Tom Raftery and Michele Mcphee, please STFU

I'm sure you've all heard about the shooting of an obscure rapper known as Freaky Zeeky. Although I hope he recovers and my condolences go out to the family of his friend who died, I didn't really see this story as worth posting about.. it's getting more attention than it needs, to be frank.

However, I must comment on one line in the Daily News' coverage, yet another example of how all journalistic standards seem to evaporate when Hip-Hop is the subject:

Investigators do not believe yesterday's incident stemmed from an ongoing feud among rappers that heated up after last year's murder of rap pioneer Jason Mizell, better known as Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC.

WHAT..THE..HELL..ARE..YOU..TALKING ABOUT????

There has not been any "feud among rappers" that was related in any way to the murder of Jam Master Jay, that is completely fictional. Where the hell did you people get that from?

Is this based on some vague fragment of a memory that JMJ was affiliated with 50 Cent, and 50 Cent also has some sort of beef? None of 50's beef has even the most remote connection to the JMJ shooting, and even the NYPD seems to realize that.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that such a major publication would state as a fact something that has no connection with reality whatsoever. This happens all the time, and not only in hip-hop coverage. But it's still jaw-droppingly ignorant.

Especially considering that four writers are credited for this story: Tom Raftery, Michele Mcphee, Maki Becker, and Edward Barrera. It took four people to come up with this crap? Four people, and you still couldn't manage the most basic fact checking?

So to whichever member of this elite think tank provided that sentence: you really, really need to STFU. And I'm keeping my eye on the rest of y'all.

EDIT: If any of you read this, please don't try to cop out by telling us that technically you did not assert a cause-and-effect relationship between JMJ's death and the current wave of beef, when you said this beef "heated up after" his death. You did not explicitly state it but the implication is unmistakable, and if you did not mean to indicate such a connection your writing skills are severely lacking.

ADDENDUM, 10-1-03: In the interest of fairness I should mention I just got interviewed by Michele Mcphee in reference to the Matthew Hall tragedy, and at the very least she seemed sincere in her desire to report the story fairly and accurately.. Afterwards I remembered posting her name here, and looking at it now I may have been a bit harsh. But just a bit.