What they did isn't even tantamount to journalism. It's TMZ. It's tabloid. Hell, even TMZ has a higher standard than what they did.
You can't call yourself a journalist if you can't verify the story but publish it anyways. You can't call yourself a journalist without doing the BASICS of verifying if what you hear is factual. Yet almost every single supposed "journalist" did exactly that.
Shambolic. But that's par for the course I guess.
What I will say is that they're good writers who have been hung out to dry by poor subbing and a rush/need to be 'first out'.
The Athletic's subs are absolutely dreadful. They miss out errors, they miss out facts, they must not actually sub work. And for that headline to go out the way it initially did caused problems.
It's alright for Ornstein - who, btw, is a good guy - but his name on stuff doesn't really matter when he's not the journalist for the club. Greg got it in the neck, and so did Paddy who wasn't even working at the game.
Now, where the lads did IMO let themselves down, but it doesn't at all condone any abuse (and that's what the club wanted, division in the fanbase, and at the end of the day they are fans) is that follow-up piece in midweek where they, seemingly without challenge, let the unnamed source - that's fine, most sources are unnamed but we should all have a pretty good idea of who it is - double-down on the Baxendale thing.
None of us actually know if it's true or not. My gut feeling is that something might have happened that wasn't actually an issue at all at the time. However, certain people at the club - and again, we should all know who this is - have saved for a later date and to weaponise.
The club have got it outstandingly wrong. The Athletic's editors and subs did with that initial headline and piece, which they subsequently corrected, and their writers then did by not challenging their source enough, IMO.
www.theguardian.com
