Deflated Sense of Media Morality

I have a personal beef with this topic. It took the honor of my favorite team, and spat on it. People tore them apart without any proof or evidence. People took the headlines as facts, didn't read the actual content, and allowed biased opinions to shape their own. I am talking about the witch hunt that was Deflate Gate.

It all started when Bob Kravitz forged a story, creating a narrative that a player felt that a football was under inflated, and then told the officials. That player would go on to say that he never felt any difference in the ball and he never told anyone otherwise. Then, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported that "11 of 12 footballs were significantly deflated". This is when the shit hit the fan. Not only was the report wrong, it allowed anyone and everyone to jump on the issue because "ESPN reported it, it has to be true". Reports later that came that only one ball was even close to significantly deflated (the ball that a former Jets front office executive got his hands on before turning it over to the officials), and the other ten were barely deflated below the 12.5 minimum. On top of that, the officials measured 24 footballs, not the 11 of 12.  More and more reports came out as things died down. Jay Glazer attempted to drum up a story by saying "the investigation has focused on a ball boy attendant who took the balls after the officials measured them". Want more pathetic reporting? The ball boy took them from the officials' room to the bathroom for 90 seconds, and then took them to the field. The Patriots themselves turned in that video to the NFL. The guy went to the bathroom to take a piss, not to "deflate 11 of 12 footballs" in under 90 seconds. Various other reports have come out that the officials never measured the footballs, and that the didn't even measure them at halftime when they were reinflated, so whatever "evidence" they may have had no longer exists. 

Now to where it hits on my studies: how people took it and ran. Speculation and assumptions ran rampant. ESPN went as far as having three former anti-Patriots-biased panelists call Tom Brady a liar on national TV. We had established sports writers call for the NFL to suspend Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. We had famous former players call the Patriots cheaters and demand punishment. ALL BASED OFF OF NO EVIDENCE OR PROOF. I'm sorry, but doesn't our legal system state that people are "innocent until proven guilty". Yet people based their opinions and stances off of misunderstanding and misinformation, all starting from individuals fueled by anger, hatred, and resentment. 

Bias played far too much into this story, and the fact that major news organizations wanted and allowed this to happen is beyond frustrating and annoying. Several news journalists were recorded as saying that their articles or news stories were removed due to being fair and not controversial on this issue. People took another sensationalized story in Spy Gate, where I could write a whole other blog post on that and why that was a ridiculous story, and used it to fuel this "cheating" narrative. Had people taken an unbiased approach to the story, and instead of delving into the hysteria went into the facts and information, then maybe this story would have taken a much more appropriate, and less hate fueled, approach to how it was covered.

Some people called it like they saw it. Some people took the unbiased approach. Some people did the research to clarify statements. Unfortunately, it wasn't everyone.