COMMENTARY : Drug Story Proves Media, by Nature, Abhor a Vacuum

This is a story about a story that probably isn’t a story. At least it isn’t yet, and may never be.

It is also a story about Super Bowl journalism, which is a contradiction in terms. The Super Bowl and journalism are diametrically opposed to one another.

All of which makes this story much ado about much ado.

THE STORY

Wednesday night, a Washington television station, ABC affiliate WJLA, aired a story that said, in summary, that the NFL’s drug-testing policy was racially motivated and that three white NFL quarterbacks had tested positive for high levels of cocaine and had not been punished or put into any sort of treatment program.

The subjects of the criticism in the story were Dr. Forest Tennant of West Covina, who runs the NFL drug-testing program, and the NFL, which, the story implied, sanctions and might even encourage Tennant’s selectivity and racially motivated drug-testing procedures.

At first glance, the story, and its accompanying implications, appeared to be a blockbuster: A racist league turns loose its hit man, a West Coast Dr. Strangelove, to weed out non-Aryan elements and other selected troublemakers and misfits; the kinds of things that get a doctor charged with malpractice and a league charged with conspiracy and dozens of counts of antitrust violations.

THE REACTION

Some newspapers ran the story in their Thursday morning editions, others did not. Most of those that did, did so in modest, cautious ways. Those that held the story did so because they smelled a rat. Or at least a familiar odor.

But even the most cautious and most skeptical couldn’t ignore the runaway-train aspect that the story took on here Thursday morning, as reporters began their daily rounds, previously designed to gather sports stories about sports figures about to participate in one of this country’s biggest sports events. Suddenly, this was a story that had to be pursued, if for no other reason than that it was being so hotly pursued by everybody else.

A lighted match quickly became a forest fire.

Joe Montana “had to be” one of the three white quarterbacks referred to in the story, because he had been the subject of all that talk in 1985 and had even called a news conference to squelch rumors that he had a drug problem.

And, after all, it seemed to make sense, because his second wife, Cass, had just given a story to the National Enquirer that hit the grocery stores this week, referring to her former husband’s “problems” and his “dark side.”

Dark side? Aha!

So Montana was swarmed by reporters at the morning interview session. He faced them as he does onrushing defensive behemoths--coolly and calmly. No, he knew nothing about this, nor could he comment on something coming from people and places he knew nothing of.

But the fire kept spreading.

Almost as if by magic, Harry Edwards appeared and was surrounded by reporters. Edwards, widely known professor at California and perhaps the country’s most outspoken proponent of racial equality in all aspects of sport, handled the rush much as Montana had, debunking the story while addressing the ongoing reality of racism in sports.

Then there was the sudden appearance of Frank Herzog, sports director of the Washington TV station that broke the story.

Although he hadn’t been the on-air person reporting the story--a consumer reporter named Roberta Baskin had--he was there, handing out transcripts of the telecast and answering questions. He told the 80 or so reporters gathered around him that his station had not produced the names of the three white quarterbacks because “that wasn’t the focus of the story.”

Finally, there was the expected angry response from the NFL, in the person of Joe Browne, the league’s director of communications. Browne said that the story was a smear and also used words such as ridiculous and absurd.

He also said that WJLA-TV was in third place in ratings in the three-network Washington area, making the timing of the story suspect; that the source of the story was a disgruntled former employee of Tennant who had been fired and who currently is involved in litigation with Tennant; that NFL drug tests are labeled and coded at Smith Klein Labs in King of Prussia, Pa., so “the lab doesn’t know if a sample is that of a black quarterback or a white quarterback,” and if ABC was to identify the players, as it was rumored to be planning Thursday night, then “ABC has better libel attorneys than I thought they did.”

THE REALITY

Except for the racist angle, the story was basically the same story that appeared months ago in Sports Illustrated, which had said, in essence, that Tennant ran a sloppy drug-testing operation.

The source of the ABC story, Gordon Griffith, is the same source who allegedly was paid for his input into the Sports Illustrated story. He is the same source who has called The Times repeatedly over the last year with leads on stories that have never quite checked out.

The television station hurt its credibility greatly by going with the story during Super Bowl week without any apparent reason. This was a Super Bowl story if Super Bowl players were involved, but the station refused to name names. As Browne said, repeatedly, “No names, no story.”

There were at least two additional holes in the story: When did these three white quarterbacks test positive (the NFL didn’t even have a formal drug-testing program until 1986)? If these positives were after 1986, were they on a second positive? Because if they were on a first, no public action is prescribed by NFL policy.

THE CONCLUSION

When the sun set over the Superdome Thursday, all was not well among the media. There was confusion and anger, frustration and skepticism. Perceptions mixed freely with reality.

As the saying goes, there are 8 million stories in the naked city, and this city, with its Bourbon Street trappings, fits that tag nicely.

Thursday, there really wasn’t even one story in this naked city. But there was a Super Bowl coming up here, and that, sadly for the current state of American sports journalism--certainly inclusive of the broadcast portion--changes a lot of the rules.

Indeed, as the old joke among sportswriters goes, nothing happened at the Super Bowl today. And to prove it, we wrote 20 million words.