Payton Baseball Controversy

I've been thinking about something to write for awhile now, since it's been over a month since my last post. And in the wake of the Payton Baseball controversy, I thought it might be appropriate to jump on this bandwagon.
If you haven't been paying attention to social media or Chicago media outlets, here is a very short summary of the situation as represented by the Chicago Sun-Times and a few other news sources: a few Payton parents refused to let their children play against the Brooks baseball team because the game would be on the south side of the city.
Needless to say, this has caused a huge scandal within Payton, CPS, and the city as a whole. It is a slap in the face to Brooks, a school on the south side that has given the baseball team no reason to be wary of playing them, and it is one of the most embarrassing moments in Payton's history.
What we need to keep in mind, however, is that there are two sides to every story, and that players on the baseball team and Payton administrators maintain that the situation has been misrepresented by the media. Players claim that the game was cancelled because the coaching staff of the team did not get a bus to take the team to Brooks and back.
I'm not on the baseball team, and I'm not claiming to know the story. But from what I know of the baseball coach, I'm inclined to believe the baseball players, and Principal Devine, when they say that the game was not cancelled due to racism within the Payton community, but due to leadership issues within the baseball program. According to one baseball player, the coach didn't inform them about a lack of a bus until only a couple hours before the game. And as one student has said, travelling from one side of the city to the other at 11 PM on the CTA is dangerous, no matter where you are. Not only is it dangerous, but Brooks is extremely far away from Payton, and extremely difficult to reach by public transit for the majority of the players on the team.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I know most of the kids on the team, and am close friends with a few. No one on the team has ever expressed any racist tendencies that I know of. The entire Payton community has been vilified by the media and made to look like a school full of ignorant, over-privileged, racist kids, due to the actions of a few parents, actions that are beginning to seem misrepresented in the first place. I really feel bad for the players on the baseball team, who only themselves know the true account of things. They have become the victims of sensationalist, yellow journalism.
I am upset by the actions of the Sun-Times, who were previously my favorite newspaper in the city. They printed a story without knowing all the facts, and has made an entire school the object of hate and disgust from people all across the city. This is an example of the media at its worst. They'll do whatever it takes as long as they get a story.