King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Curt Schilling's bloody sock revisited as Red Sox publicity stunt: Why aren't there standards for TV and radio announcers' reporting?

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April 27, 2007 | Don't worry, everybody. Bloody Sockgate is behind us. Our long national nightmare is over. We can all rest assured that Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's bloody socks in the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series really were stained with blood, not red paint or marker.

I think the lesson we can take from this incident, which shook Red Sox Nation -- forcing Hub fans to actually spend work time discussing it! -- is that I got into the wrong business. You get on the radio or TV, you can say whatever you want, and as long as it's not racist, you're good.

Feel like "reporting" a "story" based on one offhand remark made a year or two ago, with no checking of facts, no asking for comment from the person you're about to all but libel, no interviewing any of the many available witnesses or clarifying with the guy who made the offhand remark?

No problem.

That's what Baltimore Orioles TV announcer Gary Thorne did this week when he said during an Orioles-Red Sox broadcast that Schilling's bloody socks in the 2004 postseason were a hoax, a publicity stunt.

This sort of thing goes on all the time, mostly on talk radio, where hosts pretty much talk out their rear ends whenever the on-air light's on. Most of the time it's a matter of spouting opinions based on false assumptions or a lack of familiarity with the facts. But when it bleeds over into broadcasting bad information without even an attempt at reporting it out, or even outright plagiarism, in other words violating the most basic standards of journalism, the waters barely ripple.

One example: When ESPN Radio jock Colin Cowherd plagiarized a comedy bit from a blog last year, a letter about the incident was met with silence from the media professionals who frequent Jim Romenesko's forum at Poynter.org. It was only when outraged fellow bloggers made a stink that Cowherd's theft became a story.

Thorne's comments created not just a ripple but a very brief tsunami not because of his outrageous behavior, but because he was talking about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, and you can't say anything about the 2004 Boston Red Sox without making waves.

Next page: Even without reporting, Thorne should have realized the story he was telling was absurd on its face