I saw this passage in Bryan Curtis’ piece in Grantland on the media coverage of the Donald Sterling saga.

We have finally blown away the false politeness of the old sports pages. Sports pages weren’t all bad. They could be very good. But they practiced a certain “civility” of speech and they erected Green Monster–sized walls to get news into print (a secretive TMZ recording wouldn’t have passed muster) and they enforced the dreaded “stick to sports” ethos. 

Interesting comment on the TMZ recording and how it wouldn’t have passed muster with newspapers. Curtis, though, is wrong to signal out newspapers here. I have a feeling his home team, ESPN, also would have had some trepidation going with the tape.

Indeed, while watching the coverage yesterday, I struck by the repeated use of  “allegedly” in discussing Sterling by ESPN analysts and elsewhere. Wish I had dime for every time I heard that word.

Even this morning, two days after the story broke, ESPN still was using “purportedly” in its graphic for the story. Check video above.

TMZ, a gossip site, didn’t use “allegedly” in its post. But other outlets were making sure to cover their tracks in case the tape was a fraud. Nobody wants a lawsuit from Mr. Sterling.

It all poses the question of whether more traditional newspaper and network outlets would have gone with this story, given the somewhat uncertainty over the tape. I would think there would be more caution than perhaps what TMZ exhibited.

Listen, TMZ has lawyers too. The outlet had to feel certain knowing they had the goods on Sterling.

Curtis, though, should be reminded that ESPN had the jump on the Manti Te’o story, but the network lost the scoop to Deadspin because it didn’t feel it had everything nailed down.

This is about a lot more than newspapers.