LeBron James should have been the unanimous MVP this year, but he didn’t get the vote belonging to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe.
Washburn spent an entire column to defend himself using flawed logic. For example, he stressed that without Carmelo Anthony (for whom Washburn voted), the Knicks would not have made the playoffs. Yet, the same argument could be made about Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, James Harden and the Rockets and so on.
I just wanted to show how easily a reporter can negatively affect someone. Of course, basketball is a trivial example. Think how many times reporters have revealed the names and addresses of victims of crime or written about leaked information of national security?
And then there are no repercussions. Reporters hardly ever apologize and usually don’t get fired for “doing their job,” so to speak, no matter how egregious the error or lack of common sense. In fact, I wonder how many reporters do this just to sell a few more newspapers? One comment to Washburn’s story nailed it:
“This is another writer/media person trying to make the story about them rather than the sport they are supposedly covering. And, again it works. Gary Washburn gets himslf [sic] (and the Boston Globe) some publicity by making an absolutley [sic] ridiculus [sic] pick for MVP. This is exactly why writers shouldn’t pick any of the awards in any sport. They are clearly unqualified and typically have self serving motives.”
You should read the other comments of Washburn’s article. I don’t recall seeing anyone defend him. He should have said, “I was wrong, I know I can’t do anything now to change my vote, and I’m sorry to LeBron James.”
But we all know that would never have happened.