Posted by Blue on June 22, 2009 at 18:49:32:
Richard Roeper looks at one of the recent controversies surrounding David Hernandez & ChicagoSportsWebio in his Sun-Times column today....
One little tip might've helped Sports Webio
Those aware of Hernandez's past could've sent a secret signal
June 22, 2009
BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist
Like most opinion-dishers in the media, I have little respect for the average anonymous e-mailer or phone caller.
It's really this simple: we sign our names to our commentaries, so why can't you sign your name to your feedback? If you don't have the courage and maturity to identify yourself, doesn't that tell you something embarrassing about yourself?
Usually my assistant doesn't forward anonymous e-mails to me; she knows I'm not going to respond anyway.
Of course, there are times when I understand and respect why someone is reluctant to identify himself. For example, you might be worried about getting into trouble at work. On occasion we'll contact an e-mailer and ask for identifying information, and they'll follow through. (You can always ask me not to use your name in a column and I'll honor that.)
Or maybe you want to pass along information but you don't want to get involved beyond that. Some of the most interesting scoops and biggest news stories start with the time-honored anonymous tip.
Lord knows there's a group of radio professionals that wish someone had dropped an anonymous dime on their behalf a few months ago.
Oh what a tangled Webio we weave
The Chicagosportswebio.com scandal reads like a sports-talk version of the Bernie Madoff mess.
As you probably know, the Internet sports station shut down last week as investigators accused David Hernandez of running a Ponzi scheme that soaked more than 100 investors in at least 12 states out of nearly $12 million. Hernandez is on the run, with the FBI calling him a "Suicide Risk" on a Wanted poster.
And a lot of familiar broadcast voices and veteran behind-the-scenes personnel are wondering what the bleep just hit them.
Some of them are also wondering why Tom Shaer, a longtime TV sports reporter and radio talk show host in the city, didn't tell them about Hernandez's past.
As Ed Sherman reported on his Crain's Chicago blog, "Shaer ... had dealings with David Hernandez during the 1980s and knew all about him being convicted for wire fraud in 1998, resulting in a 34-month sentence."
So, why didn't Shaer call Mike North or someone else who was getting involved in the Chicago Sports Webio start-up?
"I didn't want to mess up Mike's deal," Shaer told Sherman. "If there's one lesson I've learned in the media business. . . it's that I should keep my nose out of other people's business."
Shaer told NBC-5, "If I had known anything bad was going on, or might possibly occur, of course I would have told everyone I know, but I had no such knowledge."
Hindsight makes it easy
What would you do in a situation like that? The topic came up in conversation at a gathering I attended Friday night, and the verdict was unanimous: you have to step forward and say something.
Shaer did call an FBI agent, but he says the agent told him people sometimes turn their lives around.
North and Chet Coppock are ticked off that Shaer didn't say anything about Hernandez. Many observers are saying anyone who got involved with Hernandez should have checked him out themselves -- but hindsight gives you a sense of intellectual superiority.
Reading the multipart series on the Madoff fiasco in Vanity Fair, you think: how could all these people be so blind to this guy? But it's so easy to make that pronouncement AFTER the fact. Madoff's clients, the investors who were allegedly duped by Texas financier Allen Stanford, all those Enron employees that lost everything -- these were not naive people. They're folks who believed they'd be treated the way they treat others.
Any time a story like this surfaces, sideline commentators can't believe anyone would fall for an alleged con man. But as the Sun-Times' Mark Konkol wrote in a profile of Hernandez: "Who ever met a 'con man' they didn't like?"
As I said at the start -- not a big fan of the anonymous e-mail. But maybe that would have been the answer here. If Shaer didn't want to contact North or anybody else, he could have sent an anonymous e-mail to everyone on the staff of that new venture, urging them to check out Hernandez's background and cautioning them about getting involved with him.
You know at least one of the on-air folks or producers would have been sufficiently motivated to look up Hernandez and warn his/her colleagues about the guy.
Would it be a weasel move to send out such an e-mail? Or simply a way of helping out without getting personally involved?
My guess is everyone who's feeling the sting of their association would have appreciated the heads-up.