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September 18, 2006
Shoddy Reporting, Sabatoge or a Conspiracy?
Last night Bob Dillner reported on Speed that during post-race inspection Nascar discovered a problem with the Richard Childress Racing cars belonging to Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. The story went that the team had fooled around with the rims of the tires in such a way to release air pressure from the rim, something which might give them a competitive advantage. However, Dillner continued, there was nothing in the rule book to cover what the RCR teams did so they wouldn't have to face any penalties. Of course that was huge news because Harvick was the race winner and both he and Burton are in the Chase for the Championship. Naturally many people assumed that what RCR was "busted" for was why both cars had been finishing so well this season.
Only one problem. The story is completely false. Jim Hunter, Nascar's Vice President of Corporate Communications said,
"We’ve been checking valves and valve stems for about 4 months now. What it was, was one reporter trying to make something that wasn’t there. Then another reporter went on TV and reported it as fact, when it was actually totally untrue. It was one reporter’s unsubstantiated fantasy.”
Hunter also said that Dillner never asked anyone from Nascar for confirmation or for a comment before he reported it as fact on Speed. Even if Nascar is going to say "No comment," a reporter must check, and then double-check their sources. Maybe some think it's no big deal, but accuracy is essential when it comes to what's reported as news and fact.
Furthermore, Richard Childress said,
"Reports in the media, specifically on SPEED TV, that one or more of our NEXTEL Cup Series teams was found by NASCAR to be manipulating the rules yesterday at New Hampshire International Speedway are false and misleading. Our cars passed post-race inspection and officials at NASCAR assured us last night and again today that no one from RCR was told at any time not to bring a part back to the race track. The reported events and conversations did not happen. Our focus remains on two of our teams competing for the championship and the other finishing as high in the points as possible."
Which indicates to me that Dillner never asked anyone at RCR for a comment either. Absolutely inexcusable. I can understand that Dillner had a source that was telling him a potentially blockbuster piece of information. But with the amount of damage that could be done to the reputation of RCR, Harvick, Burton and even Dillner himself, it's essential that he be absolutely sure that his information is correct before he runs with it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people who might only hear that there was a problem with the RCR cars, and never hear that Dillner reported false information, so they're going to have the impression that RCR did something wrong, when they didn't.
There's a lot of misinformation that circulates in this sport. Sometimes it's just that someone didn't know the full story, misheard, misunderstood or jumped to conclusions. But sometimes misinformation is deliberately spread because someone has an agenda. And that's what Harvick thinks happened, that a rival team deliberately spread a false rumor to try to distract them. According to Jayski's, he said on Sirius Satellite Radio,
"I absolutely think it was a plant from another team. NASCAR didn't say anything, so it's pretty obvious to me where it came from. It's an attempt to try and distract us from what we're doing, but they're going to have to do a lot better than that."
Which is a possiblity that Dillner should have considered before he went live with his story. He's been around racing and the garage area for long enough where he should have known that there might be some funny business afoot, and indeed there was.
Chris Long, Speed's Executive Producer for Nascar Programming said,
"Speed reporter Bob Dillner has a strong record of solid reporting from the NASCAR garage; so there is no rational reason for us to consider that the events and conversations he related to SPEED viewers are anything other than the truth."
What his statement doesn't include is how Speed is going to address this situation and prevent it from happening again. Nor does it indicate whether or not Dillner is going to be disciplined. Reporters simply must fact-check, and there must be guidelines in place for using information that comes from anonymous sources. If Speed wants to be taken seriously, viewers have to be able to trust what Dillner and their other reporters say. Given that this isn't the first time that Dillner's reported something that he's heard in the garage area that's turned out to not be true, I would be leery of trusting what Dillner reports in the future. I would guess others would be as well. So what is Speed going to do about that? How are they going to regain the confidence of their viewer when it comes to being able to trust what's said on-air?
Some are saying that this is a Nascar cover-up, that Dillner was reporting factual information and Nascar doesn't want it publically known that two Chase contenders were caught doing what some would view as cheating. I say, that kind of an accusation is as bad as accusing the RCR teams of wrong-doing. Where's the proof of that? There is none.
What's astonishing to me is that it's not like Dillner just started reporting for Speed. In fact, Dillner's not new to working in journalism period. He used to work for News 12 Long Island, a local cable news channel. I'm quite sure that there were journalistic standards that Dillner and his colleagues had to adhere to at News 12, so it's not like he can claim to be unfamiliar with the way things work in the journalism business in terms of ethics and standards when it comes to fact-checking and sources.
Posted by silverdsl at September 18, 2006 08:15 PM