SO MUCH FOR NEVER SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD

Thank you, Colin Cowherd, for unwittingly making the point about how the media judged slain Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor:

"Well yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn't mean you got everything out. Sometimes you've got stains, stuff so deep it never ever leaves."

A man is dead. An imperfect man, but it was a horrid death. That's about all there is to say about that. One of Cowherd's bits of evidence is that Taylor spit on an opponent. Bill Romanowski spit on an opponent, and he gets bit parts in Adam Sandler movies.

Thank goodness for both that what the likes of Cowherd does apparently has no relation to actual journalism. Lord knows how many idiots -- people working in the media and people consuming it -- take him as their paragon of rhetoric.

If that's true, we are so fucked.


Related:
Colin Cowherd sure is classy (Awful Announcing)
Colin Cowherd on Sean Taylor (D.C. Sports Bog)
Our Last Ever Mention of the Schrutebag (Deadspin)

UNDER THE GUN TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS ABOUT A DEAD BLACK ATHLETE

Dan Le Betard's column on the coverage of slain NFL safety Sean Taylor is worth a read today, if you have the time...

"I can't imagine how terrible it must be for Taylor's broken family to watch the television and see their late son/brother/boyfriend turned into a talk topic and one-dimensional stick figure because we, the media, didn't and couldn't have a complete picture of their beloved and didn't have the time to wait for one to develop ... too much of Taylor's televised eulogy became noise and speculation and gossip-cloaked-in-journalism about his troubled past.

"A DUI and a gun-waving incident aren't irrelevant, but they weren't all Taylor was, either. Brett Favre, rest assured, won't be eulogized with excessive emphasis on his pain-killer addiction, especially not if he were to die this horrifically. How do you think your grieving family would like to see you defined on television by your one or two worst public moments?"

The absolute pits of the Taylor coverage on this side of the border was last night on Sportsnet Connected. A very blond pseudo-journalist who shall remain nameless as a public service asked Jamie Dukes of the NFL Network, "What can the commissioner (of the NFL) do about these unruly players?"

Is that an ignorant question, or a racist question? Way to blame the victim. That's right up there with, "she shouldn't have worn that dress."

Related:
Media has failed with Taylor coverage (Miami Herald)
Taylor's death a grim reminder for us all (Jason Whitlock, FOXsports.com)

(It doesn't really matter if the VBPJ in question was Martine Gaillard, Evanka Osmak or Sean McCormick ... everyone asked that question. Everyone should have thought better of how to frame it; Whitlock provides another side to the story.)