Deadspin Withdraws Untrue Story

Deadspin, to their credit, published a lengthy retraction today of a first-person story. The story, published yesterday, was about how “ASU baseball coach Pat Murphy accosted” the storyteller “at a charity event.” The story’s author also later published his conversation with the source:

ME: Did you lie when you wrote this, Asshole?

ASSHOLE: I did not, but the details are distorted enough to cause issues. It was a funny story that has gone too far.

(19 minutes later)

ASSHOLE: Some information may be false…

(43 minutes later)

ASSHOLE: Drew, Murphy did not say those things to me…

The real culprit is the misguided fellow who emailed the bullshit story to begin with and, of course, the very elastic editorial policy employed here by Deadspin which is championed by me.

I’m asking this as a serious question: what could Deadspin ever do that could cause you to run a real apology? Not a “hey, this wasn’t true but here are all the reasons it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t be blamed” fake apology, but an actual “We screwed up, and we’re sorry, and we’re going to try to engage our self-critical process in the future”? I’m genuinely asking.

Deadspin should not have to apologize for being a blog that occasionally gets a story wrong. This isn’t an AP news outlet, and if something you read on here gets your panties in a bunch this badly then you should seriously look into re-prioritizing your life.

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