Posted by ESPN.com's Mike Sando
John Tomase, the Boston Herald reporter whose erroneous story about Spygate prompted an apology this week, has explained his position. A key passage:
"First and foremost, this is about a writer breaking one of the cardinal rules of journalism. I failed to keep challenging what I had been told.
"I had repeatedly heard that this walkthrough had been taped, and from people I trusted. Eventually I accepted it as fact and stopped questioning the assertion.
"The confirmed presence of a member of the team's video staff at the walkthrough reinforced my belief that it was filmed. Secondhand sourcing took on added weight. When I got word that other reporters had picked up the scent, it only steeled my resolve not to get beat."
As Tomase acknowledged, this simply cannot happen. The pressure not to get beat can never carry an inaccurate story into publication. At a critical moment, Tomase's fear of reading the story elsewhere outweighed the fear of getting the story wrong. Of course, readers generally don't care which reporter had a story first. Reporters keep score a lot more closely than readers. But if you get a story wrong -- particularly a story with major ramifications such as this one -- readers never forget.
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