For all the wonder and amazement of this age of instant information, the ease of Internet publishing can occasionally turn that blessing into a curse, resulting in the instant availability of inaccurate, incomplete or inadvertent information.
Indexed by several search engines, the story quickly cycled through the blogosphere before ESPN discovered the publishing error and removed the posting. The decision to spike the story, and announce that it would not be republished even after editing, triggered alarm bells in the ombudsman mailbag: "Is ESPN now censoring negative information about LeBron James? Apparently not. Pretty strong stuff. The reaction wasn't aimed at the story itself but rather at the perception that ESPN was hiding something, trying to protect a star athlete from embarrassing revelations or covering up news to protect a valued relationship.
The article itself was rather innocuous. Other than an off-color remark by James and the chronicling of some testosterone-driven antics, it was -- by modern day standards -- fairly benign.
No arrests. No indecent behavior. No controversy. But what started out as a behind-the-scenes feature piece on a famous athlete morphed quickly into a news flap about ESPN and its motives.
In truth, the entire fiasco was an almost tragically comedic sequence of misconceptions and miscommunications, compounded by human error. Before a typical story is published, it goes through a tedious progression. And although many writers hate it, finding it frustrating and exhausting, the editing process is aimed at constructively improving and polishing a piece into its final form.
