BREAKING NEWS: KSR extends contract offer to Pete Thamel

The following statement was just released through PR Firm Lentz, Campbell and Thompson:

With speculation running rampant about the status of the current relationship, Kentucky Sports Radio confirmed today that they have indeed extended a contract to New York Times sportswriter Pete Thamel, once considered a nemesis of the site’s staff and readers.

“While we have spent much energy and dedicated thousands of words to the failings of reporting inaccuracies of Mr. Thamel in the past year,” KSR founder Matt Jones said Wednesday morning, “We can no longer deny the obvious.  He was made for KSR and KSR was made for him.  It’s as if fate brought us together as forcefully and beautifully as Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz.”

Jones added that Thamel’s Wednesday New York Times article about Duke point guard Kyrie Irving, which noted that Kentucky was upset by Miami of Ohio last year – Thamel’s fourth factual mistake regarding the Cats in about a year- was what finally encouraged him to break the stalemate between the parties and ushered in an era of potential partnership.  Jones’ successor as managing editor of the site, Thomas Beisner, agreed and noted that Thamel’s addition could take Kentucky Sports Radio to a new level.

“We like to think we have the market cornered on mistakes,” Beisner said.  “For a long time, Bryan the Intern was the face of the misspelling and horrible opinions on the internet and that is what helped us become the most trusted site on the internet for mistakes.  But this market is changing drastically and factual errors are becoming more en vogue.  People have lost interest in typos and the whole ‘they’re, there, their’ thing.  They want you to be blatantly wrong. I’ve tried to step it up a bit in my short tenure with KSR, throwing in a wrong fact here or there – not the kind that changes the story, just the kind that makes you angry – but it’s clear that other media outlets are catching us.  By adding Pete, we’re sending the message that we intend to remain as error-prone as ever.”

No formal agreement has been reached yet, but Jones and Beisner said that they feel their emails to Thamel, which were typed in Turkish, seem to be met with interest from the Thamel camp and they are optimistic they can work out a deal soon.