I always wondered what it would be like to be a footnote. Now I know:
There you have it. I am a footnote. How did it happen?
A website called Deadspin broke a story that alleges that Brett Favre (he’s the quarterback) sent videos of his private parts and messages that match the pictures to a woman who worked for the New York Jets. Poynter published a piece a couple months ago criticizing Deadspin, and the Deadspin folks claimed I obviously influenced that story.
So now full disclosure demands the footnote. And it appeared for the first time on the current Favre-Deadspin on Poynter.org.
For the record: Brett is a distant cousin in six different ways. I am 34 years older than he. I have never met him. I did know his grandfather. I left home 15 years before he was born. He doesn’t know how to pronounce our name, and neither do any of the sportscasters. Or Deadspin, for that matter. I have talked to the managing editor of Poynter.org once in a year and that was about a good place to buy po-boy sandwiches.
But just think how many footnotes I can collect over this story. Starting at the age of 10 at my family’s weekly newspaper in Bay St. Louis, Miss., The Sea Coast Echo, I have worked in about a dozen newsrooms.
So I can see it now.
If the Echo runs this story on Brett it should publish a footnote: “Gregory Favre worked for the Echo 57 years ago, but he didn’t contribute to this story about his cousin.”
My first daily, the Jackson State Times, is long gone, so it is off the hook, as is the Jacksonville Journal and the Chicago Daily News. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is still around, as is the Dayton Daily News, The Palm Beach Post, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Sacramento Bee, McClatchy Co. and WPLG-TV in Miami.
Let’s see if I can suggest a few more footnotes to save time.
Atlanta: Gregory Favre, whose name rhymes with suave, and cousin to Brett, whose name rhymes with carve, was assistant sports editor here but he hasn’t been involved in a decision at the paper since he left in 1963.
Chicago: Gregory Favre, Brett’s much older cousin, was managing editor of the Sun-Times, but he hasn’t been back in our newsroom since he left when Rupert Murdoch bought the paper in 1984.
Sacramento: Gregory Favre was executive editor of the Bee and vice president of news for McClatchy and a cousin of Brett’s, and anyway he was a 49ers fan when he was here.
I am sure Dayton and Daytona, Corpus Christi and WPLG can think of their footnotes. If not, feel free to copy any of these. Or just put your own deadspin on it.
