Unless you're from Detroit, Chris McCosky wasn't a name you knew before last week when a storm of fire erupted around the Detroit News beat writer after he related just how much of a scourge these sportsblogs have become. The reaction was... not kind. For those who enjoyed both the irrational slanders and the rational stonings, this story about Josh Smith may be of some interest.McCosky last week reported that Hawk Josh Smith screamed at teammate Tyronn Lue to get him the ball, and angrily requested coach Mike Woodson take Lue out during a timeout. McCosky went on to opine about how much of a bad seed Smith was, and said Josh is playing for a contract instead for the good of the team. Hmph.
Enter Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, considered among the best beat writers in the country. He asked Josh about this incident.
"It's a lie," Smith said of the report [...]And he asked Lue.
"So he had to be restrained by other players and coaches ... man, are you serious? None of that happened. The instance they're talking about is when he had Rip [Hamilton] guarding him in the post and he was yelling for the ball. I threw him the [expletive] ball. And he was right; we needed to go to him inside when he has a smaller guy on him. But the rest of that stuff, none of that happened. It's all trash and lies."Sekou also points out some basic facts McCosky got wrong in his column, like how Josh isn't an unrestricted free agent this summer. I AM SO SICK OF THESE JOURNALISTS NOT BEING HELD UP TO PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS DAMMIT! (Sorry.) Of course, Sekou has the class not to call out McCosky by name. After McCosky's recent inane slander, I have no such qualms: McCosky seemingly screwed this one up big time.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-13-2007 @ 12:53PM
Dead Weight said...
No, a columnist from Detroit making up stories! where have i heard that before? Damn if only i can remember his name, emmm..... wrote a best seller (fiction of course), is on the sports reporters every sunday...., what is his face? But seriously though why do Journalist make shit up? I mean is it a crime to tell your editor from time to time, "this week i have drawn a blank"? Just when the Josh is looking to cash in, people start hating on him. Back when he was riding the bench and collecting DNP-CD's like he was about to start a record label nobody wrote about him then.
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11-13-2007 @ 1:09PM
hoopinion said...
In the interests of making something good come out of this, I have dubbed Josh Smith "The Torpedo."
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11-13-2007 @ 2:07PM
Julie said...
For the sake of upholding journalistic integrity, I'll tell you that McCosky does not have an "e" in his last name. :) On another note, great post and I must say that as a Detroit Fan I am torn between wanting to read his stuff everyday and tell him about all of his mistakes and wanting to pretend that he doesn't exist. Right now I'll just depend on you to catch his mistakes and go with the latter idea.
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11-13-2007 @ 2:10PM
Tom said...
Thanks Julie. Fixed.
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11-13-2007 @ 7:37PM
hotlantahawks said...
Interesting. I wrote about another shady problem with McCosky's game recap right after the game:
http://hotlantahawks.blogspot.com/2007/11/josh-smith-stop-shooting-contested-3.html
I love when "journalists" have a problem with bloggers and yet seem to have a heck of a time providing honest, fact-based reporting themselves.
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