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[MMarston]

https://deadspin.com/the-fallout-from-sportswritings-filthiest-fuck-up-1797691830

It's a long-ass read — in fact, I'd say it even gets unnecessarily tangential at a few points — but it's a thorough, amusing, and eventually depressing (it gets pretty dark in the end) look at the massive ramifications of somebody deciding to dick around (pun unintended) even for even just a few minutes while on the job as a journalist. Not just for the publication your work for, but basically everyone in your entire immediate world around you. This is especially when the your subjects are nothing more than a bunch of high school soccer players.

As someone who's worked in communications and some journalism, this actually is the stuff of my nightmares. Some excerpts

The headline, INEXPERIENCE FACES GREEN WAVE SOCCER, suggests nothing beyond some sort of small-town newspaper sports preview story, and the byline (Nick DeLeonibus) is that of a name that rings unfamiliar to most. Upon closer inspection, you can ascertain that the piece appeared in the Gallatin (Tenn.) News Examiner in the winter of 1997. ”With March 11th quickly approaching," it begins, ”Gallatin soccer head coach Rufus Lassiter wants to take things day-by-day."

The ensuing 10 paragraphs add little to explain why anyone would want to read. Even now, two decades after publication, much of the article reads as flatly as it surely did on the Friday it hit newsstands. Like many of its ilk, this is an article written primarily for the 20 or so members of the Gallatin High boys soccer team and their families. It exists so that, when they ultimately have children and grandchildren of their own, Daniel Sanders and Randall Carter and Michael McRae and the other Green Wave players can blow dust off the ol' scrapbook and say, ”See, I was once something..." The information provided is standard local fare. Coming off a mediocre 7-7-2 season, the Green Wave of 1997 will likely struggle even more with the loss of seven seniors. Sanders and Carter will split time in goal, but at least Lassiter will have five veterans to turn to. There's McRee, there's Farrell, there's Sparkman and Watson and, of course, there's Bubba Dixon.

Writes DeLeonibus in the tenth paragraph: ”Sparkman started last year and will be back on defense. He plays a very physical, tough-nosed brand of soccer."

Yawn.

Writes DeLeonibus in the eleventh paragraph: ”Watson started last year as a defensive player. He works very hard and has good speed."

Yawn.

Writes DeLeonibus in the twelfth paragraph: ”Dixon sucks donkey dicks and doesn't wipe the shit off before practice. We like to keep him at the sweeper position so his sperm breath will stop people from penetrating to the goal. Speaking of penetrating, he prefers tall, red-headed guys. Told me to tell Kris he said ‘hello.'"

Wait. What?

What?

Two lawsuits, each against the News Examiner and Gannett, were filed in Sumner County Circuit Court. One, on behalf of Garrett Dixon, demanded $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The other, on behalf of Gallatin head coach Rufus Lassiter (who was identified in the article as the ”source" of the donkey dicks quote), sought an undisclosed amount. Anyone who knew anything about libel and the law could see where this one was headed. At issue wasn't, specifically, some fabricated words, or a monumental-yet-momentary lapse in judgment. No, this was about the preposterously amok world of small-town newspaper, where a 21-year-old with two years of college was editing a 27-year-old college dropout with no journalism experience and a history of amateur-hour antics. It was about oversight or accountability, of which there was little to none. It was about nonexistent supervision. It was about kicks and giggles filling in for thoroughness and rigor.

The Gallatin News Examiner was toast.

”It's probably the worst case of libel I've ever seen," says Kelly. ”I've seen mistakes made, I've seen people allegedly placed in places where they never were. But I'd never seen a case involving extreme profanity and sexual coarseness that was actually published, about a young man unknown to everyone until it went to print."

Twenty years have passed, and ”Dixon Sucks Donkey Dicks" remains a cautionary tale preached by editors and journalism professors. It has been the subject of academic papers, of lectures, of PowerPoint presentations. ”We used that as a teaching moment in the newsroom for a long time," says Frank Sutherland, the former Tennessean editor-in-chief. ”Here's why you never write anything down that you or your mother would be ashamed to see on the front of the newspaper."

In 1997 I was working at Sports Illustrated, and a former Tennessean colleague (I was a reporter there earlier in the decade) faxed me a copy of the piece. INEXPERIENCE FACES GREEN WAVE SOCCER immediately worked its way through the SI hallways, and while the accompanying giggles and guffaws were understandable, I kept thinking back to my own early journalism days. Like DeLeonibus, I had been young and dumb and occasionally willing to insert curse words into copy to mess with an editor. The News Examiner story haunted me then, as it haunts me now. I could easily have been Nick. Many scribes I know could have been Nick. That's why, in every class I teach as an adjunct journalism professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., one of the first things I have students read is DeLeonibus's work. ”Here," I tell them, ”is what not to do."

 

[Clefargle]

Green waves you say?

 

[MMarston]

Green waves you say?

Shit.

 

[Clefargle]

Shit.

Was getting caught part of your plan?

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

The article was a great read. I'm not a journalist but I definitely am familiar with the anxiety over submitting important documents on a tight schedule... which I should be doing now!

 

[Ivan 3414]

What a terrible story, and a harrowing life the writer ended up living

 

[gaugebozo]

Holy shit. At least the guy who it was about was about to move on.

 

[shawnbuddy]

Every journalist should learn that you never ever write or layout anything that you don't want to go into the paper. Not as a joke, not as a "test" for the editors, just don't do it. Cause you'll forget to fix it or no one will catch it and it'll end up in print. Huge glaring things get overlooked all the time, like leaving on a headline that says "headline goes here." At the first paper I worked at a big mistake made it all the way through the process and was fortunately caught by one of the printing press guys, who managed to fix it. Goes for web stuff, too. At one company I worked at we made a test person for an obit system and someone thought it'd be funny to add Dracula references. Client saw this, huge outrage and it's one of several reasons they stopped working with us.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

This reminds me of the infamous Diehard Gamefan Magazine. They had a couple of instances of things get through to print that they regretted.

Like the copy in this College Football '96 review somehow ended up being racist stuff about Ace Combat:

 

[Takuhi]

This reminds me of the infamous Diehard Gamefan Magazine. They had a couple of instances of things get through to print that they regretted.

I was just about to post that!

Needless to say, we were not given the "you never ever write or layout anything that you don't want to go into the paper" speech that shawnbuddy got.

 

[MMarston]

This reminds me of the infamous Diehard Gamefan Magazine. They had a couple of instances of things get through to print that they regretted.

Like the copy in this College Football '96 review somehow ended up being racist stuff about Ace Combat:

Man, either they just forgot to add the right content to that page or the editor(s) just straight up stopped giving a shit. No way something like would go under the radar in the right office.

 

[Dr.Acula]

Every journalist should learn that you never ever write or layout anything that you don't want to go into the paper. Not as a joke, not as a "test" for the editors, just don't do it. Cause you'll forget to fix it or no one will catch it and it'll end up in print. Huge glaring things get overlooked all the time, like leaving on a headline that says "headline goes here." At the first paper I worked at a big mistake made it all the way through the process and was fortunately caught by one of the printing press guys, who managed to fix it. Goes for web stuff, too. At one company I worked at we made a test person for an obit system and someone thought it'd be funny to add Dracula references. Client saw this, huge outrage and it's one of several reasons they stopped working with us.

I once sent out a corporate-wide email by accident while testing a mailing list macro. Fortunately the dummy text was Lorem Ipsum, and my supervisor knew what that was and was able to calm my boss down, whose primary concern was that the content was not inflammatory.

 

[noquarter]

Thanks for posting this story, pretty good read.

Really don't know why anyone would ever try to fight that case and not just settle, but whatever.

Also liked that the writer was tracked down and told that 'Dixon sucks donkey dicks' is the best thing the paper ever ran.

 

[Rentahamster]

Was getting caught part of your plan?

Of course!

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

Good grief.

 

[jooey]

Man, either they just forgot to add the right content to that page or the editor(s) just straight up stopped giving a shit. No way something like would go under the radar in the right office.

Gamefan certainly not the right office, that's for sure