Peter King posted this on the MMQB site today:
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From: Peter King, editor-in-chief, The MMQB
An addendum to the Ray Rice coverage:
Earlier this summer a source I trusted told me he assumed the NFL had seen the damaging video that was released by TMZ on Monday morning of Rice slugging his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City elevator. The source said league officials had to have seen it. This source has been impeccable, and I believed the information. So I wrote that the league had seen the tape. I should have called the NFL for a comment, a lapse in reporting on my part. The league says it has not seen the tape, and I cannot refute that with certainty. No one from the league has ever knocked down my report to me, and so I was surprised to see the claim today that league officials have not seen the tape.
I hope when this story is fully vetted, we all get the truth and nothing but the truth.
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Indeed, the key element here is that King didn’t contact the NFL for a reaction. King is an excellent journalist.
However, with the volume much higher and everything moving so much faster these days, some basic journalism fundamentals tend to get overlooked. Always call for a reaction.
When do journalists EVER get a reaction from a reliable source before publishing? The pundits have said that Ellington may miss 4 to 6 weeks with a foot injury. His coach claims he may be ready to go tonight. This is constant drama perpetuated by the media.