Norman Chad Can Make Peter King Jokes, Just Not at SI.com

Norman Chad is a freelance sports writer whose syndicated column runs in several newspapers, including the Washington Post, as well as at SI.com. Chad (who is also well known for appearing on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption and as a commentator for the World Series of Poker) regularly pokes fun at media figures, and so it's no surprise that in his latest column, he took a jab at Peter King.

But it is a bit surprising that SI.com decided to edit out the portion of Chad's column that deals with King.

The column is written as if it's a back-and-forth between Brett Favre and Michael Vick, and Chad writes this from the perspective of Favre:

Just talked on the phone with Sports Illustrated's Peter King -- told him I'm retired. (Not!) Every time I tell him I'm retired for good, he writes it down and reports it. If I told this jughead the world was flat, he'd write it down and report it.

Obviously, that's meant to be a joke about the breathless "Favre watch" that goes on in the NFL media, and although it's true that King and every other NFL reporter could stand to be a little more skeptical about Favre's public pronouncements, it's not a personal attack on King. But while the joke appeared in the version of Chad's column that ran at the Washington Post and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other newspapers, it doesn't appear in the version that you can read at SI.com.

So what gives? Apparently the folks at SI don't allow any criticism of their own -- even if that criticism is in jest. And that's a ridiculous policy.

I don't know King personally, but I've met him a couple times and always found him to be good-natured and good-humored, and I'd be very surprised if he had any problem with what Chad wrote. My guess is some overzealous SI editor got overprotective and decided to shield King from Chad's zinger. In the process, that overzealous SI editor just gave Chad's joke a lot more attention.

Via The Big Lead.