ESPN Should Stop Claiming John Clayton 'Broke the Story' of Culpepper Retirement

Here's how ESPN has been reporting the retirement of Daunte Culpepper all day today:

Without fail, the ESPN anchor in Bristol will say that Culpepper retired and then add, "Now, to the man who broke the story, ESPN.com's John Clayton."

Except that Clayton didn't "break the story" at all.

Culpepper e-mailed a number of NFL writers this morning to tell them he was retiring. At least two of them -- Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk and Adam Schefter of NFL Network -- reported the contents of the e-mail before Clayton did. And neither Florio nor Schefter tried to pass off their reports as scoops, because they realized that simply passing along an e-mail does not constitute "breaking a story."

In fairness to Clayton, I haven't heard him personally claim that he "broke the story" of Culpepper's retirement. But I have heard other ESPN on-air employees make that claim, and they should stop. Because it isn't true.