You can read about this in greater detail here, but here’s the skinny: the Washington Post’s Jason Reid reported on his blog that the Redskins’ Chris Samuels was going to retire. As of this writing, though, the post has been taken down and replaced with a post reporting that Samuels will make his decision in the coming months.
Taking Down A Blog Post: What Are The Rules?
↵The Player Hater’s Ball, which first noticed the missing post, believes that this could be a breach of ethics.
↵↵I may be wrong (perhaps this is a technical error or something) and I hope so. But it appears as if Reid (or whomever) was trying to cover their ass by deleting the erroneous report and covering it up with a newer, more accurate one.
↵Look, I don’t like playing the journalism or morality police, but if my suspicious are true, that’s completely bush league. Correcting minor errors is fine, acting like a post never existed is fundamentally dishonest.
↵↵I agree that removing the post entirely is unfortunate, as I believe a blogger, whether mainstream or independent, should stand by his or her words. However, even if this post was taken down with intent, I don’t see it as a major violation of journalistic ethics. It doesn’t appear to me that Reid was being intentionally misleading and, if this was intentional, was only trying to save face. I just spoke with SB Nation editor and maestro of Over the Monster, Randy Booth, who offers an angle I find interesting.
↵↵[Reid] writes something and can get fired for misinformation. [Bloggers] write something and just say, “hey, that was wrong -- my B” and it’s cool.
↵↵These are just conversation-starters, though. If you’re a sports blogger, would you consider taking down an erroneous post you wrote? And if you’re just a reader of sports blogs, would you disapprove of your favorite blogger making a post disappear? What do you think?
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