A challenge to Redietz

[redietz]

Redietz has insulted my years of experience as a professional journalist and he has challenged my skills and abilities. So I must now defend myself with a challenge to him over my reporting on Rob Singer.

Redietz I challenge you to find any quote on my website or in my videos with Rob Singer where I either endorse his methods or even say they will "work" and provide the results he claims. I also challenge you to find any quote where Rob claims that his Special Plays are mathematically superior to conventional strategy.

Put up or shut up.

How about we try this?

The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) did not endorse Uri Geller or say his abilities would always work. What they said was that he passed muster, and they could find no evidence of faking or flaw. They were, however, as a bunch of physicists, horrendously ill equipped to deal with what amounted to a magician. Geller used their testing to make himself more famous, promote himself, and take people to the cleaners by suggesting he had powers well beyond what probability would predict.

Danny Sheridan -- that had been a pen name, an acting name -- got himself written up in a full page look-at-this-dude story in the back of a Sports Illustrated circa 1974. He was a real estate agent. The article claimed, via a third person, a journalist who allegedly followed Sheridan's selections, that Sheridan had won 85% or more of his selections against the spread the previous year.

Sports Illustrated, after taking some heat for the full page what-amounted-to-a-promo, followed him for a full year the next season. Alas, true journalism was too late. "Sheridan" had acquired hundreds of clients begging for his abilities from that initial article. Good-bye real estate agent. Hello, brilliant world-class handicapper. Sports Illustrated followed him for a year and discussed his claims with experts in the field, including Jimmy the Greek and sports book managers in Las Vegas. They told SI that Sheridan was hooey. The SI tracking him for a year resulted in a 48% brilliance.

Damage was done, however. The semi-retraction a year later was too late. Sheridan had made a fortune and created a cottage business around himself. The retraction had little effect.


My point is obvious -- if you expose the public to hooey, whether you know it's hooey or not, whether you personally endorse it or not, you have some responsibility. Sports Illustrated didn't endorse Sheridan -- they allowed him to tell his story. Sound familiar? And if you're too lazy, as SI was initially, to cross-reference the hooey with experts, you did not do a responsible job. You launched the hooey into the public domain without bothering to check if it was hooey.