55 replies to this topic

[ifmanis5]

More than a few of the major media players like the Associated Press, Sports Illustrated and ESPN have major egg on their brands. A few thoughts..

Will the big boys institute new, tighter rules on reporting?
I would guess yes they are and are having meetings about it right now.

Do you feel differently about their legitimacy?
I would say this only locks in my low opinion of their standards.

Is this a tipping point for internet reporting meeting/surpassing the traditional outlets?
I would say yes and this moment will be repeated for a long time to come.


J-School just got a whole new class this week.

[twothousandone]

New rules could help avoid getting taken to the cleaners on something like this, but at what cost? Some of the reports from Newtown CT border (for me) on disgusting -- trying so hard to get a first person spin on it. Cold calling families of victims?

So, to prevent a repeat of the Te'o hoax, they ask any athlete with a sob story to prove it? Should someone have asked "Manti, you said your girlfriend was in an auto accident. We've check with the CHP, and they don't have a record of anyone with that name in an accident. Can you tell us more about it?"

And if they do ask that next time, and the truth is the accident was just across the border in Oregon or Nevada, and the athlete says :You think I'm making this up you &^%$#@!. Why don't you just take that microphone and (*&^%." And further investigation shows that it was just across the border. Will the reporters bosses, his/her readers, and potential interviewees view it as an attempt to make sure the story was true, or will they think he/she is a jackass?

Amanda Marcotte was an "internet reporter" who covered the false rape allegations against the Duke lacrosse team. Gawker (owner of Deadspin) printed the Duke sex rating list without "permission." Accuracy versus decorum is a tricky slope, and I'd side with mainstream media on this one, especially since, once the possibility of a hoax came up, they dropped the storyline. They might have pursued it at that point, but taking a grief-stricken athlete's story at face value isn't a bad practice. I think it beats the alternative.

[Scoops Bolling]

So, to prevent a repeat of the Te'o hoax, they ask any athlete with a sob story to prove it? Should someone have asked "Manti, you said your girlfriend was in an auto accident. We've check with the CHP, and they don't have a record of anyone with that name in an accident. Can you tell us more about it?"

No, the issue here is basic fact checking. Is there actually such a girl at Stanford? Did someone by that name actually die? Is there any record of anything involving a person by that name prior to their relationship with the player? If the answer to all these questions is "no", then you question the player directly for clarification. This is nothing like Newtown. This was a failure by the MSM to check facts, not much more to it.

EDIT: And I don't think that kind of research is really asking too much. If anything, you'd think some reporter would dig into stuff in an attempt to write a story from the other side of the mirror, with info from Kekua's friends and family on how her relationship with Manti kept her going, or some such.

Edited by Scoops Bolling, 18 January 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[dcmissle]

Some are in the entertainment business and have to drive ratings; everyone must fill copy.

We have worse with with potentially far graver implications in the hard news, especially the political stuff. The msm gave John Edwards a pass, in part because they liked him and his wife, in part they are not comfortable covering sordid stuff. It fell to the National Enquirer to breaks the news that obviously disqualifies Edwards from the Presidency.

The internet in the main adds great value. It will not allow the main outlets to get away with what they have overlooked in the past, whether out of laziness or playing favorites.

Edited by dcmissle, 18 January 2013 - 12:30 PM.

[Dehere]

I think the ND sports information department has serious egg on their face. At some point a guy like Pete Thamel has to be able to rely on the ND SID and staff for accurate information. Thamel and other journalists are taking all the heat and surely they deserve some of it but my goodness if you work in a sports information office and people are going to write that your highest-profile student-athlete has had two people close to him die during the season you have ot be sure that the people actually, ya know, lived and died. Apparently a number of people close to the team thought Te'o's story didn't feel right. How could the SID's office have been so credulous?

"Is this a tipping point for internet reporting meeting/surpassing the traditional outlets?"

I would say we're not remotely close to that. The number of significant stories broken by reporters for traditional outlets still outnumbers the number broken by internet-only outlets by hundreds to one.

[Average Reds]

Not to defend the MSM, but this is precisely the sort of story that can slip by because there are no real stakes involved.

It's a nice, feel-good story and there are no consequences to passing along incorrect information. It's puffery. I mean, is SI or ESPN really going to check every claim of a dead relative or significant other on the off chance that someone might be making it up? The answer is that they just don't have the manpower or financial resources to do so, and there's no good reason for them to think they need it unless being wrong has consequences.

This doesn't mean they should be absolved, because they became part of the story by hyping this guy. But other than the embarrassment, there's no real harm. They trusted that the feel-good story they were being fed was, in fact, true. As Rick Perry might say, "Oops."

[DrewDawg]

But here's the thing---lots and lots of fluff stories are written in hometown papers about athletes at every school. If saidf fluff piece mentions a girlfrield, we now have reporters digging into her? When in 99.9999999% of cases everything is legit? What if some paper in Podunkville does a story on a player for the local university basketball team and the kid mentions his little brother or his HS girlfriend. Are they now open to investigation? Or does the mention of a girlfriend or whatever have to have some material impact on the story, like the inspiration for Te'o's play?

At what point do we have reporters asking personal questions about anyone the athlete knows?

[JimBoSox9]

I agree that the MSM letting this story go undiscovered for so long is an error in process. But how did this all start? With what was a fairly standard human interest story. As Klosterman noted on Grantland, it's not rare for an athlete, especially amateur ones, to have this kind of story attached to their tail. In fact, it's downright common. It spiraled into something more, but it started in a place where a lot of stories start.

I suspect that the various sports newsrooms, initially, don't feel the need to fact-check these little fluff human interest details. I find it hard to fully blame them; it's the game-team-athlete that's the story, not the fluff.

I'm not saying that I don't hope to see changes. My point is that the actual volume of stories affected by a stricter fact-checking policy would be larger than you might be aware, and that adds a lot of time, and therefore cost, to the process. Only the big outlets might be willing to absorb the cost, I'd guess. Then there's the problem of EE-checking facts in stories that you picked up from a local source? It's an expensive change, and if it occurred I'd expect it to occur further down in the funnel (say, extra diligence for stories that reach a certain level of airtime). I just don't see them stepping up the due diligence on the vast majority of these human interest tidbits.

[ifmanis5]

No, the issue here is basic fact checking.

This is the big one for me. AP (A-friggin-P for Pete's sake) printed the name of a totally factitious California town where a fake person had a fake funeral and no one raised an eyebrow. Inside or outside the bureau.

[Average Reds]

This is the big one for me. AP (A-friggin-P for Pete's sake) printed the name of a totally factitious California town where a fake person had a fake funeral and no one raised an eyebrow. Inside or outside the bureau.

Again, they did this because THERE WAS NOTHING AT STAKE. Why the hell wouldn't they take him at his word?

Uncritically reprinting the words of a source is a huge error if we're talking about national security. It's nothing - literally nothing - if we're talking about a college athlete describing the death of his girlfriend.

Edited by Average Reds, 18 January 2013 - 01:03 PM.

[ifmanis5]

Again, they did this because THERE WAS NOTHING AT STAKE. Why the hell wouldn't they take him at his word?

Uncritically reprinting the words of a source is a huge error if we're talking about national security. It's nothing - literally nothing - if we're talking about a college athlete describing the death of his girlfriend.

Nothing at stake? Are you insane? These are easily checkable facts that are routinely checked even for the most simple and small level items. This is gross negligence on a huge order by multiple large media outlets on a relatively high profile person.

[cornwalls@6]

Again, they did this because THERE WAS NOTHING AT STAKE. Why the hell wouldn't they take him at his word?

Uncritically reprinting the words of a source is a huge error if we're talking about national security. It's nothing - literally nothing - if we're talking about a college athlete describing the death of his girlfriend.

In the case of some of the media outlets I would agree with this, but you would think that an SI cover story, regardless of the lack of huge implications, would have pretty rigorous fact-checking standards. And I'm not sure because there was nothing at stake, no major national security issues involved, etc., is an acceptable rational for them completely fumbling this story. Deadspin, with I'm guessing considerably less resources than most mainstream/traditional media outlets, obviously found the time/inclination to do a little digging. As an aside, the egg on their collective faces is almost certainly driving the 24/7 coverage of it now, and the electronic beat-down that feels like is coming Teo's way soon, and is really already under way.

[Average Reds]

Nothing at stake? Are you insane? These are easily checkable facts that are routinely checked even for the most simple and small level items. This is gross negligence on a huge order by multiple large media outlets on a relatively high profile person.

What is at stake? Tell me please.

And beyond that, I call bullshit, because these are not facts that are routinely checked by news organizations when you are talking about a college athlete. They just aren't.

If we're talking about a political figure or someone in a public role where the person's credibility is a critical factor, then you are right. But for an athlete, this sort of stuff is not routinely fact checked. If you believe otherwise, show your work. Otherwise, knock off the ad hominems and grow the fuck up.

Edited by Average Reds, 18 January 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[Average Reds]

In the case of some of the media outlets I would agree with this, but you would think that an SI cover story, regardless of the lack of huge implications, would have pretty rigorous fact-checking standards. And I'm not sure because there was nothing at stake, no major national security issues involved, etc., is an acceptable rational for them completely fumbling this story. Deadspin, with I'm guessing considerably less resources than most mainstream/traditional media outlets, obviously found the time/inclination to do a little digging. As an aside, the egg on their collective faces is almost certainly driving the 24/7 coverage of it now, and the electronic beat-down that feels like is coming Teo's way soon, and is really already under way.

As I said in my original post, when the media decides to push the story because they have an angle to play, it becomes more embarrassing for them. And again, I'm not saying there is an acceptable rationale. The question is whether this changes my view and the answer is not a bit, because I understand exactly how it happened.

Honest to God, the hand-wringing and faux outrage over this is ridiculous. (And I'm not aiming this at you cornwalls.) This is not the NY Times uncritically printing the words of an Iraqi defector about the mysterious stockpiles of WMD and it turns out to be part of a propaganda campaign to bring the US to war. It's the story of a college football player persevering in the face of tragedy, only it turns out that one of the tragedies is a hoax.

[ifmanis5]

What is at stake? Tell me please.

And beyond that, I call bullshit, because these are not facts that are routinely checked by news organizations when you are talking about a college athlete. They just aren't.

If we're talking about a political figure or someone in a public role where the person's credibility is a critical factor, then you are right. But for an athlete, this sort of stuff is not routinely fact checked. If you believe otherwise, show your work. Otherwise, knock off the ad hominems and grow the fuck up.

The entire validity of the story and every fact you print that is wrong leaves you wide open to litigation is at stake. Other than that, whatevs?

[Average Reds]

The entire validity of the story and every fact you print that is wrong leaves you wide open to litigation is at stake. Other than that, whatevs?

What possible litigation are they open to?

You keep tossing out big words and concepts as if they mean something, but you have not answered a simple question: what is at stake? Specifically.

And "the entire validity of the story" is circular reasoning - it's the subject of our discussion, not a consequence of getting it wrong.

Edited by Average Reds, 18 January 2013 - 01:56 PM.

[DrewDawg]

Is it your stance that if that it's a simple sports story, fact-checking isn't important?

[snowmanny]

The argument seems to be that if a reporter decides that the story
he/she is reporting on is not very important, they may report what a source
told them as fact without further confirmation.

Is it an important story yet? Or can people still just make up shit about what happened and have the AP and such
report it as fact?

[Average Reds]

Is it your stance that if that it's a simple sports story, fact-checking isn't important?

That is not what I said.

What I said is that I can understand how this one slipped by everyone, because the items they were reporting - the death of two people on the same day and his willingness to play on valiantly through his grief - are not the kind of items that send fact-checkers flying, if only because of the following common sense point: who lies about that?

Beyond this, these facts were not central to the reporting about Te'o. That reporting was primarily about the game, his performance and the part about his grandmother and girlfriend simply added color and emotion to the story. They became central, and this is why there are a lot of news organizations that have egg on their face, because once they decided to make this a key element of their profile they should have confirmed this. So they have no defense and they deserve the criticism.

That said, I just don't get the outrage because I understand how it happened. It's a huge embarrassment, but unless I'm missing something there's no criminal act involved.

[Average Reds]

The argument seems to be that if a reporter decides that the story
he/she is reporting on is not very important, they may report what a source
told them as fact without further confirmation.

Is it an important story yet? Or can people still just make up shit about what happened and have the AP and such
report it as fact?

I know that you may not want to believe this, but people make up shit to "the AP and such" and have it reported as fact every single day.

I don't like it. But I'm not blind to the fact that it happens. And "the AP and such" have no way to stop it because they simply cannot get every single story right.

Edited by Average Reds, 18 January 2013 - 02:32 PM.

[BannedbyNYYFans.com]

SI writer Pete Thamel, who did a piece on Te'o earlier this year and wrote about the "girlfriend", addresses the criticism of his fact checking. It's pretty fascinating.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I've got to back Reds here. There's no way to check EVERY fact that goes into every story.

Should the AP have made sure the city was a real city? Probably. That's the kind of thing proof readers often check because you can google it in two seconds. And, initially, I don't think there's much blame to go around. When a college athlete tells you he had a girlfriend die, it's just not something you question. Why would you lie about that? What did Teo have to gain?

Well, now we know that someone would lie about something like that. It's a reminder that skepticism is a reporter's friend, but no one is so cynical as to question everything told to them.

Where I do think there were some serious errors is when the story went on for a long time and escalated and some weird stuff started to happen. For example, in that produced piece for the national title game, I, personally, would have asked for a photo of them together. That makes a better story than a weird headshot that's kind of internet blurry. I certainly would have asked for something more high-res. If Teo came back with, "that's the best photo of her I've got," I'd like to think alarm bells would have started to go off. I'd have asked him to ask her mother or family if they could get a better photo. I'd have maybe even asked for their direct contact to get him out of the way and get some cool background.

That it went as far as it did - with the game ball being presented and all of that being reported - I'm definitely pretty surprised someone didn't try to get background on her, simply because it would have been good for the story. What did the family think of Teo? Are they coming to the game to support him? Etc.

I think it's a reminder to practice good reporting - which is finding interesting angles on stories everyone is covering - but I don't think it will change policy in any meaningful way. As stories become bigger, you put more diligence into sourcing and reporting them.

As for the rise of internet journalism, I think too much emphasis is placed on the medium in which the reporting is done. If the New York Times breaks a story, and it goes up on their site before it's in print, is that a point for the internet? If the Christian Science Monitor breaks something, are they "the new media" now because they did away with their print product? It doesn't really matter and I think journalists who worry about whether there's a hard copy of their work or not are doing it wrong. Most good writers just want to reach the widest audience possible, regardless of how that audience is acquired.

Edit: That Dan Patrick clip above is fascinating. Great insight. I think he's too trusting of Manti, personally, but he's met him and I haven't so who am I to say. Sometimes crazy shit just happens that even the best preparation can't account for.

Lack of an obit is pretty weird in this day and age, though. Almost every funeral home uses an online service at this point where people can leave online condolences and buy flowers and stuff. That's a pretty big red flag in retrospect.

Edited by MyDaughterLovesTomGordon, 18 January 2013 - 02:57 PM.

[DrewDawg]

I've got to back Reds here. There's no way to check EVERY fact that goes into every story.

I actually agree with you. But there comes a point, when a certain angle of a story that wasn't important suddenly blows up, that these guys need to go back and check it out. Manti mentioning a girlfriend--big deal. When the girlfriend becomes the inspiration for the best player on a team like Notre Dame? Well, at that point you might need to go back and and take a look at things.

[Average Reds]

No disagreement with that at all, which is why the big media outlets deserve the humiliation they are experiencing.

However, the way this particular story got laundered is probably pretty unique:

- Big-time player on a big-time program has family tragedy. (Grandmother dies.)
- Holy crap, he had two loved ones die on the same day (Girlfriend dying six hours later) and he's still heroically playing!
- Has a great game, the narrative is reported. Not fact-checked, because who lies about that?
- Te'o pimps the girlfriend story all through the year. ND helps it along as well. Narrative picks up steam.
- Narrative becomes a story in its own right.

The last point is where the media should have deeply fact-checked the story. As MDLTG said, it would have made the story better. But for whatever reason, they didn't press and the narrative had been laundered into reality by the previous reporting and so they just ran with it. That's how major news organizations blunder into a mistake like this.

It's not great journalism and they deserve the criticism. But college athletics are (sadly) filled with false narratives reported as fact all the time - it's just the nature of the beast. This will change when our culture changes.

Edited by Average Reds, 18 January 2013 - 03:36 PM.

[Youkilis vs Wild]

As for the rise of internet journalism, I think too much emphasis is placed on the medium in which the reporting is done. If the New York Times breaks a story, and it goes up on their site before it's in print, is that a point for the internet? If the Christian Science Monitor breaks something, are they "the new media" now because they did away with their print product? It doesn't really matter and I think journalists who worry about whether there's a hard copy of their work or not are doing it wrong. Most good writers just want to reach the widest audience possible, regardless of how that audience is acquired.

I actually look at this period as a big win for Internet journalism not in terms of who's reporting it but in terms of how the Internet is used for reporting. Arguably, the Te'o and 47 percent stories are the biggest national scoops (read: not events [Sandy, Sandy Hook, election, etc.]) of the past year. And both were reported primarily through long journeys deep into the Internet.

[dirtynine]

I agree that there are traditional blind spots, especially in sports reporting, where ultra-rigorous fact-checking are not assumed to be necessary.

This kind of gets back to old questions posted in this forum about reporting an athlete's words verbatim in a locker room interview. Folks have noticed that the Globe and Herald, for instance, will publish slightly different versions of the same post-game interview quote in game stories. This is (for all I know) standard practice in sports media reporting. One will have "It looked like he was finished after the walk, but he talked me into one more batter" and the other will have "I thought he was finished after that walk, but on the mound he said 'give me one more batter.'" Is this wrong? Is it important? Not to me, maybe to some; somewhere, the line is drawn. It seems to me that sports reporters aren't as worried about details like that when the story is primarily in the public record, on the field. But yes, when the Te'o story became an off-the-field story, it should have triggered more rigorous, general publication-level standards.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I actually look at this period as a big win for Internet journalism not in terms of who's reporting it but in terms of how the Internet is used for reporting. Arguably, the Te'o and 47 percent stories are the biggest national scoops (read: not events [Sandy, Sandy Hook, election, etc.]) of the past year. And both were reported primarily through long journeys deep into the Internet.

This I agree with. Internet tools are really powerful for getting the reader closer to the story and for quickly uncovering information that would have previously taken far longer to uncover.

Just think how much more impact that 47 percent story had because it was video of Mitt actually saying it, with no filter between Mitt and the reader/news consumer. If that was just reported in print, or even just with text on the internet, how many cries of "out of context" and "misquoted" would there have been?

Reverse image searching in order to find a random chick who is the actual woman in the photo of the fake girlfriend is a pretty brilliant use of the net.

[Philip Jeff Frye]

I think the thing that's missing here is the amazing double standard at work here. Te'o (or somebody else) invented some stupid story that guillible reporters swallowed and its a big deal. Other football players routintely beat up their wives and girlfriends, deal drugs, get in violent fights, and its no big deal, unless its a handful of superstars like Ben Roethlisberger. A linebacker on the Chiefs kills his girlfriend and then shoots himself in front of his coach and that got, what, a day or two of attention? A Cowboys linebacker kills his teammate and best friend in a DUI accident and that gets the same. But get involved in some weird Internet hoax and lookout!, at least if you're a Heisman Trophy finalist.

I'll grant this story is bizarre in the way that a car crash isn't and that it plays to our whole societal uncertainty about the creepy aspects of our new online existence, but this obsession with celebrity is one of the most disgusting aspects of the media today.

Edited by Philip Jeff Frye, 18 January 2013 - 05:18 PM.

[Jordu]

No, the issue here is basic fact checking. Is there actually such a girl at Stanford? Did someone by that name actually die? Is there any record of anything involving a person by that name prior to their relationship with the player? If the answer to all these questions is "no", then you question the player directly for clarification. This is nothing like Newtown. This was a failure by the MSM to check facts, not much more to it.

EDIT: And I don't think that kind of research is really asking too much. If anything, you'd think some reporter would dig into stuff in an attempt to write a story from the other side of the mirror, with info from Kekua's friends and family on how her relationship with Manti kept her going, or some such.

What surprises me is that Sports Illustrated, like most big-time magazines, has a fact-checking department whose sole job is to, um, check facts.

You turn in your copy, the editors have at it, and then it gets passed to the fact checkers. These folks flag every fact short of the sun-rises-in-the-east variety. They verify all the facts they can on their own and for the ones they can't, or that remain in question, you sit down with the fact checker (bring ALL your notes) and work your way through the story. What you can't establish as fact gets deleted -- or should, anyway. (If you have a good rep for accuracy, you can squeeze some unchecked facts through.)

Thames talks about this process in his post. He called an assistant AD at Stanford to check the graduation year of the girlfriend and was told she did not appear in the alumni directory. "I thought that maybe she didn't graduate, so we took any reference to Stanford out of the story."

When the fact-checker could find nothing about the girlfriend being hurt by a drunk driver, Thamel "took the drunk driving reference out. It was just a car accident."

Scoops said this is a fact checking failure, but it is more than that. It's a failure of judgment and a failure to follow up. Stanford had no record of an alum by that name, so he ASSUMED she went to Stanford by didn't graduate. No drunk driver story so he ASSUMED it was a regular car accident.

Wow. Talk about not hearing the bells. And you know what happens when you assume.

Edited by Jordu, 18 January 2013 - 06:56 PM.

[ForKeeps]

Give me a fucking break. They could have stumbled onto this easily even if they had zero suspicion . How about:

"Hey, can we get a picture of you two together for our story, maybe of you by her hospital bed side?"
"Uh, no, sorry that's impossible."
"Oh...um....okay..."

I agree that nobody is going to ask for proof of existence the second someone mentions anyone in a story they're telling you, but to act like people didn't screw up here is completely obtuse.

[Average Reds]

Give me a fucking break. They could have stumbled onto this easily even if they had zero suspicion . How about:

"Hey, can we get a picture of you two together for our story, maybe of you by her hospital bed side?"
"Uh, no, sorry that's impossible."
"Oh...um....okay..."

I agree that nobody is going to ask for proof of existence the second someone mentions anyone in a story they're telling you, but to act like people didn't screw up here is completely obtuse.

This is a complete strawman - who is acting like people didn't screw up?

The premise of this thread is not whether the media screwed it up or not. It's whether the screw up - which is accepted by all of us - changes your view of the media. I am saying it does not, because I can see how the perfect storm of events conspired to allow this to get into print. It's certainly shoddy journalism, but it doesn't change my view of the media at all.

People who don't understand that these sort of falsehoods are, unfortunately, passed along by the media every single day are the ones who being willfully obtuse. What makes this case different is that the media fell for the narrative and then later the narrative fell apart on them.

[johnmd20]

I think the thing that's missing here is the amazing double standard at work here. Te'o (or somebody else) invented some stupid story that guillible reporters swallowed and its a big deal. Other football players routintely beat up their wives and girlfriends, deal drugs, get in violent fights, and its no big deal, unless its a handful of superstars like Ben Roethlisberger. A linebacker on the Chiefs kills his girlfriend and then shoots himself in front of his coach and that got, what, a day or two of attention? A Cowboys linebacker kills his teammate and best friend in a DUI accident and that gets the same. But get involved in some weird Internet hoax and lookout!, at least if you're a Heisman Trophy finalist. I'll grant this story is bizarre in the way that a car crash isn't and that it plays to our whole societal uncertainty about the creepy aspects of our new online existence, but this obsession with celebrity is one of the most disgusting aspects of the media today.

This is garbage. Those stories got huge attention for way more than a day or two. And they involved secondary, who dat players? This is the Heisman runner up on the team who played in the Championship Game. Are you done with preaching from your soap box? And this Manti story will go away in a few weeks, too. Stories are like comets, they shine bright and the threads are correctly funny or tragic depending on the situation and then it goes away to be replaced by another thread.

Still, this Manti story is sensational. How do you think it is possible it wouldn't get a lot of attention? It's utterly insane and it involved the Heisman runner up. This is the same reason the Rapelisberger story had legs. A star was involved. If this involved the backup linebacker on ND it would get 1/8th the attention, if that.

[Average Reds]

Some are in the entertainment business and have to drive ratings; everyone must fill copy.

We have worse with with potentially far graver implications in the hard news, especially the political stuff. The msm gave John Edwards a pass, in part because they liked him and his wife, in part they are not comfortable covering sordid stuff. It fell to the National Enquirer to breaks the news that obviously disqualifies Edwards from the Presidency.

The internet in the main adds great value. It will not allow the main outlets to get away with what they have overlooked in the past, whether out of laziness or playing favorites.

I missed this yesterday, but this is a great post.

Where the media deserves to be killed is in a case like John Edwards, where it fucking matters if they get it wrong. And yet, even here - when the Presidency of the United States was on the line - the media was so entranced with the compelling narrative and so disdainful of the source of the conflicting information that they did not do their jobs.

The point I've been trying to make in this thread is this: To expect the media to be more rigorous in their fact-checking of a college football player's story of a dead girlfriend than they are about stuff that actually matters is naive and foolish.

Edited by Average Reds, 19 January 2013 - 10:06 AM.

[Judge Mental13]

I missed this yesterday, but this is a great post.

Where the media deserves to be killed is in a case like John Edwards, where it fucking matters if they get it wrong. And yet, even here - when the Presidency of the United States was on the line - the media was so entranced with the compelling narrative and so disdainful of the source of the conflicting information that they did not do their jobs.

The point I've been trying to make in this thread is this: To expect the media to be more rigorous in their fact-checking of a college football player's story of a dead girlfriend than they are about stuff that actually matters is naive and foolish.

What's naive and foolish is you continuing to plug your ears and insist that this isn't a big deal.

This isn't a case of a fact-checking mishap, this is an entire story, an entire PERSON who never existed and was reported on by dozens of news-gathering organizations. The fact that it was a college football player and not a presidential candidate is wholly irrelevant, it was a big enough story that millions of people heard/saw/read it.

And please get off this whole idea that the story demanded "rigorous" fact checking.... because that's horseshit. The story demanded minimal fact checking and NOBODY BOTHERED. That's straight up pathetic. The associated fucking press printed the name of a fictional fucking town in California.

If they are so easily roped into a feelgood story about a college football player to the point where they're printing made-up towns and made-up anecdotes about a made-up person then why the fuck should anyone read what they have to say about presidential candidates?

It wasn't just one or two passing mentions either, this was a full-on narrative. They produced segments about it. It was a cover story. 100% inexcusable and a giant black mark on American journalism.

Edited by Judge Mental13, 19 January 2013 - 11:50 AM.

[ifmanis5]

It's also just plain-old people being terrible at their jobs. I produced many SportsCentury pieces back in the day and step one of covering the dead girlfriend/dead grandma angle (which is really the only interesting angle about the guy) would be to collect broll and interviews, the basic ingredients to pulling in the audience emotionally. ESPN, NBC, etc., some of the biggest most established brands in sports never did these things the way you're supposed to and they all covered Te'o's story a ton. Where was the broll of the girl's house, photos of her with her family, shots of her school, her hometown and (sadly) her grave? Where were the interviews with a single person who knew her- family, friends, doctors who cared for her? All of these things are the very FIRST thing you do and yet NOBODY ever did them. It's insane. It's like building a house without nails.

This isn't a local high school schlub in the middle of nowhere covered by only a school newspaper, this is the highest profile athlete at the highest profile school playing in the highest profile game of its kind and everybody fucking blew it.

[dcmissle]

If this is to have legs, can we at least omit ESPN from the discussion? The notion that it is a news organization on anything but the most mundane matters is laughable.

The long holiday weekend when news outlets were digging into the Tiger Woods' story, ESPN ran a crawl indicating that the Woods' vehicle had a broken window and scratches on the fender. Only after the worm turned decisively against Woods did the network even pretend to cover the story.

Just a couple of weeks ago, when Mike Shanahan needlessly exposedly RGIII to potentially career ending injury, ESPN trotted out its football jockocracy to choke off discussion and debate.

Both of these stories were far more newsworthy than this one, if for no other reason than the fact Te'o is far less important than Woods or RGIII.

Finally, if there is any doubt that ESPN is a corporate whore, consider that Roger Goodell Paul Tagliabue strangled in its crib after one season perhaps the finest thing that ESPN has ever produced, the series Playmakers.

Edited by dcmissle, 19 January 2013 - 05:42 PM.

[ifmanis5]

If this is to have legs, can we at least omit ESPN from the discussion? The notion that it is a news organization on anything but the most mundane matters is laughable.

The long holiday weekend when news outlets were digging into the Tiger Woods' story, ESPN ran a crawl indicating that the Woods' vehicle had a broken window and scratches on the fender. Only after the worm turned decisively against Woods did the network even pretend to cover the story.

Just a couple of weeks ago, when Mike Shanahan needlessly exposedly RGIII to potentially career ending injury, ESPN trotted out its football jockocracy to choke off discussion and debate.

Two excellent examples for your point.

[JimBoSox9]

You know, as much as I am opposed to this kind of thinking in general, I surprisingly side with the NFL on the Playmakers issue. I realize it's a minority opinion in my demo. It was really, really over the top. Omar Gooding got up to some shit. I don't blame the NFL for worrying about their brand impact in the 'burbs, and the kicker is that the show could still have been great if it had played a little more in bounds. You can't look at the realities of the situation and not come to the conclusion that Playmakers essentially committed suicide-by-screenplay. It would have been fantastic on HBO or even A&E, or a toned-down version could have existed on ESPN. As is, it was just a terrible fit. I'm sure the NFL had marketing data that told them it was a terrible fit, and in hindsight I'm stunned that anyone involved thought it would turn out differently.

Edited by JimBoSox9, 22 January 2013 - 02:09 AM.

[Phil Plantier]

Is it a big deal enough to care about basic journalistic fact-checking now?

 

http://espn.go.com/c...st-tv-interview

 

A source close to Te'o gave ESPN's Jeremy Schaap documents that the source says are Te'o's AT&T phone records from May 11 to Sept. 12, the date that the woman was supposed to have died. Their veracity could not be independently confirmed, but the source insisted they are genuine.

 

 

 

[maufman]

Have the standards for "real" journalism ever been applied consistently to sports journalism? I can't imagine that the editors at the Boston Globe, for example, subjected Will McDonough (or even Peter Gammons) to the same strictures in terms of fact-checking, use of off-the-record sources, and so on that they imposed on people who were reporting "hard" news. The T'eo story is just another reminder that we shouldn't expect the same diligence from journalists covering sports that we expect from journalists covering real news, even within the same organizations.

 

Maybe ifmanis5 has a point about NBC and ESPN failing in this case to abide by even the relaxed standards that apply to sports journalism, but I don't see how that is something that I should be outraged (or even care) about.

[ifmanis5]

Have the standards for "real" journalism ever been applied consistently to sports journalism? I can't imagine that the editors at the Boston Globe, for example, subjected Will McDonough (or even Peter Gammons) to the same strictures in terms of fact-checking, use of off-the-record sources, and so on that they imposed on people who were reporting "hard" news. The T'eo story is just another reminder that we shouldn't expect the same diligence from journalists covering sports that we expect from journalists covering real news, even within the same organizations.

 

Maybe ifmanis5 has a point about NBC and ESPN failing in this case to abide by even the relaxed standards that apply to sports journalism, but I don't see how that is something that I should be outraged (or even care) about.

 

Vince Doria would say oh hell yeah it is. I know because I've heard him say it.

[judyb]

Sports media is to journalism as Lennay Kekua is to people.

[maufman]

Vince Doria would say oh hell yeah it is. I know because I've heard him say it.

Isn't that obviously untrue?

 

I mean, even look at the quality stuff ESPN puts out there. Do you think the widespread use of off-the-record sources by guys like Buster Olney and Jayson Stark would pass muster if they worked at ABC News and covered Congress instead of baseball? That's not even a knock on Olney and Stark -- rumors about a baseball player being traded don't necessarily need to be sourced as scrupulously as rumors about Congress adding an anti-abortion rider to an appropriations bill.

 

As a consequence, those of us who read sports news should not assume that a puff story about a football player has been as thoroughly fact-checked as a story about a Senator would be. And frankly, that's OK with me.

Edited by maufman, 23 January 2013 - 06:15 PM.

[Phil Plantier]

Do you think the widespread use of off-the-record sources by guys like Buster Olney and Jayson Stark would pass muster if they worked at ABC News and covered Congress instead of baseball?

Sadly, yes. Check out some of Brian Ross' worst stories sometime.

 

should not assume that a puff story about a football player has been as thoroughly fact-checked as a story about a Senator would be

 

Clearly your distinction makes sense, because an athlete never becomes a judge, congressman or senator.

[JimBoSox9]

Clearly your distinction makes sense, because an athlete never becomes a judge, congressmanor senator.

So, you're saying a puff story about a football player should be as thoroughly fact-checked as a story about a Senator because the baseball player may one day be a senator? If your position is that all journalism is subject to ironclad standards regardless of topic, that's fine, but just say so. I don't understand at all how what you said contradicts his point.

[johnmd20]

Clearly your distinction makes sense, because an athlete never becomes a judge, congressman or senator.

 

You were going for a gotcha here. It didn't land.

[Phil Plantier]

I was attempting to point out the silliness of saying that one type of public figure should be held to one standard of fact-checking while another type is held to another. Guess it came out wrong.

[The Allented Mr Ripley]

It came out wrong because you're a stupid fucking idiot for thinking the two are comparable.

[Spelunker]

I don't know: I certainly think that a 4th grade school newsletter should be rigorously fact-checked as I've heard that grade-schoolers sometimes go on to be Senators.

[JimBoSox9]

True story: that's how the birther stuff started.