Come on, TMZ, you have to at least make an attempt to sound credible!
Last Friday, TMZ Sports published a story about former Denver Broncos quarterback Brady Quinn in which they claimed Quinn had told them he wished he had played baseball instead of football. The issue? Quinn never talked to TMZ, let along give them an “exclusive,” as TMZ claimed, interview.
Ha! The most erroneous article I've ever seen! I've never spoken to TMZ… Nice journalistic integrity. https://t.co/eb7b5Y4Fsm
— Brady Quinn (@Brady_Quinn) December 18, 2015
And if you had any doubts that maybe it was Quinn who was lying, TMZ showed their hand when they almost immediately pulled both the Tweet and the story down from the internet.
Thanks to Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing, though, we’ve still got this screengrab:
via awfulannouncing.com
What makes this story all the more weird, though, is why would TMZ even make up a story like this? Quinn hasn’t played in an NFL game in three years; it’s not as if people are clamoring for Brady Quinn news.
Plus, as Yoder pointed out, now that TMZ Sports has entered into a partnership with Fox Sports 1, Brady Quinn, who’s an analyst for FS1 is essentially their coworker. Couldn’t they have actually called him for a quote, instead of blatantly making one up? Did they think no one would notice?
TMZ has never been a beacon of integrity, but this one was laughably bad.