When Reporters Don't Make Sense

It's interesting that I'm going to give thoughts on an issue that may or not may even be an issue when Baby Girl learns how to read. I guess you can file this under: Things That Bother Daddy.

There have been recent discussions on whether newspapers should even bother to contain play-by-play accounts of the game, or whether the paper should presume that the reader has already seen the game.

I fall firmly on the side of: I don't care if you give play-by-play, yet if you decide to throw your opinion into the midst by logical and tell the entire story.

Daily News, I'm looking at you here.

One paragraph of background. Last night the Jets beat the Lions in OT after the Jets overcame a 10 point deficit. At one point the Jets roughed up the Lions kicker during a FG and knocked the kicker (briefly) out of the game. This is important later.

This morning the Daily News talked about the game.
Gary Myers wrote, "The injury caused by one of those personal fouls, however, actually might have won the Jets the game.

There were about nine minutes left in the third quarter when Detroit's Jason Hanson kicked a 21-yard field goal to get the Lions even at 10. But Trevor Pryce was called for roughing the kicker. Schwartz took the points off the board and on the next play, Matthew Stafford scored from the 1."

Let me great straight to this. There is NO WAY that personal foul might have helped the Jets win the game. Myers clearly states the Lions had scored three points, took those off the board after the foul, and then scored six points. In what universe does allowing your opponents to score twice as many points HELP your team?

In a different article Manish Mehta wrote, "The comeback was made possible by a missed extra point in the third quarter by Suh, the defensive lineman. With Jason Hanson hurt on a roughing the kicker call, Suh had to take the PAT attempt, but he hit the upright, giving the Lions only a 13-10 lead, not 14-10. That point - along with the horrible decisions in the final seconds - came back to haunt the Lions and help the Jets."

Mehta plays into the same odd logic trap: The PAT cost the Lions the game and only since the kicker was hurt did the team miss. He is actually correct in reporter than part of the story- though by not talking about how the injury resulted in additional Lions points in the the first he does not give the reader the entire story. Again, it bugs me.

The point is: If the Jets don't touch the kicker the Lions actually would have had three less points on the board in the first place. I won't even go into whether the game might have not been tied at the end - I have no idea on how it would have ended.

What does this have to do with my unborn daughter? I'm going to TRY to teach her to be logical and factual (actually Danielle is going to teach her to be logical and factual since she used to be the reporter) I'm going to file this entire episode under: question what you read, especially when it doesn't make logical sense.

Wayne