....with a reassignment, described as lateral at best, a demotion at worst:
New York Times Sports Editor Tom Jolly will see his controversial eight-year reign come to an end next month when he moves upstairs to a new job.
His tenure was marked by the Times' widely criticized coverage of the notorious 2006 Duke University lacrosse case in which a stripper accused three players of raping her -- charges that were eventually proven false.
Jolly has since said he regretted the way the Times handled the Duke story at the time.
He also supervised the disappearance of many of the Gray Lady's most renowned sports columnists and the elimination of many of its beat reporters on local sports teams.
While Executive Editor Bill Keller sought to portray the new job of night news editor as a promotion, some insiders said it is a lateral move at best into a new job that is still not widely understood as the publisher merges its print and digital news operations.
Many on the sports desk, however, may be inclined to say good riddance.....
The New York Times attempted to rouse a lynch mob to hang (literally) four young Duke college students falsely accused of rape, and Jolly used the Times sports pages to advance that jihad. When the drunken stripper who levied the accusation admitted to lying, and the charges imploded, the players exonerated, and Michael Nifong disbarred, the sports section and "pundits" remained steadfastly silent.
Click on the link to see Tom Jolly's pathetic excuse, in which he blames the University and the prosecutor's aggressiveness for driving the tone of the Times' stories, while at the same time claiming his reporters were "engaged throughout". Unlikely, especially as the blogosphere smelled a rat in this case about five minutes after it hit the papers....
Not sure, either, if Jolly was involved in the Time's earlier fatwa against the Augusta National Golf Club in 2002 (around the time that Jolly became sports editor), in which they ran some 40+ articles condemning Augusta's male-only policies, and which culminated in a protest at the 2003 Masters tournament, at which Times-backed female radical Martha Burk showed up with...40+ protesters. But it sure seems like Jolly's style...
So good riddance to a poor sports editor who thought kissing up to his superior's radical liberalism would help both his career and the the Times' sports pages. Instead, the Times sports section - once great, now bereft of some of its best voices - is just another unread portion of an increasingly discredited newspaper.
Good luck on the night desk, Jolly Tom. Consider your new position well-deserved, and consider yourself lucky to have it. In a just world, you'd be barred from the profession, facing down a myriad of well-justified lawsuits...
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