An Apology to Richard Sandomir

Richard Sandomir called us on something we wrote recently. On March 10, 2005, the story of the day was the breakdown in talks between the "New York" Giants and the state of New Jersey over the construction of a new stadium in the Meadowlands. We criticized Sandomir in our comments on his follow upstory of March 11, saying "On Thursday, March 10, Richard Sandomir wrote an article that appeared in The Times reporting that the New York Giants' negotiations with the state of New Jersey over a new Giants Stadium had broken down. That was the extent of his coverage. Since The Times was the first paper I read that morning, I added a note above the article on this web site stating that this certainly hinted at the possibility that the Giants could get involved in the Jets efforts to build a stadium in Manhattan. It was an obvious conclusion, but it did not appear in Sandomir's article."

Wrong.

Paragraphs nine and ten contain two sentence which quote Giants COO John Mara to the effect that the Giants would listen, though reluctantly, to an overture from the Jets.

I pointed out to Richard in our conversation that the Post, News and Newsday all led with this angle of the story, whereas in The Times, it was nuanced and buried, and while the Post and News might be given to the more sensational angle of a story, the same can not be said of Newsday, who nonetheless made it their lead.

Further, I could have pointed out that the Post and the News both referenced an unnamed source who revealed that the two teams had actually entered into tentative negotiations.

We stand by our belief that that was the story of the day.

But, it was there in Richard Sandomir's article. You just had to read on, something we pride ourselves on doing.

We also accused him of lazy journalism, a nasty thing to say about any reporter, and inappropriate here. However, we do believe he could have been a tad more aggressive in his pursuit of the story.

We apologize, humbly.

At least we didn't issue any lotto scratch tickets.

I would add one closing thought, something that has been driven home for me covering the coverage of the West Side Stadium controversy: The headline and lead of an article in The Times is more important than the same in any other newspaper in America.

The Times is the paper of record. When you pick up The Times in the morning, if you are like me, and you probably are in at least this respect, you skim, page by page, looking at the headline and the lead, choosing which articles you want to read in full.

So, if The Times runs a headline over an article like, say,

Stadium Could Send Sewage Into River, Lawmaker Says

and a lead of

Most of the New Yorkers who have opposed the city's plans to redevelop the West Side and build a football stadium there actually live or work on the West Side, and dislike the proposed changes to the neighborhood. But State Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat and several other Harlem residents have a different reason for their opposition - one that is more than four miles to the north.

Mr. Espaillat is concerned about the proposal's effect on the sprawling North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, on the Hudson River from 137th Street to 145th Street...

and you stopped reading right there, which is, I am quite sure, what several hundred thousand people did on the morning of July 25th, 2004, you would have come away with the overriding sense that the stadium would be dumping raw sewage into the Hudson River.

Now, that is not what Charles V. Bagli was actually saying in that article.If you read on, you got it. But that headline was a killer, and with the lead that followed...well, you draw your own conclusion.

I would point out that Cablevision began running an attack ad on the stadium depicting raw sewage flowing into a river several days later.

Sometimes, the story becomes the news.

Tom McMorrow, Jr.