Forbes Reporter Tattles On Cam Apparently Violating League Uniform Rules. . .for 2+ Years

[Montsta]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

A little blurb written by one of your writers, a Mr. Chris Smith (@ChrisSmith813), has gotten some press around national circles the past week or so, making it to sites such as Yahoo's Shutdown Corner blog, MSN's sports site and even ESPN.com. It's an article about how Cam Newton has been violating the NFL's uniform policy since his first game because he wears helmet visor clips with an Under Armour logo on them. He specifically mentioned in his initial article that after hours of research he could not find a single other player that has branded clips that would be in violation of the rule against non-approved brands being worn exposed on any part of a player's uniform. This article made it to a football fan site, and after literally two minutes of Google research, a minimum of ten other players, including superstars such as Robert Griffin III and Calvin Johnson, Raiders quarterback Terrell Pryor, and San Francisco safety Eric Reid were all also found to be wearing similar visor clips, and thusly, were also in violation. The author of this article would later edit his article to include a couple of lesser known names to the list, but not before he actually called the NFL league office to complain about Cam Newton specifically. This call will certainly result in an inflated fine for Cam Newton, potentially equal to the yearly salary of an average American. That is no small amount of money to lose on something so absurd. He claimed on twitter to have wrote it because it's wrong that Nike pays $1B+ for apparel rights in the NFL and Cam Newton is skirting that agreement with wanton disregard to the rules, and yet he did ZERO research to see if it was a rampant, league-wide problem.

What Mr. Smith doesn't mention in his piece is that he lives in New York and is a New York Giants fan and he wrote the article after the Carolina Panthers beat the Giants 38-0 this past Sunday. The timing of the piece, to me at least, seems a bit off at minimum, and at worst is wholly vindictive in it's premise.

Now that this has made it's way to the national sporting news outlets like the sites I mentioned above, I encourage you to peruse the comments section of those sites and make note of the reader responses.

"This is the kind of hard-nosed investigative journalism Forbes has it's writers looking into these days? What a joke." -Yahoo's Shutdown Corner Blog

"I can't believe Forbes employs this bitter fan to pass off things like this as 'news' articles." -MSN sports page

Those are just a couple of excerpts from the thousands of comments on these sites from people who just watched the credibility of anything related to the Forbes name take a serious hit.

As a lifelong fan of Forbes magazine and, in the more modern era, Forbes.com, I encourage you to take a long look at the people you allow to be associated with the Forbes name, because with a few clicks of the keyboard, they can completely tarnish an entire brand.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this email.

/shots fired asshole

[TheRumGone]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

/shots fired asshole

 

 

[Cary Kollins]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

/shots fired asshole

 

 

 

[Darth Biscuit]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

/shots fired asshole

 

 

[rayzor]

I posted this in the comments of the article:

 

As has been pointed out by many among these comments, just a little bit more investigating other than trying to…well…attack Cam Newton would have found out that 1) quite a few other players, even among the media darlings like RG3 use similar clips by either Under Armour or Oakley, 2) others on the Panthers use them as well, mainly because the equipment managers prefer them, which leads to 3) it’s usually an equipment manager on teams that make that call to use them and do what they believe to be within the rules to black them out, 3) if it took 2+ years for someone to spot the infraction it must not have been obvious at all or all that glaring an infraction.

 

Also, one has to wonder why so much attention was placed on Cam. The writer says that the article was written a year ago, but for it to come out just a couple days after his favorite team got beaten badly by Newton’s team (one for which he was upset enough to mention in his own Twitter timeline that he felt like throwing a remote through the TV) this article comes out. This, in itself is suspicious.

 

Adding to that, the author also says that he looked around quite a bit and put some effort into finding others who used similar clips he could find no one. After this article was posted it took all of just a few minutes for others to find not just others who used clips with UA on it, but other big name players who used Oakley clips, including the very ones he posted pictures of as examples of those who do not use UA clips, as the Oakley insignia can easily be seen at the top. This also leads one to believe that the author had an agenda beyond just seeking out the truth.

 

The author has tried to make it seem like it was more a problem for the NFL than Cam and that the intent wasn’t to point out Cam specifically, but anyone else reading his article and then doing their due diligence in seeking the truth (which the author did not do) can spot that the author is not being balanced and fair in his writing. It is coming across, however he tries to spin it after the fact, that he was on a witch hunt.

 

I have trouble believing that a journal such as Forbes, with it’s impeccable history in reporting facts and doing solid research to back up those facts would be satisfied with inaccuracies and biases demonstrated in this article.

and then this as a response to his reply to another comment.

 

Thos pictures you posted of other athletes are wearing Oakley clips. If you had done your best to seek out the truth, you would have seen the Oakley emblem at the top of the clip right above the screw.

 

It’s obvious to everyone who has checked your story out that you didn’t do a good job of investigating and it’s apparent to just as many people that this was about you going after Cam Newton.

 

You have tried spinning this so that it doesn’t look that way, but the title clearly tries to point out that Newton is the top perpetrator of this infraction when, in fact, he’s not nearly the only one who does it.

 

What you are doing is singling out a player that you don’t like because real unbiased investigating would have shown what everyone else has found out.

 

There is no need for Cam to be the target of your article unless your intent was/is to discredit Newton and/or use him as low hanging fruit to try and draw attention to you as a writer. Well congratulations on that last part if it is the case because now you have been noticed, but noticed as a nitpicking hack of a writer who doesn’t do good research.

 

 I doubt it changes anything nor do i think that it has the impact that monsta's letter would have, but it's there now.

 

waht would be hilarious is if phillyb did a little investigating of that hack writer to see if there is some anti-newton comments in the past that would support he has a bias against him.

[rayzor]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

/shots fired asshole

 

awesome.

 

post any responses that you get, if you get any.

[Peppers90 NC]

did this Chris Smith guy think he is going to make an impact somehow?  Change the landscape of the visor part of the league?  I could see his life achievement being, "I wrote an article that made Cam Newton wear different equipment on game days."

[KendrickPanther]

He said he was doing it for Nike but UA and Oakley gained all the pub for this.

[Happy Panther]

Well, I called Forbes and got the email address of the CEO, the sports senior editor, the general editor, and the person in charge of social media, and BCC'd all of them on this email:

/shots fired asshole

 

Awesome

[CRA]

He said he was doing it for Nike but UA and Oakley gained all the pub for this.

it is clear why he did it.....he was a ticked off Giant fan.  He probably wrote the entire piece in the 4th quarter and did two google searches that lasted 2 minutes. 

[Darth Biscuit]

it is clear why he did it.....he was a ticked off Giant fan.  He probably wrote the entire piece in the 4th quarter and did two google searches that lasted 2 minutes. 

 

The first part absolutely... the second part I doubt...  guys on here including Monsta and a couple others posted pics of other players wearing UA gear within minutes of the article being linked...

 

I think he saw Cam's clips, got a pic, wrote the article and posted it...

[CLTPanther]

I think he's just a straight up bitch

[CarolinaCoolin]

NCstoner should just go smoke some more weed and let the grown folks talk. This guy spent the whole game Sunday talking crap about Cam while our offense was putting up 38 points and our defense was posting a shutout.

Aren't you a high schooler?

[Shufdog]

Aren't you a high schooler?

 

I don"t think he's in high school, but he thinks he's the hall monitor! :judge: