AnnArbor.com Does Multiple Articles Analyzing the NCAA Investigation
A four article analysis of where things stand and where the investigation could end up. It doesn't seem overly inflammatory. It's a lot of talking to coaches who have had trouble, what happened at other places with similar problems, and what the results were. Kinda like what Brian was doing MONTHS ago....but with the resources to contact people across the Country. Interesting at least, and food for discussion.
Michigan likely to lose practice time; some don't think that's a big deal
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-likely-to-lose-prac…
Michigan faces 'formally informal' hearing with potentially grave consequences
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-faces-formally-info…
At stake for Michigan football program in NCAA case: practice time, probation
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-football-faces-loss…
Questions and answers: Where do things stand for the Michigan football program?
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/question-and-answer-for-ncaa…
Michigan likely to lose practice time; some don't think that's a big deal-
Good Article, takes the San Diego State example Brian made into account, and talks to coach who was there at the time.
Michigan faces 'formally informal' hearing with potentially grave consequences-
Despite inflammatory headline, pretty fair inside it. Does an interesting job of explaining how the meeting in August will work, and who will go to it.
At stake for Michigan football program in NCAA case: practice time, probation-
Best article IMHO, has a good comparison sheet of how many times the infractions Michigan is accused of have been leveled before, an interesting Q&A with Rich Rod from his time at WV (though I can't say whether it shows he has had the too many coaches problem before, or shows he's aware of what the problem is) and points out compliance's concern with the QA staff; and breaks down each of the allegations, and what took place elsewhere.
Questions and answers: Where do things stand for the Michigan football program?-
Just a Q&A overview, probably containing nothing in there that anyone on here doesn't already know.
And I said I thought it was pretty fair, and useful, and I still do....but from the comments, it's obvious Tater doesn't feel the same way... ;-)
I previously said that this thread should have been included in a prior one.
Why? The link below was on the front page at the same time as the current thread was started. Both dealt with essentially the same topic.
I am not saying this thread is uninteresting. It is very interesting. But if you disagreed with me about whether the current thread should have been part of the one below, please explain to me why. Or if you feel I should not be commenting on the appropriateness of new threads, please let me know.
I honestly do not understand. Feedback appreciated.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/mlive-breakdown-um-allegations
You were calling me out, and I didn't neg you. I thought about replying about inaccurate subject lines, poorly written ones, and the way the board doesn't seem to update for me every time I log in, but it just sounded whiney and excuse making to me, so I passed.
I can only guess that some don't like drive-by corrections, but it wasn't totally without merit.
I was not clear enough in my original post.
I mean, even I figured it out.
But just to say "WRONG" and move on, that might be it.
A "hey, uh- *link*, but as I said before, I think..." might placate the masses.
But as soon as I figure out what works and what doesn't on MGoBoard, I'll let you know...
The actual content is good. It's a bit ridiculous that they wrote 4 articles with a couple of sensationalistic headlines, especially because they should have done this when the allegations were announced.
I imagine these articles are being printed in protest of the Spring Practice media ban. Something tells me Dave Birkett is regretting his decision to emulate Drew Sharp.......
I had forgotten about reduced access for spring practice. I hope you made this same point in one of Birkett's comment fields.
Some of the work is good, but the sheer volume and the sensationalism really piss me off. I am going to stop now.
It seems absolutely clear to me (though never acknowledged by Rosenberg, as far as I am aware) that the whole story began when someone in the Athletic Department leaked the July auditors' report to Rosenberg. We don't know who that is; we'll probably never know. It is too bad; I'd like to know who it was. To the extent that people like Percy Bates are public figures, I'd certainly like someone to ask, and at least get denials from the people who will deny being the leakers on the record.
It should be amazing to all that despite having the audit report, Rosenberg did not reveal that as part of his original story, based exclusively on anonymous interviews. Of course, what the audit report made clear was that the CARA form-collection process had already been corrected, and that the auditors had no information as to any NCAA violations. Rosenberg set out to fill in the "violations" part. And mostly, he didn't, at least not though his interviews, with the possible exception of inadequately-defined QC/coaching staff observing some of the voluntary workouts. Of course, Rosenberg hoped to provoke an NCAA investigation, and he did just that.
So it will be intersting, to see people like Percy Bates go to the NCAA to defend Michigan and Coach Rodriguez... except that if asked, I sort of expect that a Percy Bates might just say, "Oh it is not my task to defend anyone. I am interested only in bringing Michigan in full compliance with the letter and spirit of tne NCAA."
Does anybody know; what kind of personal relationship does Prof. Bates have with EMU Regent James Stapleton?
Can you remind us of the possible role of these two: as I recall, Stapleton's wife writes for the freep? Is Bates presumed to have disclosed internal documents from UM to the Freep, based on his role as advisor? Did he lose his job or is he still at UM? Was Stapleton the guy who hired an embittered Ron English as head coach?
1.both admin reps that met frequently
Faculty Representative Percy Bates
Advisory board James Stapleton
http://www.mgoblue.com/document_file/fbl-bowl-guide-coaches-2003.pdf
2. Both members of same diversity task force (I assume Jim and James Stapleton are the same guy).
http://www.umich.edu/~sacua/sacmin/DiversityBlueprintsTaskForceMembers…
involving Bates and Stapleton.
Now, let's be clear; the distribution of the Audit memo was wide enough that Percy Bates would have been only one of perhaps two dozen, three dozen, or more, people who may have had access to it.
And with respect to any anti-Rodriguez animus, as far as I am concerned, there is much more that is unknown about James Stapleton than is known. The problem, as I see it, is that no one is even asking any questions in this regard. The Free Press and its staff writers and editors claim that they are just asking questions, uncovering information, using the power of the press to expose the workings of public institutions. But it is a lie, insofar as they are driving a certain category of questions. Who is reporting on the Free Press? Who is asking about the Free Press' sources; about Freep sources' motivations and interests; and about Freep writers' methods? Nobody in the "legacy" media has done much. With only a single exception that I can think of, the Freep has gone unquestioned, except here in the blogosphere.
The exception that proves the rule is noteworthy. After the Football Bust, wherein Mark Snyder wrote a story that would charitably be called "deceptive," in which he described, with zero context, Rich Rodriguez's mention of "a hurricane" along with his own personal history in New Orleans with Tulane, Dave Birkett was the only reporter I know of, who followed with a quickly-buried and forgotten story reporting the fact that Regent White had herself started the evening's remarks off with a long, rambling discourse on the struggles following "Katrina" and how those Saints were overcoming and how great it is to overcome, blah blah blah. NONE of which was ever mentioned by Snyder. And unmentioned by Snyder was the fact that Rodriguez's comments were literally addressed to Regent White,in the most cordial and respectful way anyone could possibly imagine. So outragaeous was Snyder's report (which naturally got linked to about 800 other webpages scattered all over the 'net), that the University took steps to post the full video of the White and Rodriguez remarks on MGoBlue.com. And Dave Burkett did dutifully report that. So where's the rest of that effort? It was but one tiny example of the Freep's insidious bias and how even the most ordinary reporting and attention to facts can rebut it. Albeit after the damage is done.
Let's do remember one thing about the whole NCAA meta-story. It DOES have meaning, and importance, to continue to hammer away, repeatedly, consistently, unfailingly, at the Detroit Free Press. People across the country have begun to get it, and they will continue to get it. Rival fan sites get it. Our close personal friends down in Columbus hate everything about us, but even they get it that the Free Press has declared war on Michigan. You see it when a disinterested national reporter like ESPN's Scott Van Pelt writes a story about teh NCAA's U-M allegations, and goes out of his way to mention the Free Press. No one can understand this story, without also understanding the Freep jihad.
So it does help, I think, that every one of these stories, and every single message thread includes, "Freep jihad" in the subtext.
The Hurricane Katrina comment was the point where Administration officials woke up and said, "Alright, this is getting out of hand."
There's no question that Mark Snyder's report on that situation was blatantly intended to mislead the public. It would be interesting to see him interviewed on the matter.
"So Mark, are you (A) Intentionally misleading the public, (B) Mentally challenged, or (C) Intentionally misleading the public?" There really are no other options.
I agree that we need to keep pressure on the Free Press. You seem to be our resident muckraker, and it's good to see someone who hasn't become complacent after the hoopla passed. Keep it up.
With all respect to Brian, these articles go way beyond what he did and that's probably why it took so long to publish. They called seriously everyone. This is great reporting.
Remind you of anything?
Did they retract false comments or respond to player accusations of being misled during the 4-part series of their manufactured educational accusations, which turned out to be without substance?
I appreciate your report so that we know what's going on.
Yet, whether or not one agrees with your opinions on the 4-part series on practice time now, I ask: should our memory be so short for what this publication has done in the past?
Regarding the current 4 part series on practice time, I have a few questions:
What justifies a four part series?
Were any of these accusation major enough?
Did they study the frequency of similar practice time at other schools not currently accused?
Personally, I do not click on AA.com, since they are owned by the AA News group. Nor do I click on mlive, since their sports editor is a registered MSU booster, and the people on the chat board their have complained about his bias.
I do not know how others feel, I do not even read these publications any more. But I personally would prefer to see links, for AA.com and mlive, the "print only" versions suggested by Brian for the Freep.
Thanks for considering this request.
It may seem minor, but remember: every time you click, you are helping pay for these papers to write more articles like this.
... "articles like this" are what I'm willing to pay for. It's not often you get this type of truly in-depth and reasonable analysis about a sports program (outside of Mgoblog, anyway). I don't click on the Freep stuff, but just because there was a pointless series printed a while ago by AA News, that doesn't mean I'm never going to click on AA.com stories.
That is a personal choice. I just requested links to the version without ads, so I do not have to support them.
I previously had spent a lot of time on the chat board at the former AA.com (the AA news blog), and the paper's bias became increasingly apparent long before the academic story...In fact, from the time that RR arrived...maybe even before that. In fact, it seemed to me that they were an even more negative source of news than the freep, while the AA News was alive.
As I indicated, I am confused about the relation of mlive and aa.com; and so, when I read about negative commentaries continuing, I sometimes confuse the AA.com with mlive writers and vice versa. (just as the link below did).
So, if I am wrong about AA.com, please convince me. I will value your opinion, but just as I have not convinced you to not click on AA.com, you have not convinced me yet either.
MLive.com is a kind of electronic aggregation of the state's regional/local papers. I don't think that MLive has a normal publishing/editorial/reporting staff as you'd see with a normal newspaper. It is a gigantic collection of links and other stories from these Michigan local papers : Bay City Times; Flint Journal; Grand Rapids Press; Jackson-Citizen Patriot; Kalamazoo Gazette; Muskegon Chronicle; Saginaw News. As far as I know, those papers esentially use MLive.com as their collectivised websites. MLive.com also aggregates AA.com, which unlike the other newspapers exists ONLY as a website, and adds some special e-content such as local and state blogs.
AA.com, on the other hand, is, as already mentioned, simply the eletronic/digital remnant of the Ann Arbor News, which ceased operations as a print newspaper, to devote itself to existence as an exclusively-online newspaper.
So the relationship between MLive.com and AA.com is indierct as described above, but cooperative, and indeed much the same as was the case before the print-edition Ann Arbor News vanished.
Interestingly, all of the papers you mention are part of Newhouse News, the same company that owned the AA news and now owns aa.com (see link below).
I believe that they hired an MSU grad and booster club member as the sports editor at mlive after the AA News folded. Yet, if they supposedly cover the whole state, I can understand this. At least, it's more understandable than if they were covering just Ann Arbor.
If anybody knows, I would be curious about who's running the shop at aa.com.
http://www.mediaowners.com/company/newhouse.html
Amelie Nash, the former business editor of the Ann Arbor News, is now in charge of the whole operation at AA.com. I'm good friends with a guy who wrote at the AA News before it folded, and he doesn't think she gets too involved with sports.
The sports editor (I think his name is Jim Knight) is the same guy who ran the sports department at Ann Arbor News. I can't say for sure if he has any biases, but from my limited contact, I will say that he seems like a genuinely good guy.
MLive.com is basically a feed of stories from Booth Newspapers/Newhouse News (which was the owner of the Ann Arbor News before it closed and started AA.com). I don't think MLive actually "covers" anything, so it's probably not relevant where the sports editor went to school -- he can't really do anything that would skew opinions. He's probably just responsible for organizing the sports section of the website.
I refuse to stick my head in the sand and ignore all media sources because one treated us unfairly. I cancelled my Freep subscription last August. As said, AA.com is not really the same entity as The AA News. Most everyone got fired. I never have to read Jim Carty ever again. (Even his blog is by membership now I heard).
As was also said, I feel other than some poorly worded headlines, they didn't make it out to be more than it was. They just did some investigating that Brian would have done if he had a payroll and more than a staff of 3 or whatever. I'm also guessing Brian will link it this week when he surely has an analysis of their findings.
If you don't want to give them the money you don't have to read it. But I'm not ignoring all media sources but MGoBlog just because the Freep pisses me off.
I was not responding not to the Freep here. But maybe I am now wrong to identify AA.com with the attitude of its parent paper. They do still have the same owner. But if you notice a change and they now provide more positive--or at least more balanced--coverage, I will be very happy to hear that.
Don't read them. I support that. I'm just not going to go to the effort to find other editions to link for stuff "I" don't think is that bad. Too lazy.
But then I still linked the Freep because I think it's more important to watch your enemies than ignore them. Haven't done so since it became a semi-official request not to post links for them here. Besides I think they can't really add anything other than trying to get a rise at this point. If they were to put out something exclusively newsworthy I probably still would, but I'd respect the print-only link request with them.
I would say if you don't want to read something from someone that's link, just put in your feelings and ask for a nice summary of it (rather than a HOW DARE YOU LINK this...which you didn't, but I've seen it done). I'm sure someone who has read it would be willing. That's why I put up a little summary after to OP. It wasn't ALL that valuable, and it's more info for people to judge for themselves.
The AA News is capable of partially redeeming themselves with this. Jim Carty slandered UM, but at least he didn't get UM hit with an NCAA investigation?? (What he did was still very shitty.) What bothers me the most about the AAN is that in the late 90s, they did something to that hockey player who was accused of statutory rape.
(Can anyone remind me? I read a little about it in the book about UM hockey a while ago, and I remember Red Berenson or someone saying that he could never forgive the AAN for what it did.)
Another thing, I'm sure most people outside the Freep think Michigan is basically the one car getting pulled over for speeding. I hope that the Freep somehow comes out of this publicly humiliated.
Ceased operation in July , or I've missed a lot of work time . Quit being a newspaper a year before the official funeral .
Not that I think it matters much, but AA.com does produce and deliver a print edition on Thursdays and Sundays to subscribers. We get the things delivered to our house, but to be honest I essentially ignore them, even the sports pages. My wife goes through them pretty religiously, though.
I'd love to be a fly on David Brandon's wall whenever the subject of who may have sent the audit info to the Freep in the first place comes up for discussion. I'm also curious what his personal opinion of Snyder and Rosenberg is. One thing is for sure: Bo Schembechler would have been frothing at the mouth at the Freep's dishonesty towards UM and its players if he were still alive.
One neglected fact in considering the "fairness" of a four part article on UM again is the degree of media coverage given to an unproven "offense" that is likely to be not far from the norm in Div 1A practices.
To illustrate, I googled "MSU assault" and "Michigan practice violation". MSU got less than 1 million hits. UM had nearly 3 million.
Because negative press coverage probably is more harmful than the actual penalties, it's like getting 3 years in prison for an unproven accusation of parking too long at a meter, while your opponent gets probation for an organized, premeditated group assault of fellow students in their homes.
But hits...
That just says people care a lot more about what Michigan is doing vs. MSU (and think "assualt" was probably increased by regular run-of-the-mill campus assaults). Try each school with "National Championship" and you'll probably get the the same results.
..however, it reminds me of what statisticians do when they perform "meta-analyses," aggregating many diverse studies (eg to see if a treatment is effective), so that they can "see the forest through the trees."
In this sense, I think that the Google measure aggregates many diverse posts and helps us "see the forest through the trees" in a way that complaints about negative coverage in individual papers does not.
I think it does roughly indicate not only a degree of disparity in negative coverage but a disparity that is unfair, given the two types of offenses involved.
You may be right that UM also gets more positive attention for good things. However, I am not so sure about that. I would hazard a guess that a team's positive coverage is diminished when the expectations for that team are already higher...if they win, they are just doing what is expected...
Moreover, I would hazard a guess that negative events get far more coverage than positive ones.
March 14th, 2010 at 11:08 PM ^
I'm not allowed to say what I really feel about the A2News .
I know the lawyers have slapped a gag on the program from the beginning, but I really hope the real story comes out when this is all over. We need an explanation. If I were a member of the press, these are the questions I would be asking:
What was the former QC staff position description? Were they under Rich, or Mike Barwis, or reporting somewhere else in he Athletic Department?
Why were the QC staff at the voluntary pick-up games? Why did they think that was OK?
What coaching activities did they do beyond just being there? Were they aware these were coaching activities? Why did they think that was OK?
Was Rich aware of them being there, or aware of the said coaching activities? Was he aware they were coaching activities? What kind of activities did he think they were?
If they didn't submit the University's process CARA forms? How were they tracking countable time?
To me, the most disappointing aspect of this whole thing is: was it worth it? I mean the extra 20 minutes a day of practice, and whatever coaching the QC guys did, didn't do a whole lot for us last season. And now that our spread-option talent level, and team maturity is getting viable, we really could have used the one lost coach and 40 minutes a day of practice, and done without the cloud over the program.
In the end, every team out there is trying to find loop holes to allow them to better prepare their players. Unlike the Columbus Dispatch, where grit and hard work are to be praised, our local media seem to like to expose the same grit and hard work as cheating. Thus, I also think the NCAA needs to revamp their rules.
The only way to clean this up and make things fair are to increase the number of allowable hours, and totally disallow voluntary non-countable hours. While we're at it, they need to allow teams not going to bowls to have the same amount of off season practice time.