I noted this morning that the Chicago Sun-Times had a report on its front page about Husain Mahmoud, who was recently fired from his job as the baseball coach at Chicago State University.The front-page story says "a Sun-Times examination" uncovered that Mahmoud had lied on his resume, but in reality, that "examination" consisted of reading a couple of blogs that uncovered the story weeks ago.
The blogs Babes Love Baseball and The College Baseball Blog reported in mid-June that Mahmoud had fabricated details like having been drafted by the Cincinnati Reds and having led a defunct football league in passing. The Sun-Times story basically rehashes those blog posts, without noting that the blogs reported the news first.
Obviously, the Sun-Times should have credited the blogs in question. When the two blog posts were called to my attention, I e-mailed Sun-Times reporter Dave Newbart to ask for an explanation;
I've been working on this story on and off since mid-May, well before your blog post. We got the tip from the alumnus (I'm assuming he's the same one that contacted you) containing references to wikipedia articles, which we had to independently verify. We did our own original research on the topic, including talking to the Cincinatti Reds, Major League baseball, experts around the country who maintain records of the football leagues he mentioned, sources at the university he attended and others with the summer baseball leagues he mentioned. As it turned out, he did play for one of the teams he claimed, but after it had left the Continental Football League.
For a variety of reasons, we chose not to publish this sooner. Part of the reason for the delay was due to the fact that we didn't want to run the story without speaking to him or getting a statement from the school.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-07-2008 @ 1:22PM
extrapolater said...
For what it's worth, being head coach at Chicago State is not that great of a gig. You don't need to fabricate anything to get the job, I don't think.
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7-07-2008 @ 1:29PM
Brian Foley said...
Interesting response!!
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7-07-2008 @ 1:36PM
§ said...
Blogs: 1, Fourth Estate: 0
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7-07-2008 @ 1:49PM
Adam said...
You can't find fault with the reporter in this case; he appeared to actually do some research and verify the story before running it.
Which, by the way, is exactly what you did NOT do in your post.
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7-07-2008 @ 2:00PM
SportsGirl365 said...
Actually, Adam, we did do research and verify the story. It just didn't take us a month and a half to do it.
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7-07-2008 @ 2:12PM
Brian Foley said...
I contacted the school before I put up the post. They refused comment and removed the coach's biography from their site after I contacted them for comment.
I am a National Collegiate Baseball Writer so I have standards to withhold also.
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7-07-2008 @ 2:19PM
Bassmaster said...
As said in her post, it really doesn't take more than a google search to verify the fact that Mahmoud was full of crap. Well done, ladies and Brian!
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7-07-2008 @ 3:09PM
mathesond said...
Keep withholding those standards, Brian!
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7-07-2008 @ 4:28PM
petejayhawk said...
In honor of this story, I am wearing my Babes Love Baseball t-shirt right now.
Thanks, Sooze!
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