Balance, Facts Lose to Immediacy, Judgment

Forget balance. Never mind context -- even facts. And, perspective? No way.

Too often those things get lost, even by some respected sports journalists, when people feel the need to chime in, jump on or simply react.

The latest examples come in regard to the major NCAA basketball stories of the past week.

First, in the aftermath of the appropriate coverage of Mike Rice's coaching methods and eventual firing at Rutgers, one important sidebar story was lost and a second developed that has blossomed and earned even more attention.

First, the apparent money-grab request by former RU assistant coach Eric Murdock was overlooked. The practice tapes showing Rice's actions first became available to university administrators through Murdock, who threatened to make them public unless he was compensated (apparently asking for as much as $950,000). 

Sure, that was a secondary story to Rice's tactics, but it was almost ignored for more than a week. Even though many sports fans knew the blackmail story was out there, it seemed of little interest to media members more interested in assessing blame or finding someone at fault. It was just as compelling, but there was no tape (no smoking gun) to drive the Murdock story home with a general audience.

Instead, the story of the day, and days, after Rice was rightfully fired was blame. Never mind that it was clear Rice was most at fault.

Fueled by many in the media, athletic director Tim Pernetti lost his job as well -- despite the fact that he had been prevented from taking more serious action against Rice when he wanted because he was hampered by the university's human resource policies and legal limitations.

Worse, media members piled on with incorrect information. Never mind the facts.

That included the following from USA Today columnist Christine Brennan, a trustee at the Northwestern University who invariably has solutions for every institution of higher education in the nation when scandal breaks. On April 4, she wrote:

"There are two men who are responsible for allowing Rice to represent Rutgers four months too long -- two men who failed the students of Rutgers and their families, who failed the taxpayers of New Jersey, who failed that 2007 women's basketball team and who failed Clementi's memory. They are university president Robert Barchi and athletics director Tim Pernetti. Astoundingly, as of Wednesday night, they both still have their jobs. They still are employed by Rutgers and the people of New Jersey."

That sounds great, but it's factually wrong. Pernetti was not hired at RU until April 2009. So there was no way he could "fail" the women's team in 2007. But why should facts stand in the way of a good story?

Our fast-paced media environment just does not lend itself often enough to balance and context. It's a bigger shame when veterans who know better take the somewhat salacious route, and Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Peter King of Sports Illustrated joined that group the past two days.

On ESPN's "The Sports Reporters," Burwell lamented that Louisville was taking advantage of injured standout Kevin Ware by raising money using shirts with his name and number on them to benefit a scholarship fund. It's a fair criticism, using a player for a university's gain, but it needs the context that Ware himself benefits from a scholarship (possibly in part attributable to the success of generations of basketball players before him at Louisville) and that Ware would benefit in coming weeks and months from the university's largesse in the form of free medical care for his gruesome injury. 

It's appropriate to critique the NCAA and university for taking advantage of Ware's situation, but context matters.

On Monday, King joined the trio -- and he should have been flagged for his unbalanced piling on in his weekly "Monday Morning Quarterback" column. He wrote:

Factiod of the Week That May Interest Only Me I

Between them, Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice and athletic director Tim Pernetti are due more than $2 million in contract settlements in the wake of leaving university employment.

There is something twisted about that.

Really? Something twisted? C'mon, King knows better. It's not illegal or twisted, it's called a contract. Of all, people, King who regularly writes about NFL contracts and salary cap numbers should have an appreciation that people in the upper reaches of intercollegiate athletic departments have contracts.

When they get fired, it's not as if they leave their office with only the clothes on their back and a cardboard box filled with office supplies. They get compensated.

Sure, it's might seem unseemly to some, but it's business as usual. Without that context, without making it clear that such exits happen all the time, such as when any major college or university fires a coach with time remaining on their contracts, it's an unfair and twisted way to treat Rutgers, Rice and Pernetti as well.