We’ve often seen local news stations get pretty partisan about sports, and that definitely happened with Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA Monday. When running footage from Super Bowl Media Night of New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady, their caption (or lower third) went with “Known Cheater” as Brady’s position:
https://twitter.com/nvereb/status/1090006924417032195
Of course, that’s probably going to go over pretty well in Pittsburgh. But “known cheater” is a bit of a factual stretch when it comes to Brady; yes, he was eventually suspended for four 2016 games by the NFL (following countless legal fights) around the Deflategate controversy, but there’s still a whole ton of debate over if the Patriots actually did anything wrong, what the science really says (hint: it’s probably not what a 10-year-old’s science project claimed) and more. And the “cheater Tom Brady” line is getting a bit old; there are plenty of things to criticize the Patriots for, including Deflategate, but “known cheater” is definitely exaggeration for effect. But you do you, KDKA.
UPDATE: SI reports that the employee in question has been fired by KDKA.
“While fans are entitled to have personal opinions, we have a journalistic responsibility to provide unbiased reporting,” KDKA said in a statement to SI.com. “The graphic that appeared Monday violated our news standards. The individual who created the graphic no longer works for KDKA-TV.”
