The innovative New York Times style of reporting is more widespread than we thought. We sent the following letter to the Stamford Advocate after reading this article. Letters to the editor are on this page.
Mr. Filmer's column made some fine points, but his gratuitous smear against
Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski was beyond the pale: "Heck, there were even
recent stories circulating about questionable recruiting tactics by Duke's
pristine coach Mike Krzyzewski."
Mr. Filmer may or may not be a regular in the college basketball recruiting
world, but there are always stories about everyone. It would be easy to
repeat stories about Jim Boeheim, Gary Williams, Dean Smith, Lute Olson,
and anyone else you can think of. However, to just allude to rumors with
a) not even mentioning what the rumors are, and b) absolutely no
substantiation whatsoever - well, I'd expect that from the New York Times,
but the Advocate? I'm deeply disappointed. I'm shocked that your
standards are so low. Basically, it's just a smear, and I would have
thought your paper is above that sort of thing.