Apology requred?

Al Strachan weighs into the great Gretzky debate on the Canoe website, his column points out how the rush to judgment of last week, may now require some apologies from many of Canada’s major media outlets.

When the Rick Tocchet gambling scandal first broke out, the heavy net of culpability seemed to close in around the House of Gretzky. Wife Janet was named as a frequent participant in the betting ring, General Manager Mike Barnett was named a person who made a wager with the Tocchet group and splashy pics of Wayne and his wife in clubs and such began to make their way across the internet and into the mainstream media.

The Great Betsky was just one of many plays on words that tied the name of Gretzky to a burgeoning scandal. Since that initial burst of coverage however, not much has happened. The last we heard the wife was not going to be charged, no other names had been released and now proceedings against Rick Tocchet have been delayed which Strachan suggests may be a prelude to his charges being dismissed/

That makes for a pretty wide turn from when the story first broke. As Strachan points out in his article, there will be many in the Canadian media who will have to look at how they covered the story, as it broke and as it progressed.

Strachan calls for a huge apology” to Gretzky, but we suspect that may be a ways of yet, if it ever happens at all. The media wherever it may be, rarely admits it’s wrong and will spend hour upon hour looking to find some way to say I told you so. Though they should consider some of what Strachan said, he was correct on one very important point, there was a rather quick rush to judgment among the media in Canada.

A bit more research and a little less exploitation might have aided in this situation. When a story gets ahead of those reporting on it, sometimes the coverage becomes shoddy, sensational and ultimately incorrect. One wonders if this story reached that point and went beyond