Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

On his Twitter feed today, LeBron James lashed out at a black celebrity gossip blog that recently reported him spurning his baby mama Savannah Brinsonfor the company of groupies.

James Tweeted:

MTO is the most disgusting/non-credible site in the world! All they do is try to ruin people lives and talk bad upon them. Misery loves company and that’s exactly what MTO and all them other gossip blogs are “MISERABLE”. We don’t believe u, u need more people. SMH

SMH is an acronym for “shake my head.”

It doesn’t happen often, but in this particular circumstance, I can’t disagree with James on his assessment of the site in question.

Of the highly-trafficked gossip blogs on the web, MediaTakeOut.com (MTO to James) stands alone in its astonishingly consistent lack of accuracy. Never has a site regularly extrapolated so much in its *reporting* from so little. (Anonymous message board posts and random Twitter entries.)

But what’s stunning in this case is that James went so far to dignify MTO’s claims about his off-court activities. That’s a sure sign that the black gossip site has penetrated the viewing habits of James’ inner circle – prompting him to respond.

It’s a shame because perhaps some will now paint the good black celebrity news blogs, like NecoleBitchie, TheYBF.com and Bossip.com, with the same brush as MTO. No site is perfect, but the aforementioned are far more credible than message board-trolling MTO.

The irony of James’ Twitter posting is that by recognizing the existence of MTO, he has officially christened the gossip blog’s accusations as news. (Otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it.)

With most main media organizations currently unlikely to give James the benefit of the doubt on anything, and also likely unfamiliar with MTO’s notorious reputation, dignifying MediaTakeOut via Twitter was the absolute worst thing James could do to maintain his reputation.

Just when you thought James couldn’t get any worse advice on how to handle public relations, he goes and legitimizes spurious charges about his baby mama and groupies.

Why did he do it?

Perhaps he feels like some people very close to him believe the world’s most dubious website over his own private assurances.

Posted by Brooks