September 25, 2012

Who Really Blew It in Last Night’s Seahawks-Packers Game?

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So, um, football. By chance, I tuned into last night’s Packers-Seahawks game with six seconds left to play. And that turned out to be plenty! One Hail Mary later it was the blown call heard round the world, leading to an improbable Seahawks victory and a million outraged tweets about the incompetence of the replacement refs and the greediness of the NFL.

All of which I agree with.1 But I do have a question here. The call on the field2 didn’t seem wildly outrageous to me. The two refs were far enough away from the scrum that they couldn’t see who caught the ball first, and by the time they ran over it probably looked like simultaneous possession to them and therefore a Seattle reception. That’s a mistake, but frankly, it’s hardly the worst on-field mistake I’ve ever seen. These things happen.

But in replay, it was obvious that it was a Green Bay interception. So the real problem here is with the replay official who didn’t overturn the ruling on the field. But the replay officials aren’t replacement refs. They’re the same folks as always.

As it happens, I don’t care much about pro football, and I definitely don’t care much about the Seahawks and the Packers. So maybe I’m viewing this whole thing with more equanimity than it deserves. But I’m curious: who really blew it here? Seems to me it’s more the replay official than the replacement refs. What am I missing?

UPDATE: OK, I see my problem. In college ball, there’s a separate replay official who reviews calls. That’s what I’m used to. In pro ball, the replay official merely signals the referee on the field, and it’s the referee who reviews the play. So it was replacement refs who blew the initial call, and a replacement ref who blew the replay call. Sorry about the confusion.

1Seriously, I do. This is just a question about the blown call at the end of last night’s game.

2I’m talking only about the question of who caught the ball here. For the time being, I’m ignoring the missed offensive interference call.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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