Have They No Shame? Part 2

Better make that: What Planet Are They Living On? Or: What Are They Smoking?

The other day we blogged about the Post-Dispatch's penchant for ripping off RFT stories by re-reporting them and publishing them as their own.

Today we opened our P-D and encountered this headline, on page two of the Sports section:

"Irons replaced by Bonner"

The brief (280 words) story by Tom Wheatley that ran beneath that headline informs readers that Floyd Irons, legendary boys' basketball coach at Vashon High School, was relieved of his duties last July and replaced by former NBA player (and Vashon and Saint Louis University alumnus) Anthony Bonner.

Wheatley also writes that:

Meanwhile, the FBI reportedly is investigating Irons for his financial dealings. As detailed by the Post-Dispatch, these included foreclosures on three investment properties worth $1.5 million that Irons bought, with no money down, on a district salary of about $90,000.

True, the Post did "detail" Irons' curious real estate investments, in a story by David Hunn that ran December 10.

That story, however, made no mention of any federal investigation, nor has any subsequent Post-Dispatch story.

No, that "reportedly" in Wheatley's piece refers to -- you guessed it -- Riverfront Times. Specifically to a story by Kristen Hinman that we published May 24, which begins:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the actions of former Vashon High School varsity basketball coach Floyd Irons, Riverfront Times has learned.

As RFT readers are aware, Hinman has covered Irons extensively over the past year and a half. "Basketball by the Book," her probe into Vashon's history of tainted basketball titles, netted her a first-place award for investigative reporting from the Education Writers Association.

-Tom Finkel