On Wednesday, I irresponsibly reported that Bengals’ WR Chris Henry had died, based on a fake Twitter account purporting to belong to the Dallas Morning News‘ Gerry Fraley.
Other sites made the same error. That doesn’t matter.
In the rush to get the story on this site, I ignored fairly easy-to-see fact that the Twitter account was a fake. Older tweets were peppered with expletives one would not expect from a professional journalist, and a cursory check of those older tweets would have confirmed that.
In the past, I have used Twitter as a source for several posts. While those posts have been, to my knowledge, correct, it would seem irresponsible to continue using Twitter as a source.
I am not going to blame either Twitter or the person who created the fake account for this mistake, as neither are responsible for the content on this site.
I would also like to apologize for not taking Chris Henry‘s family into account when posting this false information. It was cruel, inconsiderate and idiotic on my part, and that is an understatement.
What makes this error worse is the fact that frequently on this blog, I have criticized others for irresponsible reporting (e.g., Pro Football Talk on Terry Bradshaw several years ago). Obviously, this makes me a hypocrite.
Asking for forgiveness seems like a fairly selfish thing to do, considering Henry’s current situation, so I will merely ask that the other reporting on this site not be judged by one moronic mistake.
— Paulsen
