, when the Celtics held training camp at Salve Regina University, Daily News sportswriter and I were joking that we should go with a story that the Celtics made a trade for LeBron James, citing, of course, a person close to the team. Why not? There doesn't seem to be any backlash when such reports prove untrue.

Of course that was an idea made in jest, but it's a scenario that happens far too often these days.