An Open Letter to Ian Thompsen

Dear Ian,

How the hell are you? I noticed that on Tuesday you included an apology to all of your readers for accidentally including a quote from Puff Daddy about Giorgos Printezis' $800 suit at the NBA Draft without attribution.

Turns out that quote was from a post my colleague, Miss Gossip, written at FanHouse.

While I acknowledge that it takes a big man to admit when he's made a mistake, I do still take exception to the way your apology to the readers was worded.

Last week I published an item on the Toronto Raptors' Giorgos Printezis, the No. 58 pick who spent $800 on his outfit two hours before the NBA Draft. In that item, I included a quote that I believed had come from P. Diddy, but that I later learned -- too late, unfortunately -- was a fabrication.

Blah blah blah, you blame your friend, blah blah blah....

A few hours after my item was posted, an SI.com editor removed the quote after becoming aware that it was not from P. Diddy. It was a fabricated quote as part of an AOL FanHouse blog (link here). I apologize to AOL FanHouse and the blog's author for using their material.

First of all, it's just FanHouse. Not AOL FanHouse, or even The FanHouse. Don't worry about that though, I just learned it myself!

Anyway, while we at FanHouse appreciate the apology, I don't really appreciate the wording you chose in describing the quote.

You see, when saying it's a fabricated quote you imply that Miss Gossip (whom I'm sure wouldn't mind if you apologized to her by name) deliberately tried to trick her readers into thinking Puff Daddy actually said that about Printezis' suit. The thing is, at the end of the blog post Gossip included one key sentence.

[Editor's note: the preceding conversation may have taken place in Miss Gossip's imagination only.]

What this means is that Gossip wrote a satirical post. Which further means her quote wasn't fabricated. There's quite a bit of difference there, actually.

Of course, maybe if you had given Gossip and FanHouse credit to begin with, none of this would have happened. If you're not sure how to do that, I refer you to this handy guide courtesy of another one of our FanHousers, Matt Ufford.

Thanks,

Tom Fornelli