Nashville Scene reporter Caleb Hannan decided to call bullshit on local news and events blog Nashvillest by butchering the lede of an article about Tennessee Titans’ defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth’s contract negotiations.
Hannan was miffed after reading “Albert Haynesworth is being a brat about his contract extension, because $32 million just isn’t enough” in a post written by Nashvillest Editor Christy Frink via his Google Reader feed, according to comments. He then proceeded to post a rant that was longer than Frink’s entire recap of the morning headlines. (Below…)
Via Nashville Scene
This morning, Nashvillests Christy and Morgan referred to Titans All-Everything defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth as a “brat” for not accepting the team’s initial contract offer. As a restricted free agent, the Titans have exclusive negotiating rights with Haynesworth until February 27th. Thus far they’ve made one offer that wasn’t close to what Haynesworth says he’s looking for; something in the range of the $32 million given last year to Vikings defensive end Jared Allen...
The point he makes is valid (or as valid as possible regarding American professional sports) but why mention Nashvillest at all? In any case, it still does not excuse the failure to identify what exactly Nashvillest is and furthermore “who the hell are Christy and Morgan” as one Scene commenter put it. The lede just sounds like a blatant Oh-snap-no-they-didn’t moment.
While this is sports commentary, the last time I checked Web articles still play by the same rules as do other forms of written journalism — meaning you don’t make assumptions that the readers know anything.
Frink’s often snarky commentary isn’t a shining example of journalistic copy writing either and often assumes too much about the subject, which can be just as dangerous. However, Nashvillest is always consistent when linking to the source of news rather than the source of drama surrounding it. Case in point: the Scene article didn’t link to The Tennessean but they did give one to the “brat” comment.
Provided things stay civil, it might be a good idea to get the two camps together for lunch to talk shop. But if that’s too much, I’d settle for a single Scene editorial staffer who wanted to actively participate in the Twestival: Nashville event Feb. 12.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Are any Scene reporters on Twitter? Please follow (@TChed or e-mail me if you know of any.)
Tom Cheredar 
Tom,
I appreciate your defense, it’s nice to know that others notice when things of this sort happen. That said, I think that this post lends itself to some unnecessary drama that we’d rather not be involved in. Caleb responded that he didn’t intend any harm and his word on that is good enough for both Christy & I. We’re bloggers, not traditional journalists, that’s why we get to post obnoxious commentary, use hyphens instead of colons and cite twitter as a source of information.
We have had a working relationship with the Scene on a few different things. I would hate for it to seem like we are blowing this situation out of proportion.
I did see Caleb’s comment about not meaning any harm and I believe his sincerity, but he still needs to clean up that lede and/or update his post reiterating his reply to Christy. Also, I LOVE that you guys don’t try to play by the traditional journalistic rules. It’s what makes Nashvillest so effective (meaning your not afraid to screw up while attempting communicate to the community).