I Just Got In A Thoughts And Prayers Showdown With Ed Werder, Hows Your Friday Going?

So you probably know by now that the biggest story this morning on twitter was this guy Ron Borges getting duped by the dumbest prank in the world and running a story about Tom Brady holding out. Jerry blogged the whole thing HERE, and also explained that Ron Borges not only didn’t fact check or even so much as see if he was actually talking to the real Don Yee, but he’s also a guy that has been previously FIRED for plagiarism. From everything Jerry explained, he basically sucks at his job and has sucked at his job for a very long time. Even little journos know thats a big no no in the Big J world. Day 1 stuff. Don’t steal other people’s work, and take a second to see if your one and only source for a huge story is in fact the person he says he is. Cut and dry case. Well that was until Ed Werder hopped in.

Now for the record, I don’t dislike Ed Werder. We’ve had him on PMT before and he seemed like a nice guy. Ive never met him in person so I can’t so I know the guy but from our one conversation he was cool. So I was slightly stunned when his take on this whole thing was that Ron Borges is the real victim here. That he is an “innocent reporter”. Yes the guy that did zero research, was lazy, used confirmation bias, and has previously plagiarized. He’s the one we should feel bad for.

So then started our thoughts and prayers off. I was not prepared to have a sarcastic quote tweeting Thoughts and Prayers Showdown with Ed Werder today, but that’s the cross I bear as a blogger. Sometimes you don’t pick the story, the story picks you.

YOU DONT THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ED WERDER, ED WERDER THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS YOU!

By the way this one baffled me. In no way am I advocating for someone to dupe reporters. That’s a shitty thing to do and ultimately hurts everyone. But it’s not like this guy created a fake identity and dressed up and had some elaborate plot to deceive Ron Borges. He fucking took Borges’ number off twitter and texted him saying he’s Don Yee. That’s it. The bare minimum. He barely even tried. I have little sympathy if that’s all it takes to trick you into writing a story in a fucking newspaper. So I’ll agree with Ed that it’s a shitty thing to do but holy fucking christ why are we defending a lazy reporter who plagiarizes? Back to the showdown

Denial of thoughts and prayers after sending me thoughts and prayers. Strong play. Not sure what to do here.

Not to get serious because this is all utterly inconsequential but I really don’t understand how Ed Werder can’t see that this is the wrong hill to die in. Sure say the prankster is bad, we all agree. But calling the reporter “Innocent” and basically having his back is so backwards. No one trusts the media anymore and its because of lazy reporters like Ron Borges. He undermines good reporters like…..ED WERDER! Ed has always been good at what he does, so picking this battle is strange when it doesn’t take that much of a leap to realize Ron Borges is actually bad for the Ed Werders of the world.

He’s back to accepting my Thoughts and prayers, got em right where I want him.

And scene. Little did I know all I needed to do was swear on twitter to win this thing. A man has a code and if that code is no profanity on the family friendly website twitter.com, then so be it. Also Ed never drove in the van, that is certifiable #FakeNews but I’m not going to hold it against him. Like I said at the top, I like Ed, and he’s always welcome to come back on Pardon My Take to discuss the time I kicked his ass in a Thoughts And Prayers Showdown.

PS
Now that I’ve typed all of this out I realize how boring it is and that it was all an attempt to make Friday go by faster and that I desperately miss football. I apologize to all of you, from the bottom of my heart.