A Public Apology To Everyone For The McNabb Trade Story

Dear valued members and visitors,

I wanted to personally apologize to our members and visitors for the news posted earlier today here on GridironFans.com about the Eagles trading Donovan McNabb to the 49ers. Unfortunately we were one of many others who were taken in by the false news report today.

By the time we were able to catch the story that was posted as a hoax, it was too late. The story had made it's rounds and was exposed as nothing more than an elaborate rouse that caught one of our news reporters off guard. Here is a screenshot of the original website that has since been taken down showing the story:

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We here at GridironFans.com pride ourselves in scouring the internet and bringing you all the news around the NFL as quickly as possible. A perfect storm of circumstances though allowed this story to be posted and stay posted longer than it should have. One of our news reporters saw the "story" right when he was about to leave work and he posted the story in haste. This unfortunately led to the story staying up on our site way longer than it should have and having the story go out via Twitter, our RSS feed as well as being posted on numerous other sites like Yardbarker.com and BallHype.com as news. The damage was done by the time an administrator on the site was able to react and delete the story. Let me assure you that this was nothing more than an honest mistake by one of our reporters and I hope this one mistake doesn't shake your faith in us to bring you the latest NFL news.

We have made it a point to reiterate to our reporters that every and any news post that is put up needs to be verified before posting. I know people will read this and think "well, that should have been the policy ALL THE TIME." I want to assure you that verifying the news is standard procedure here at GridironFans.com but circumstances today led to this false story being posted. We aren't the first website to be taken in by a false report and we won't be the last. Unfortunately for us it was our turn in the crosshairs. I hope that in time we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of readers who were upset over the report. Thank you for taking the time out to read this and hearing us out.

Sincerely,
Steve Marin
Owner, GridironFans.com

 

Well put Steve.

Visitors and readers, don't let this incident to persuade you from shying away from gridironfans.com. As our beloved Admin and Commander In Chief SteveRobWhatever pointed out, it was a one time mistake by one of our fellow reporters and we assure you we'll backtrack all breaking news articles before we distribute it out to you kind and loyal people.

 

it was deleted before I even got here, I didn't even notice the error

 

I posted our apology over at The Sporting News and The Big Lead as well.

 

Crap happens and the rookies get burnt. Verify your crap twice before going with a big headline. Remember, quality before quantity. From someone who no's. :icon_cool:

It is all cool, but we look like idiots. And we do not need that.

 

Hey it happens. Sometimes you want to get the news out right away that you get taken back when its a hoax

But it always nice to see someone apologizing and correcting the error

 

It got posted at a few other forums as well

 

It happens... still a great site to get your info and I am sure the reporter has learned from this mistake.

 

heh....I was drunk yesterday and almost wet myself with joy that McNabb wasn't a Seahawk.

I'm sorry to hear that it was fake :(

 

Come on SoN!!
It's not your fault.. that Michael Smith guy over at BSPN is a cornball yo!! He should be FIRED!! haha (JK)
:drinks:

 

Blame the idiots at ESPN for allowing something like that to be posted. Our guy was just doing his job.

 

I can honestly say It made me feel good as crap seeing that when i first woke up [those who know, i work midnights.. so thats the time of day i'm arriving at GIF so to speak lol]. But this doesn't shake my confidence not one bit. I go to only one football forum, and it's the one i'm posting this message on. GIF was my first, and it will be my last. 1 Mistakes in going on 3 years of me being here, if you wanna hold that against somebody, then we don't need you. going to "Support GIF" as we speak.

 

I saw it and posted in it. My apologies as well.

Now when is Favre going to spout off at the mouth so we can get this behind us?

At least we didn't have a hillbilly acting as Brian Westbrook live on our forum... :icon_cheesygrin:

 

well its not like it was a headline from some obscure media outlet or blog. this was something carrying the espn banner. still mistkes happen and it shows character to stand up and admit it.

 

Its to bad cause the thought of sweets getting donovan mcnabb got me excited....:icon_confused:

 

yeah, what was sweets' reaction before it was made clear this was a hoax and then afterwards ? must have been like an episode of punk'd.

 

Its only a front smeagle i think she might have had a orgasim at the thought of seeing donovan locally on tv every week

 

Damnit. I'm just mad that it wasn't true.

 

Didn't freak out,sorry BITB just thought that it was a weird story because we just signed Carr and the article said that the NFL confirmed it, the NFL "never" confirms these things and McNabbs name was spelled wrong but Olly had already taken care of it. I was watching NFL Network when I logged onto GIF and they hadn't said anything and it was an hour or two after the story was posted here so I pretty much knew something was wrong.