The Los Angeles Times made it clear where it stood on the Dijonai Carrington non-foul call against Caitlin Clark in the Connecticut Sun’s 93-69 win over the Indiana Fever in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday. When the paper first published its story on the incident by writer Chuck Schilken, it used the headline “Caitlin Clark suffers black eye. It was caused by player who mocked and called her out in June.”
The Times received plenty of backlash on social media for using an accusatory, attention-grabbing headline to prime its readers to be anti-Carrington before even reading the story, which really struck a nerve with espnW’s Sarah Spain, who put the paper on blast. “If I worked at the @latimes I would be calling/emailing about the people who wrote & approved this headline,” Spain tweeted. “If those people aren’t willing to PUT THEIR NAMES BEHIND accusing Carrington of INTENTIONALLY poking Clark in the eye, it’s because they know this is flat out wrong.”
By 5:37 p.m. Monday evening, the Times changed the headline to “Caitlin Clark suffers black eye. She says it was no excuse for her rough playoff debut” after the massive amount of negative attention the story drew.
Clark admitted to reporters on Tuesday that she didn’t believe Carrington intentionally tried to hurt her, and Carrington admitted her striking Clark in the eye was an accident resulting from trying to make a play in the heat of the moment, the Times course corrected again. So by Tuesday evening the story had been updated yet again with a third headline: “DiJonai Carrington didn’t mean to hit Caitlin Clark in the eye: ‘I was trying to make a play.'” It’s unclear if Schilken or the L.A. Times’ edit desk were the ones who wrote the original headline, but it’s likely both parties will tread lightly if they report on anymore future Clark stories.
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