Richard Justice Should Stop Blogging

[Keith]

All you need to know about Chronicle columnist Richard Justice is right here, in his exchange with Stephanie Stradley. It's pretty hard to find times when the Chronicle Sports department sinks to new lows, but here we are.

If you are interested in sportswriters riled up at bloggers, media ax-grinding, blog etiquette relating to altering blogs and blog comments, really ridiculous things about NFL coaches who yell, and/or the Texans running game, read on. ...

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2008/08/29/h...ly-attacks-ale

Long, but well worth the read. Just be ready to get riled up over a miserable sportswriter not worth your time. Gawd our local sports section is embarrassing. I've gone from being angry to just sad at our local state of affairs.

[edo783]

Justice really is a Dick. His only semi competency lays with baseball, but other than that he is a total hack and obviously suffers from some sort of inadequacy issues.

[dadmg]

That is one of the more disturbing, and yet not at all surprising, things I've read in awhile. Just add a journalist's fear of the blogosphere with the male sportsman's fear of a woman "invading" their field and its rife with potential for disaster. Yet another reason I'm oh so very glad I never followed through on my intended journalism degree.

[Mike]

I bet his knees are sore after following VY around on the 40 acres today.

He really is a poor excuse for a "journalist."

I could do his job. Let's see, things are going good for team A, so I'll jump on the bandwagon. Things are going bad, so I'll write a piece that rips everyone. OK Today I am bored, I'll write about how VY gives me a warm tingle every time I think about him, or I'll rip someone who won't kiss my a$$.

[HPF Bob]

Gibbs probably yelled at him once and refused to go on the record. Don't think sportswriters don't hold grudges. Stephanie had the nerve to question what was so horrible about a coach yelling at his players. The she had the further nerve to provide some evidence that swatted down his claim.

So then he starts in with the personal attacks. Not surprising but not cool.

Then he replies. "This isn't about me". Wrong. It's ALL about him. It's about him because some coach told him off or refused to talk to him and so when he writes a piece needlessly ripping him and gets called out by a blogger (God forbid!), his ego can't handle it and he starts going postal.

We're wise to his act. He's the Jay Marriotti of the Southwest, too thin-skinned to have to answer for the crap he dishes out and then carries grudges when sources don't want to talk to him. Marriotti finally got his comeuppance and Justice will someday get his too.

BTW, just as background, when Gibbs was in Denver was when the offensive line refused all interview requests and suffered through fines and other retributions for a few years because of it but it also served as a bonding thing for members of the OL and most of them, I think, rather enjoyed it.

[Joshua]

Unfortunate yet predictable chronology from Justice. FWIW, Justice was on 1560 with Lance and John last week and the Gibbs article came up. He basically admitted it was based on nothing but his personal grudge against Gibbs. From the way he told it, his grudge stems completely from the episode 12 years ago when Gibbs wouldn't give him a quote for an article in support of greater benefits for assistants. The notion that the only thing that kept the owners from giving better benefits was an article from Richard Justice (complete with Gibbs' quote) is laughable.

His behavior during his feud with Steph is obviously reprehensible, but my questions start much before that. I had many of the same questions she had when I first read the article. It completely came out of left field and was contrary to all the public quotes I'd read. I too wondered if he had heard rumors or been told off-the-record comments. Apparently not. Where were his editors? When he turns in a story like that (particularly when it contains no facts), shouldn't an editor ask what's his source?