For The Record: Getting It Right Is Key
Last Monday an article was shared on Commodores Country where University of Tennessee athletics director Phillip Fulmer was identified as the "only dissenting voice" among his fellow Southeastern Conference athletics directors in relation to the June 1, return date for athletes to return to campus and begin preparations for the coming college football season.
While that story was based on other published reports and verified by two sources of my own, there have been doubts raised as to the accuracy of that information.
As I alluded to in the original article, I will never run for president of Fulmer's fan club, I in no way intended to proffer inaccurate or misleading information about him, or anyone else.
Integrity and honesty in this business are really all we have to our names, and the minute we lose those we might as well park our keyboards and move on to other ventures.
While I believed my sources at that time and will continue speaking with them, because of new information and because of the doubt that my words could have been wrong, I'm writing this, not as an apology, but rather to correct the wrong I might have done.
Nothing was written to intentionally mislead my readers or to disparage Mr. Fulmer. I think that is apparent to anyone who read the article in question.
I said nothing of a derogatory or attacking manner and only shared information as I had been given. That information now appears to be partially, if not totally inaccurate.
This is not the first mistake myself, or any other journalist has made, but for me, I feel the need to make things clear and put it out in front just like the original article. That's not to say I'm excusing myself here.
What it is saying is that I strive to be accurate and to do the right things, regardless of anything else, and when I fall short, it's time to step up and listen to the music.
That music is playing and this is my response.
