PLEASE DON’T SPECIFY SOCIAL-MEDIA DARKNESS AS A CHICAGO WRITER DOES

Corey Perry’s terminated contract was made uglier by sick comments on the Internet, which never should be publicized by a supposedly credible newspaper — but was anyway by a nonprofit sports columnist

     It isn’t my job to comment on psychopathic, networked lies. I leave them alone, having been the subject of many myself. Each day, my reading material involves a dozen websites, all with reliable dignity and credibility. None delve into the dark corners of social media.

     So I was shocked, though not surprised, to notice a junky Chicago sportswriter plunge into the wreckage. In the garble of artificial intelligence, with less reason to follow what remains of mainstream media, no one should be reading falsehoods about Connor Bedard’s 18-year-old life as a hockey superstar. Once a paparazzo does that, he’s participating in the same cataclysm of, what, creating more traffic for himself?

     On several occasions, it has been clarified that Corey Perry — the veteran who was removed from the Blackhawks for “workplace misconduct” — did not resort to wrongdoing that involved teammates and their families. Perry addressed it himself, saying, “I am sickened by the impact this has had on others, and I want to make it clear that in no way did this involve any of my teammates or their families. Most importantly, I want to directly apologize to those who have been negatively affected, and I am sorry for the additional impact to others it has created. My behavior was inappropriate and wrong.”

     Said general manager Kyle Davidson, who acquired Perry as a team leader: “This does not involve any players or their families, and anything that suggests otherwise, or anyone that suggests otherwise, is wildly inaccurate, and frankly, it’s disgusting. … To be honest, I think over the last 24 hours, what’s gone on has been very disturbing and I feel like I’m wearing it. I’m carrying that.”

     From that point on, any Internet balderdash should be treated as such. If we wanted, we could find something heinous about every famous sports person and just run it in our columns for fun and giggles. Once a b.s. pile was invented about another Hawks player in the Perry case, it should be disregarded entirely — unless, by chance, there’s new reasonable evidence about the matter. And if media members in Winnipeg asked a player about it, that news should not appear in a Chicago newspaper because, well, the news is dead wrong.

     But a columnist in the Sun-Times went ugly in airing a lie. “That’s the nicest, most-sanitized way to describe social media’s version of what happened,” he wrote of what social media prescribed in some hokum about Bedard. The synopsis turned gloom into a public matter, somehow giving credence to the Internet creeps. Never mind that some website had run a story, responding after writers had asked Bedard about Perry in his first road trip near his boyhood Canadian home. To run his quotes doesn’t have to be attached to any shady nuance about a “most-sanitized way to describe social media’s version.” It was anyway. It set sunlight on a fabrication.

     “(When) you’ve got the attention on you, stuff’s going to happen,” Bedard said. “Whether you did nothing or you’re not involved in the situation at all, somehow it’s all about you. That’s not fair, but that’s how life works.”

     At 18, as a fresh cultural item in North America, imagine being in that situation. “I don’t need to answer any more questions about this stuff,” Bedard said to more questions. “Obviously, it’s all just a bunch of ‘b.s.’ on the internet. It’s of course (had) an effect on myself and my family, but who cares. It’s out of our control. And it’s all just fake, made-up stuff.

     “It’s whatever, like I said. Stuff gets out there, and people want to make jokes. Obviously, what happened with (Perry) is serious, and the first concern is he’s OK and his family (is OK). It’s not great, but it’s out of our control. I don’t need to talk too much further on it.”

     For the columnist to add his own material, when it wasn’t at all necessary, is worthy of an apology to Bedard. Does he have an editor? Is the Sun-Times a daily nonprofit operation that begs for readership money on its website? I had no idea what the Internet was claiming about any Hawks player because, on my sites, I don’t take nasty roads. For a journalist to actually follow up and read the crap and report it, I wouldn’t be reading him. Not that the paper has much readership these days.

     The Blackhawks won’t be more specific in acknowledging what happened after a history of sexual assault and management cover-ups. All we have is a report from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, who said Perry engaged in misconduct with a team employee in Columbus on Nov. 21, the night before a road game. No one from the organization has knocked that report down. How this story came to involve players and their families … it’s sick to read about it.

     It’s sicker to read about it in a traditional newspaper. I will put it out of my mind, amazed at Bedard’s offensive performance — 11 goals, nine assists — in less than two months on the job for a substandard club. But in Chicago, a town of stumbling sports owners, fans likely are wondering if this is the first of many developments that eventually will lead No. 98 elsewhere. Said Perry: “I have started working with experts in the mental health and substance abuse fields to discuss my struggles with alcohol and I will take whatever steps necessary to ensure this never happens again. I hope to regain the trust and respect of everyone who has believed in me.”

     This is a brutal introduction to real life for Bedard. I keep imploring a football writer there to phone Caleb Williams’ father, who already has said his son might not play for a bad franchise and could blow off the April draft. Did he say Caleb had “two shots at the apple” in college ball? And that he might stay in school if “there’s not a good situation” in the NFL? Was he thinking about … Chicago, which creates a dead-man’s curve for quarterbacks in decades of trying?

     “The funky thing about the NFL draft process is, he'd almost be better off not being drafted than being drafted first,” Carl Williams told GQ in an interview. “The system is completely backwards. The way the system is constructed, you go to the worst possible situation. The worst possible team, the worst organization in the league — because of their desire for parity — gets the first pick. So it's the gift and the curse."

     The curse would be the Bears, who own the No. 1 overall pick thanks to the Carolina Panthers, currently the league’s worst team. How would fans feel about Williams crying to his mother in front of national TV cameras? Will Chicago, so sappy as a “tough town,” make fun of him? “There’s a time and a place for everything. But I’m far from ashamed about showing my emotion after any of the losses this year,” he said of a rough seasonal finish at USC. “It shows truth. It shows care. All that.”

     He has yet to say what’s next, telling the Los Angeles Times that the NFL draft is “a game-time decision.” The deadline is Jan. 15, when we’ll know if the Bears or another team has the first overall choice. All I know is, as prized athletes keep reading about Chicago, more will skip out on the lamentation of losers.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.