WFNY Podcast: Can the Browns Win Their Next Four?
November 19, 2010Cavs Offbeat: Boobie Gibson’s Hot Streak is Causing a bit of a Fire Hazard
November 19, 2010It has come to my attention that there was an error in the Windhorst interview post I made yesterday that may be causing some trouble for the ESPN.com writer. The goal of that post was really to get Cleveland fans to listen to the interview themselves. At the time it was written the archive of the interview was not up on Cleveland.com. The interview is online now, and I encourage you to listen for yourself.
I wrote-
The first is the tampering charge. According to Windhorst, there was a meeting between Pat Riley and LeBron James last winter. Of course, this is tampering to the highest degree. According to the interview, Windhorst contacted Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and advised him of this meeting. Gilbert, afraid of angering LeBron James, chose not to proceed with the information, and Windhorst decided not to run the story.
Here is where I was in error- Windhorst does not say he informed Dan Gilbert. He said someone in the organization, not Gilbert himself. My confusion came in listening to Booms and Petsanis recap the interview on Thursday’s show. Booms in recapping is the one who says he told Dan Gilbert, not Brian Windhorst. Just to clear that up.
As far as this ‘other information’ in regards to why LeBron James was playing so poorly, or letting the pressure affect him, Windhorst’s actual words are- “there are some details that I could reveal, but at this particular point because of confidences and I still have to cover the league I can’t.”
Brian Windhorst now claims he will ‘never be reporting them’, but that is not what was said in the interview. “At this particular point” does not sound like never to me. Regardless, to be fair we wanted to state facts and encourage you to listen to the interview yourself.
28 Comments
What a hack. He knows the whole thing is a fraud but will keep quiet because he likes his job. Then Lebron retires and he will have ample material for another book in about 15 years discussing all of this.
How does that make him a hack? Lol.
A capitalist maybe, but a hack? He’s doing what any other respected journalist would do. I’m so tired of people knocking Windhorst. He took a better job that didn’t impede his family life, just like anyone of us would do in a split second. Get over it.
he could just reveal what ever it is and blow the whole thing wide open. I’m sure ESPN would eat that up
He is a hack becuase he is a reporter who is making a choice not to report. I could care less about the fact that he is making more money. Good for him. I would do the exact same thing. I am just saying he sucks as a reporter. If there is info that you don’t want the public to know then fine keep quiet…
Being a journalist is all about being connected in order to get stories in the first place. Even if he has information, substantiated or otherwise, there are going to be some things for which he will not be able to bring to the public light in order to keep his connections. Even if he hints at what we all are speculating, he’s looking out for himself in the long run.
i believe that if you’re planning on never reporting it, don’t mention it. what does that get you? dumb move on BW’s part.
and just my two cents: he would have been an idiot to turn down the ESPN job.
@ Nullster- are you implying that being a savvy capitalist means you cannot also be a hack?
per dictionary.com a hack is – “a professional who renounces or surrenders individual independence, integrity, belief, etc., in return for money or other reward in the performance of a task normally thought of as involving a strong personal commitment”
Sounds to me like someone who first withholds information until he can secure himself a career upgrade, then slowls leaks this same information as bait for people to buy the (almost certainly forthcoming) novel. You know, once LBJ is out of the league and Windys meal ticket (pun not intended) is gone?
Sounds like all around hackery. Whether or not is is a good business decision for Brian Windhorst, Inc. is immaterial
YES BUT WHAT DOES THE DICTIONARY ON MY HACKINTOSH COMPUTER SAY?
WE BEGIN:
noun
1 a writer or journalist producing dull, unoriginal work
LOOKS LIKE THE INTERNET IS INCORRECT.
He’s not a hack. He’s just not willing to burn every bridge there is. As Scott said on the other post – with the teams holding the chips re: press access, he’d be sacrificing his access and his meal ticket by writing whatever it is.
I agree that if he wasn’t going to ever report about it or withhold it until he wrote a book 15 years from now, then he shouldn’t have even mentioned it. That was a mistake on his part.
Totally agree with #6. If you dont want to report it, fine, just keep your mouth shut.
I don’t blame Windy a bit for his move to ESPN. The best writers get the best opportunities and he’s clearly one of the best.
What bothers me is his reporting during the playoffs last year. This is a reporter who was somewhere between honest and critical about the Cavs for the entire time he covered them. Even when things were going well he provided insight, or basically said “wait a minute…this team isn’t as good as we might think.” Then, during the Boston series, one of the most baffling performances I’ve ever seen by championship contender over several GAMES, we got effectively nothing from “the best beat writer in the NBA”. Maybe he was as dumbfounded as the fans, maybe he was holding something back, but he certainly provided no insight or answers.
@Denny- so is it ok for a guy to sell you a used car and not tell you about all of its problems, simply because he needs that sale to make Sales Manager?
Does anyone remeber the report in season (i think it was here) about Windy trying to grease the skids to NY if LBJ happened to end up there? I dont know if it was true or not, but there was that report, and then he did land fairly well with ESPN in Miami, quite soon after the Debacle, which screams to me some deals were already in the works (the old smoke…fire corrollary). So how long had he been working on his contingency plan for if/when LBJ left? Did Windy figure if LBJ did leave, he could follow along and get paid handsomely in the process? Did Windy not want to mess up his potential future windfall in a new locale by making LBJ hate him? Is this an abdication of journalistic responsibility? (copywrite: Clevelan Frowns)
This is my only real problem. Its a dishonest sales job. And now it smells like he’s trying to set up future book sales (to me at least)
Sounds like he is just trying to keep himself relevant.
and in the interest of full disclosure, I am also disgusted with myself for getting sucked in and snowed not once but twice on this whole deal. Perhaps thats why it grinds my gears (copywrite:Peter Griffin)
I’m gonna try to write this out, being completely impartial.
Windy did what he should have, he informed the organization about #6 meeting with Pat Riley. The organization failed on it’s part. Should Windy have contacted league officials.. Probably.
Would I have? As an anonymous source so I can save my future prospects, damn right I would have.
DONE BEING IMPARTIAL, WELCOME TO MATTY WORLD
This juicy gossip that Windy alludes to, then blows off, is nothing. He just wants us to remember who he is when he publishes his book. I’ll read it, I’m sure most of us will. We want answers and we haven’t been given many. But I’m guessing the gossip is nothing special. It’ll probably be about the locker room and the grumblings we heard about fighting and arguments.
Or it will be something like..
“#6 didn’t want Mike Brown fired and that’s why he left”
or..
“#6 tried his darnedest to bring players to Cleveland and the organization and FO scared players away because Gilbert is racist.”
Windy keep your non-answer answers to yourself until you’re ready to grow a pair and treat us Cleveland fans as adults and give us something tangible.
@ Max – I don’t see the relevance of the used car salesman reference at all, and I usually get non-sequiturs. But, I’ll answer. A salesman is a salesman. You know that, and he knows that. So what do you do? You look things up on your own. You research the car using other available resources (like Carfax, etc). And then you make your own informed decision.
So maybe that means reading other NBA writers and not taking one guy as gospel. I’ll openly admit that I still think Windhorst is quite a good writer. Has he fallen short on the criticism now that he’s at ESPN? Most definitely. Does that make him a used car salesman? Absolutely not.
I like Windy and I don’t blame him for taking what is essentially a promotion. That said, it’s a slippery slope when you let others dictate your content just so you can maintain access. He makes it a point to say that ESPN doesn’t tell him what to write, but maybe they don’t have to. Maybe the players are already doing that, which goes to one of the biggest criticisms of ESPN….that they kowtow to players and adjust their reporting based upon relationships.
This is sort of like saying it was OK for the PD to bury some allegations of malfeasance in city/county government in order to maintain access. Sure, illegal vs. legal, but journalists deal with information, not the law.
@Denny- let me try another tack
Good writer- sure.
Credible journalist?- not any more. At least not to me.
thats all I’m sayin’
i would have to think that if BW’s little nugget of damning info is really THAT substantial, he is not the only one that knows about it. if so, chances are it will eventually get leaked out somehow. especially if some disgruntled person from lebron’s inner circle gets the boot. (or when Shaq/Delonte retire!)
Whatever, at some point in the near future, Wojnarowski will write a tell-all Lebron/Heat article and, most likely, spill the beans.
I’m not a huge Wojnarowski fan, but he seems to have good sources and isn’t afraid to put the information out there…
horace – dont forget, he also hates lebron nearly as much as scott raab and buzz bissinger do!
why is it causing BW problems that he told someone in the organization but not Gilbert himself? I just don’t understand how that would cause him actual problems.
now, his alluding to juicy gossip that he won’t tell; that I could see causing him issues today and it’s his own fault for saying it in the first place.
The guy sound even more like a scumbag now.
Sadly, Brian is becoming more and more like LeWeasel himself.
@ Jason hit the nail on the head… Windhorst’s coverage of the Cavs/LeBron by the end of the season and into the summer was eerily similar to LeBron’s series against the Celtics in that both essentially disappeared.
Furthermore, isn’t it strange that if Windhorst had the LBJ/Riley intel last winter that he wasn’t, at the very least, raising Miami as a real destination for LBJ before anyone else? Why wasn’t he all over that story? Is there really any doubt that he didn’t want to jeopardize his meal ticket?
Perhaps I’m being too hard on the guy, but I listened to & read almost every word of his over the last three seasons & you can’t tell me there’s no connection between his relationship with LBJ & his lack of anything close to revealing coverage when the bottom fell out of the organization during the Spring/Summer.
a journalist should report the truth, unless doing so puts people in danger of harm or death.
not the truths convenient for them to report.
Fact is, he works for ESPNike, who may as well change their names to LeBron Yankees Shoes Shoes. Or borrow a page from Gerard Warren and go with Big Market. His ‘confidences’ are likely his job at the pro-LeBron grandstanding syndicate, and he only reports what’s convenient for the Company.
Oh well. Journalistic integrity is dead, like ESLBJ running with a false accusation of a Clevelander ‘attacking’ an 8-year old wearing a Jets jersey after last Sunday’s game.
No eyewitness substantiating said report has come forth, only ones claiming the guy was drunk, fell face-first to the pavement, and knocked the kid over as he fell.
Doesn’t stop Rob Parker from addressing all Clevelanders as ‘over the edge’ and IMMEDIATELY using this unsubstantiated claim to spend the bulk of his article not on the supposed elementary-school assault victim, but to prop up who else?
LeBron.
Many people keep bringing up this journalistic integrity. It seems like an oxymoron to me!
Is this the same “Rick” that was always such an abrasive pompous ass when he was commenting on Windhorst’s old Beacon Journal blog on ohio.com?