Should I be happy Kietzman was fired? Yes, it's me.

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Originally Posted by TEX

Yep. Deal is, the small time fools chose the negative route, when they literally have the biggest story in the NFL in their own backyard in Mahomes. They have / had access to inside stuff on a daily basis that would have been picked up nationally, putting them on the map that way.

Now, Im not saying only cover the good stuff, but when you cover the bad, do your research and do it profesionally. Just think where they would be today had they done that.

Good point ...

All they had to do with the Tyreek stuff was to verify and cite their sources, clarify the details, report what they knew, and omit the insinuations from the headlines and tweets. That's it. And that's not hard.

It's pretty clear to me that the Star and Ch5 saw dollar signs when early hints of the story emerged. Blinded by the shiny object, they reacted like monkeys and started banging out words. They had a kid with an injury, a guy with a history, they thought he was down, and they started kicking. They envisioned themselves as media heroes. That KK guy did the same thing. It's a frenzy where "first" is best and "accurate" is way down the list.

Editors know that most people don't read beyond the headline and the first paragraph of an article. That's why teevee news stories are brief and twitter is successful. People consume information like drive-through burgers. They just want the high point and hold the details. It's easy for an editor to leave the most salient facts until paragraph 10 just as long as they can say it was written and published. Otherwise, the headline (or tweet) just needs to "Pop". If that means a misleading (or ultimately false) allusion, so be it.

However, there's an occasional problem. If the subject matter at hand (in this case, the Chiefs) is important enough to your audience that they will actually investigate and read and dig and understand, some (not all, obviously) people are going to recognize what's happening and call you out your crap.

Some folks will now feel remorse for what happened to poor, ol' KK and what may happen to other reporters in the KC market. But they shouldn't. A cubicle at a paper, a microphone, or access to the Chiefs or the courthouse doesn't make you holy, sanctimonious, or special ... it makes you responsible (or, at least, it's supposed to). When you don't take that responsibility seriously, you don't deserve ... and you don't belong in ... the job.

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