With how divided the country has become, trustworthy journalism is hard to come by. Gone are the days of Woodward and Bernstein breaking the Watergate scandal and David Halberstram reporting on the Vietnam War. While I may not be a journalism major, it’s easy to figure out the number one rule of it: Always tell the truth. History is filled with known plagiarists and fabricators like Jason Blair at The New York Times or Kevin Cullen at The Boston Globe.
Yesterday, we witnessed a new journalist step into the public eye to be chastised for their poor journalism work. Ben Volin of the Boston Globe went on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI, a sports radio station in Boston, and reported that Mac Jones had an “attitude problem”. Volin wouldn’t directly clarify his source, but when producer Chris Curtis pressed on who his source was, Volin responded. “Not from someone who covers the Patriots, but I’m not going any further than that…I wouldn’t take it as a report, but as someone else chiming in with an opinion…Do with it what you want. Call it a report, do what you want. I’m just telling you it’s not like anything I’ll be splashing all over the pages of the Boston Globe today. I’m just further illuminating something I heard.”
Curtis followed up asking “So, Joe Judge says he prefers Bailey Zappe? And someone that would know, agreed, and endorsed your belief that Mac Jones was in serious need of an attitude adjustment.” Volin hastily responded saying, “Yes.”
The DM In Question
Much like how Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination ignited World War One, a DM sent to Ben Volin from Nolanc79 has started the downfall of Volins journalistic credibility. Nolan DMed, the Senior NFL Writer, stating that he had a buddy who works at Gillette selling season tickets, and he overheard that “they (the Patriots) went with Hoyer over Zappe against GB initially to appease Mac who’s camp made it very clear that he didn’t want Zappe to jump in.”
Nolan sent another DM saying “Though I’d pass along so the #haters get off your back.” An hour later, Volin responded with “Interesting! Appreciate the tip.”
That was the basis of Volin’s report on WEEI. That’s it. What a horrendous and lazy act of journalism from someone who’s been working in the media for fifteen-plus years. Knowing that this is what Volin based his report on, it makes me question what other stories in his past are thinly sourced. What did he fabricate when he was at the Palm Beach Post from 2008 to 2013? Did he lie or take a source from an unproven outlet when he was in college writing for the Emory Wheel? As of right now, everything he’s ever written should be questioned and reviewed.
Trollin’ Ben Volin Has Been On The Wrong Side Before
After scrolling through Twitter, I found a story where Volin once again looked like a rube. In January of 2016, Patriots linebacker Darius Fleming rescued a woman from a three-car accident. Fleming kicked into the front passenger seat of one of the cars involved in the wreck and saved a woman’s life.
When the story began to break, Volin jumped on Twitter and had a BEAUTIFUL string of tweets. The first read “I’m having same issue as TMZ: Neither Foxboro, Walpole, or Mass State police say they have record of car crash described by Fleming.”
Moments later, another tweet followed. “Not jumping to any conclusions on Fleming story. He described incident in great detail. Told same story to teammates that he told me today.” After those two shots, we got the chaser tweet. “Walpole Police now says there was a accident on RT1 just after 4 pm on Thursday. Station is putting out a press release soon.” He was completely wrong and conducted minimal research to try and find the truth.
Why Are People White Knighting For Volin?
What makes this storyline even crazier to me, is seeing the way Boston media members white-knighted for Volin. You may like him, but you have to acknowledge that someone in your field messed up. If you’re a journalist in Boston, you should be irate that Volin still has his job. You’re seeing someone who is not working hard and making a mockery of what you do for a living, and he gets to keep his job? Outrageous.
Meghan Ottolini, the third chair on the fourth-rated midday show in the market OMF, tried to defend Volin by asking if the DM was photoshopped. What a moronic question to present. Had someone attempted to lie about Volin and slander his journalistic work, The Boston Globe and himself would have taken immediate legal action instead of Volin turtling on Twitter and not tweeting for the rest of the day.
Then another Boston media member took to Twitter to defend Volin. DJ Bean of NBC Boston tweeted out “I ride with Ben. He admittedly chunked it here, but I have huge respect for his open-mindedness on the Patriots beat. Not a better than/worse than thing. Just a ‘you need this guy’ thing.” What an incredibly dense and unintelligent thing to tweet. DJ Bean, YOU WORK IN THE MEDIA. Something like what Volin did should disgust you because he showed gross incompetence on the job.
It’s great and all that Volin “owned it”, but this is no different than a drunk driver. Drunk drivers aren’t sorry that they drove drunk; they’re usually sorry when they get caught. This goes the same for journalists who fabricate stories or plagiarize.
A Concise And Sincere Apology
Following a day of not tweeting after the story came to the public eye, Volin broke his Twitter silence with an apology…I guess. He acknowledged the mistake he made and said that “It won’t happen again.” Jeez, I hope so Ben. It’s your job to not be a fool and get duped by a guy with less than a hundred Twitter followers.
It’s all in all a pretty shitty way to acknowledge what happened. Yeah Ben, we realize that there are no excuses for what you did. And I really hope something like this doesn’t happen again because it’s your job. As a journalist, your job is to find sources, VET THEM, and then report on stories. Volin did two of those things. He just neglected the most important aspect; to vet your sources.
His apology tweet currently has 906 replies, 382 quote tweets, and 853 likes. The majority of the responses aren’t in favor of Volin.
Volin Was Bludgeoned On Twitter
Volin has received guff from Patriots fans this season, even before he was hoodwinked by a DM, for his takes about the Patriots. This DM incident just escalated the hate heading his way. Patriots faithful, media members outside the market, and Twitter rebel rousers used this event as a cudgel against Volin and eviscerated him.
It wasn’t solely Patriot Twitter accounts that slaughtered Volin online. Barstools founder Dave Portnoy and blogger John Feitelberg went on the attack. Feitelberg wrote a blog on Barstool about an hour after everything began to unfold, and helped bring to light the fake DM from Nolan to Volin. He even messaged with Nolan about how he bilked Volin. Nolan was baffled that Volin even ran with the DM because of how farcical he believed it to be.
As for Portnoy, he really turned the hounds on Volin when he quote-tweeted a handful of tweets pertaining to the story.
Portnoy poses an important question: how does this idiot have a job? A gaff to this magnitude in any career would traditionally lead to you losing your job. As of right now, it appears Volin still has his job and has not yet been suspended by The Boston Globe.
On that note, if you are a Patriots fan in need of accurate Boston Sports News, look no further than the Legends Lingo Podcast, presented by Student Union Sports.
