One of the biggest questions in the wake of the decision of the Boston Herald to retract (without using the “R” word) its February 2 article accusing the Patriots of videotaping the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI is when (and if) heads will roll.

Apparently, the guy whose name appeared on the story won’t be fired, or removed from his beat.

In Thursday’s Herald, editor-in-chief Kevin R. Convey said that he “continue[s] to stand behind the work of the Herald sports department and John Tomase, a talented journalist who has dealt with this difficult matter professionally while continuing to do his job under intense pressure.”

Convey also wrote that he personally takes “full responsibility” for the error.

This apparent strategy of responsibility without internal accountability tends to strengthen our belief that someone above Tomase decided to push the story to print when it appeared on February 1 that Matt Walsh was about to finally crack, based on his on-the-record remarks to the New York Times and ESPN.com. 

We believe that the powers-that-be at the Herald previously told Tomase that the story wouldn’t run unless the source (i.e., Walsh) would go on the record.  With Walsh, who previously hadn’t gone on the record with any of the news organizations that had been chasing him since September 2007, suddenly chirping and the Herald holding the story in its back pocket because of Walsh’s unwillingness to put his name to the information, someone in the building decided that the time had come to take a leap of faith.

Tomase is due to explain himself on Friday, and we think he’ll say that his source lied to him.  And that will only further point to Walsh as the source for the story.  (Maybe, in the end, it will be Walsh who sues the Herald for defamation.)

Regardless of whether Tomase was lied to, or whether the ill-fated decision to run the story was made by Convey or someone else in the organization, this is the kind of thing for which someone needs to either resign or be fired.  Yeah, it’s a harsh outcome.  But this story was way too big of a deal, causing way too much trouble for way too many people, to not require a serious consequence for those responsible it.

So if we were giving the legal advice on this one (and the owners of the Herald should be glad we aren’t), we’d recommend asking for the resignation of Convey and the editor in the sports department who recommended green-lighting the story, and we’d reassign Tomase to a combined beat of field hockey and slow-pitch softball.

Harsh?  Sure.  But if the only real accountability is the issuance of a blurb in which someone takes “responsibility” for the situation and then we all move ahead as if nothing ever happened, then this kind of stuff will continue to happen.

PFT Planet, we now yield the floor to you on this one.  Should heads roll, or not?