Hall of Shame Opens New Wing

Wally Hall’s missteps are nothing new to Outtakes, but he managed to top himself in February.
He opened the month by telling his readers Arkansas Democrat-Gazette managing editor David Bailey told him the infamous e-mail circulated by members of Houston Nutt’s inner circle defaming quarterback Mitch Mustain, his mother, his Springdale teammates and coach Gus Malzahn was not news because, “the e-mail is not news. We don’t write about the Internet or messages.”
On Feb. 13, we were treated to this nugget from Hall: “The managing editor, who doesn’t like his name in the paper (mistake No. 2), chewed me out the best he could without inflaming his injured ribs.”
Turns out Hall misquoted Bailey in his Feb. 1 column. In fact, the D-G did manage a full-page story Feb. 15 on the e-mail and its aftermath once the sender was sanctioned officially by the UA, certainly a newsworthy story.
If Hall can’t get something right he heard firsthand from his own boss, we wonder how Hall can claim to “stand by” his column blasting Nutt with second- and third-hand information in a Feb. 9 column that spurred the embattled coach to phone in and bawl out Hall that morning on his radio show in Little Rock.
In that same Feb. 13 column, Hall also backed off his salvo at Nutt, claiming he, “did not intend for every paragraph to lay blame on Nutt.” Forgive us for not taking Hall’s word for it on this one.