Yahoo! Sports Editor: No X-rays Were Sent To Minnesota

After posting our item from last night regarding the e-mail I received from Mark Pesavento of Yahoo! Sports regarding the twisting-in-the-wind report from Rick Schwartz of that same publication, I received a couple of additional e-mails from him. The final e-mail expressed dismay over my assumption that any of the e-mails he sent to me were “on the record.” And my final e-mail to Pesavento expressed dismay over his assumption that, when someone sends me an e-mail, it’s off the record even if the sender of the e-mail doesn’t utter the magic words. It’s really not that hard, and most of my sources who prefer to remain nameless know how to invoke the protection that any journalist (real or pretend) worth his or her salt is willing to provide in exchange for information. It comes in different forms (“off the record” . . . “don’t quote me on this” . . . “on background” . . . “if you tell anyone I told you this I’ll kick you in the nuts with a steel-toed sneaker”). But Pesavento, as the Assistant (to the) Managing Editor of Yahoo! Sports, presumably knows that there’s never a presumption that anything is “off the record.” So, anyway, here’s what Pesavento had to say in his follow-up e-mail, before realizing that anything he was saying was fair game for publication. He said that Yahoo! Sports knows that, contrary to multiple reports, no X-rays were sent by Brett Favre to the Vikings. “I don’t want to come off as defensive, but since we’re talking about the reporting of this story, please hear me out: Despite what [ESPN’s Jeremy] Schaap reported (something other media outlets have latched onto), we know there were no X-rays sent to Minnesota. Our (highly-placed and very reliable) Vikings source told us so and Bus Cook has since confirmed that. “So, my question to you, because I know you’re interested in media is: Is it really our duty to write the ‘ESPN is full of shit’ story just because everyone now assumes -- despite evidence to the contrary -- that the Vikings are holding X-rays up to the light to see what that weird crook in Favre’s bicep is? Because as of [Saturday], what we wrote is still accurate: Childress and Favre talked on the phone, and that was it. There are no X-rays. Both sides are worried about Favre’s health, and for many reasons, both sides have decided to move on. There is no deal and, according to our source, there will be no deal. And there’s absolutely nothing from Favre’s side to refute that. “We’re not writing anything more because, as of now, there’s nothing more to say.” Apparently, there is. And now it’s been said. And written.