http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438 When is a story not a story? From this vantage point, it&rsquo;s not a story when one can&rsquo;t get the facts. Or at least a single version of what might be the facts from a source who had something to do with the story. Which is why The Californian has not reported the reason that Condors coach Marty Raymond and assistant coach Mark Pederson were suspended by the team earlier this season. We aren&rsquo;t sure of the facts.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A local television station, using an anonymous tip,&nbsp; reported on Thursday that the coaches were suspended for anti-Semitic remarks made to rookie player Jason Bailey. The Californian broke the story of the suspension of Raymond (for one week) and Pederson (for two weeks) on Feb. 24, noting the suspensions involved Bailey. At that time team President Matt Riley would only say it was &ldquo;an internal matter.&rdquo; Since breaking the story I have tried repeatedly to find out if the suspensions were due to anti-Semitic comments as there were plenty of rumors swirling around. Even owner Jonathan Fleisig, when asked about anti-Semitic remarks, refused to say why there were suspensions. The &ldquo;anonymous&rdquo; tip to the local TV station was most likely Brian Bailey, father of Jason, who began calling various people at the The Californian (myself included) &mdash; anonymously, of course &mdash; a few weeks ago (why wasn&rsquo;t he calling in late February?) but finally gave his name under prodding from executive dditor Mike Jenner. Brian Bailey said he would go on the record, but after more than a week of phone tag, there has been no on-the-record conversation. Problem is, anonymous isn&rsquo;t good enough for us when we can&rsquo;t back it up. &nbsp; Using Brian Bailey as a source is about as good as, say, a friend of coach Raymond or a friend of coach Pederson. You can get a version of the story from them, but it&rsquo;s all hearsay &mdash; it may be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, partial truth or total fabrication. The only people who know the real story of what transpired are the player in question, the coaches and maybe some other players. Those are the people who live together in the locker room during the season and they aren&rsquo;t talking. Jason Bailey isn&rsquo;t calling and demanding a blood-letting, Raymond has said &ldquo;no comment&rdquo; every time I&rsquo;ve broached the subject; Pederson, who will be coaching a team in Europe next year, talked &mdash; but that was about his new job. He wasn&rsquo;t talking about the suspensions. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not confirming or denying that,&rdquo; Riley said Thursday afternoon when asked if the suspensions were over anti-Semitic remarks. &ldquo;Our owner is Jewish and we took this matter very seriously and methodically to make sure it was done by the book.&rdquo; Riley said as far as he was concerned, the appropriate actions were taken and anything pertaining to the suspensions is &ldquo;water under the bridge.&rdquo; And at this point, three months after the fact, I have to agree. I&rsquo;m tired of rumors, innuendo and whispers. There may or may not be something of substance there, but at this point in time it&rsquo;s staler than 30-day old bread. When is a story not a story? From this vantage point, it&rsquo;s not a story when one can&rsquo;t get the facts. Or at least a single version of what might be the facts from a source who had something to do with the story. Which is why The Californian has not reported the reason that Condors coach Marty Raymond and assistant coach Mark Pederson were suspended by the team earlier this season. We aren&rsquo;t sure of the facts.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A local television station, using an anonymous tip,&nbsp; reported on Thursday that the coaches were suspended for anti-Semitic remarks made to rookie player Jason Bailey. The Californian broke the story of the suspension of Raymond (for one week) and Pederson (for two weeks) on Feb. 24, noting the suspensions involved Bailey. At that time team President Matt Riley would only say it was &ldquo;an internal matter.&rdquo; Since breaking the story I have tried repeatedly to find out if the suspensions were due to anti-Semitic comments as there were plenty of rumors swirling around. Even owner Jonathan Fleisig, when asked about anti-Semitic remarks, refused to say why there were suspensions. The &ldquo;anonymous&rdquo; tip to the local TV station was most likely Brian Bailey, father of Jason, who began calling various people at the The Californian (myself included) &mdash; anonymously, of course &mdash; a few weeks ago (why wasn&rsquo;t he calling in late February?) but finally gave his name under prodding from executive dditor Mike Jenner. Brian Bailey said he would go on the record, but after more than a week of phone tag, there has been no on-the-record conversation. Problem is, anonymous isn&rsquo;t good enough for us when we can&rsquo;t back it up. &nbsp; Using Brian Bailey as a source is about as good as, say, a friend of coach Raymond or a friend of coach Pederson. You can get a version of the story from them, but it&rsquo;s all hearsay &mdash; it may be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, partial truth or total fabrication. The only people who know the real story of what transpired are the player in question, the coaches and maybe some other players. Those are the people who live together in the locker room during the season and they aren&rsquo;t talking. Jason Bailey isn&rsquo;t calling and demanding a blood-letting, Raymond has said &ldquo;no comment&rdquo; every time I&rsquo;ve broached the subject; Pederson, who will be coaching a team in Europe next year, talked &mdash; but that was about his new job. He wasn&rsquo;t talking about the suspensions. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not confirming or denying that,&rdquo; Riley said Thursday afternoon when asked if the suspensions were over anti-Semitic remarks. &ldquo;Our owner is Jewish and we took this matter very seriously and methodically to make sure it was done by the book.&rdquo; Riley said as far as he was concerned, the appropriate actions were taken and anything pertaining to the suspensions is &ldquo;water under the bridge.&rdquo; And at this point, three months after the fact, I have to agree. I&rsquo;m tired of rumors, innuendo and whispers. There may or may not be something of substance there, but at this point in time it&rsquo;s staler than 30-day old bread. en-us Thu, 28 May 2009 19:24:52 PDT <p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">I couldn't agree more!&nbsp; I also heard the rumors and saw the newscast this morning.&nbsp; I was a little surprised and frustrated wondering why, so long after the incident, that this station decided to run a story based on hearsay.&nbsp; Really, what's the point?&nbsp; Kinda like poking a dead animal if you ask me.&nbsp; Pointless.&nbsp; Get over it, hope the parties involved walked away with no hard feelings, focus on moving forward.&nbsp; And above and beyond everything else... hurry up October so I can see the Condors play!!!</span></span></p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406381 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406381 <p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">I couldn't agree more!&nbsp; I also heard the rumors and saw the newscast this morning.&nbsp; I was a little surprised and frustrated wondering why, so long after the incident, that this station decided to run a story based on hearsay.&nbsp; Really, what's the point?&nbsp; Kinda like poking a dead animal if you ask me.&nbsp; Pointless.&nbsp; Get over it, hope the parties involved walked away with no hard feelings, focus on moving forward.&nbsp; And above and beyond everything else... hurry up October so I can see the Condors play!!!</span></span></p> <p>Old news best left buried.</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406453 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406453 <p>Old news best left buried.</p> <p>I wonder if the Condors are wishing they had just squashed this back in February?&nbsp; Regardless, you have to give Reilly props, saving face with the fan base/community and letting contracts expire then blaming it on self imposed budget cuts is genius.&nbsp; The Condors P.R. juggernaut rolls on and the fans are none the wiser.</p> <br /> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406577 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406577 <p>I wonder if the Condors are wishing they had just squashed this back in February?&nbsp; Regardless, you have to give Reilly props, saving face with the fan base/community and letting contracts expire then blaming it on self imposed budget cuts is genius.&nbsp; The Condors P.R. juggernaut rolls on and the fans are none the wiser.</p> <br /> <p>What legitimate reason is there for the media to bring this up now???&nbsp;NONE.&nbsp; There&nbsp;is ZERO public interest in publishing all this hearsay now.&nbsp; Rumors and gossip do not belong being published in a local newspaper.&nbsp; Everyone else has moved on.&nbsp; This isnt the time for the Californian to be digging up old dirt that everyone else has already let go.&nbsp; Move on.&nbsp; Next time please print something that is recent and factual, not old and chock full of rumors.&nbsp; Just my .02 cents.&nbsp;</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406578 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406578 <p>What legitimate reason is there for the media to bring this up now???&nbsp;NONE.&nbsp; There&nbsp;is ZERO public interest in publishing all this hearsay now.&nbsp; Rumors and gossip do not belong being published in a local newspaper.&nbsp; Everyone else has moved on.&nbsp; This isnt the time for the Californian to be digging up old dirt that everyone else has already let go.&nbsp; Move on.&nbsp; Next time please print something that is recent and factual, not old and chock full of rumors.&nbsp; Just my .02 cents.&nbsp;</p> <p>I find it fascinatingg that channel 29 did the supposed investigative piece and aired it when Marty Raymond was out of town so that he could not be interviewed. I also find it fascinating that channel 29 did not go through to both verify sources, evaluate those sources and attempt to get some type of independent corroboration. Instead they just ran with something that should be titled &quot;gossip column&quot;. There was not a shred a newsworthy stuff to report. If a new station is going to run with hearsay, then so should the person that it was directed at. However if you do all of that you do not end up with news but with gossip. I applaud the Californian, especially Mike Griffith, for not jumping on the supposed news bandwag on. For the record anyone that knows Marty&nbsp; Raymond also knows that his son is jewish as well. Again there has been way too many rumors and not enough facts about this whole incident. It is time to report some real facts concerning the Condors. June 1 is right around the corner and that is when the first player signings for next season can be listed. Please bring on these facts and leave the rumors where they belong.....in the trash.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406777 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/CondorsTalk/45438/#c_406777 <p>I find it fascinatingg that channel 29 did the supposed investigative piece and aired it when Marty Raymond was out of town so that he could not be interviewed. I also find it fascinating that channel 29 did not go through to both verify sources, evaluate those sources and attempt to get some type of independent corroboration. Instead they just ran with something that should be titled &quot;gossip column&quot;. There was not a shred a newsworthy stuff to report. If a new station is going to run with hearsay, then so should the person that it was directed at. However if you do all of that you do not end up with news but with gossip. I applaud the Californian, especially Mike Griffith, for not jumping on the supposed news bandwag on. For the record anyone that knows Marty&nbsp; Raymond also knows that his son is jewish as well. Again there has been way too many rumors and not enough facts about this whole incident. It is time to report some real facts concerning the Condors. June 1 is right around the corner and that is when the first player signings for next season can be listed. Please bring on these facts and leave the rumors where they belong.....in the trash.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>