More Outrage ...

On the Islanders Beat - a Newsday blog had the nerve to post this:

[NHL vice-president Colin] Campbell was recorded saying he hoped it would help Simon to meet with “the drug and alcohol, uh, uh, those doctors.” NHL spokesman Frank Brown quickly clarified that the doctors who deal with substance abuse under the NHL/NHLPA agreement also handle behavioral issues.

But the “stereotyping” horse was out of the barn. The gut reaction of Islanders coach Ted Nolan, who described Campbell’s assumption as “sickening” was understandable. Like Simon, Nolan is a member of Canada’s First Nation, and while they have seen first-hand the problems of drug and alcohol abuse within their ethnic community, the broad labeling of everyone who shares that heritage with the “drunken Indian” stereotype is stomach-turning.

That is utterly insane and should be taken as slander by Campbell. The author, Greg Logan, is calling the NHL's disciplinarian a racist. That is utterly and completely ridiculous. Why does Logan, and Nolan for that matter, automatically think that Campbell thinks Simon is a "drunken Indian" rather than a lunatic who may have been under the influence because the attack was incredibly out of sorts for a professional athlete?

I can almost understand Nolan as he has faced a ton of inexcusable abuse for his heritage, but not Logan. The post is not respectable journalism, it is slander.

slan·der (slndr)
n.
1. Law Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.

One can not automatically assume that Campbell is a racist based on his suggestion that substance abuse may be a problem for Simon. Everyone raves about Simon's character so how can one not consider an illegal influence to be the source of his "snapping?"

As I have pointed out before, Newsday and the Islanders have an incestuous relationship - the Isles buy a ton of ads in the newspaper and the paper plasters its logo around the Mausoleum. Its against any form of journalistic ethics and enough is enough. For them to defame someone as a racist is unethical and inexcusable.