An indicator of the asymmetrical warfare between the Freep and Michigan.
This is surely not dispositive of anything, but it is an interesting indicator of the ongoing, no-end-in-sight warfare between the Freep and Michigan.
In today's varying media sideshows, it has come out that the Freep today requested from the University a list of those student-athletes who supplied testimony to the NCAA in its investigation. The purpose of that request is seemingly transparent; to see if any names cross-checked with the Freep's mystery lineup of "current and former players" and "parents" who gave interviews to the Freep in August '09. The Free Press admits as much; that that was what they were after.
The purpose for the Freep request is equally apparent, one might think. To see, one supposes, if the Michigan and the NCAA "asked the right guys the right questions." But that quickly leads to another question: If the Freep is doing follow up on its own sources, why not ask the sources themselves? Did they talk to the NCAA? Maybe the Freep did. Maybe sources who once talked to the Freep will no longer do so. But it is speculation, absent any explanation by the Freep.
We also do not know if the Freep supplied anything on its own to the NCAA investigators. Did the Freep supply names, notes, information, statements? Of course, the Freep would never tell. Did the Freep supply its anonymous sources, either under some form of idenitity-protection, or not? Probably not. The Freep may have been reckless in granting anonymity in this case, but it would not be reckless in protecting the names of those sources. Still, we just do not know.
I presume that there was no science, and no real method on the part of Mike Rosenberg in doing his August '09 interviews. My guess is that he called whoever he felt would talk. And possibly he went specifically to guys whom he thought would talk, and would give him what he wanted, in light of his getting his hands on the July audit memo that said that CARA forms were missing, that all persons having responsiblity for the CARA forms had been instructed on proper procedure and that no other NCAA violations were known. Rosenberg knew that Michigan might have a hard time defending a CARA-violations allegation if one were made, so he set out to make it happen. It would be easy to pick off some really disgruntled guys -- Clemons, Boren, Mallett, Sears, Wermers, etc. -- as targets of phone calls from Rosenberg. That may indeed have happened. Or maybe not. We just don't know. And the Freep is not going to tell us. Nor will the Freep tell Michigan.
But the Freep does want to get into who Michigan, and the NCAA, talked to.
And so we have this window, into the asymmetrical nature of war between the Freep and Michigan. The Freep will keep on sending FOIA requests to Michigan. No one gets to send a FOIA to the Freep. The Freep will keep picking away at the story, looking for leads, looking for names. Michigan will play by the standards of the NCAA and the popular media; to be transparent, and fair, and expose everything.
Today, in a slight reversal of that asymmetry, Michigan declined to supply to the Freep the names of the players invovled.
They are coming at us like a rabid dog. There needs to be a cease and desist or something because this is stalking.
Only if it's this one:
I said earlier today that the Freep will not give up on this, and I wondered as well whether the Freep has or will contact the NCAA directly with its own "information." I wondered if the Freep was going to double down, and we've got our answer.
Lest there be any doubt in anyone's mind from here on out: It is indeed a jihad. Every player on the team needs to be aware of that.
And It's about time UM told the Freep to go piss up a rope. I hope they can stick to that. I would think that with all the strictures surrounding student privacy these days, that UM can continue to tell the Freep and anyone else not named the NCAA to fuck off.
Rosenberg hasn't "saved" Michigan from RR yet, so of course it's not going to stop.
Unfortunately the freep is not supported by government dollars, so FOIA does not apply to them.
That was his point.
is the report earlier that Brandon gave interviews to select media outlets - the Detroit News and AA.com. The Daily should have been included also - they put out a more professional quality product than the Freep.
Hopefully, the Freep will suffer appropriate consequences for their misdeeds - they can't file FOIA requests for interviews.
maybe someone in this forum can buy it all.
Although the Freep had moderate success in its mission to shape public opinion of RR, I seriously doubt the same results will occur in an attempted jihad towards the University of Michigan.
Ahhhhh.........the sweet suicide of a once-great publication.
They must have forgotten the golden rule: Don't bite the hand that feeds you!
However, this war will eventually end when the Freep is destroyed by an invading third-party (blogosphere). Somewhere Buzz Bissinger is weeping.
for the Freep Ombudsman?
I tried a rudimentary google search, but didn't find any results. I am not about to go to their website to look up the information.
But if someone can find it I would like to ask a few questions...
Freep's position is you take your compliant to the top guy, Publisher Paul Anger.
Good freakin' luck.
I want to add; page 4-48 of the Rich Rodriguez Response to the Notice of Allegations does indicate that "The investigators interviewed Rodriguez, six of his assistant coaches, all six quality control staff and 25 student athletes about practice activities. The student-athletes included current Michigan student athletes and student-athletes who had transferred to ther schools after Rodriguez became the head coach."
And in Rodriguez's Response Part III. B., there are excerpts from depositions of players identified as SA-5 (QB), SA-2 (DE), SA-6 (LB) and SA-7 (RB). So we too might divine something from the report about players that supplied information.
I can tell you this; the more I read, the more that I am convinced:
1. This was exceptionally good legal work for Rich Rodriguez and the University, and;
2. The basic allegations are almost laughable. Some of the stuff is interesting. Some of the stuff is ridiculous. None of it makes me think that anybody did much of anything worth raising an eyebrow over. Jackie Thurnes, an attorney and the NCAA's associate director of enforcement (she's probably a reeeeaaally nice person and someone we should not want to piss off, hokay?), comes off as really sort of a lost ball in tall weeds in the transcripts. And Rich Rodriguez is a guy who does not suffer fools gladly.
Freep? No, it's not coming to me. I remember a newspaper called The Detroit Free Press, but it's dead to me now, a nonentity. As it should be to each and every fan of the University of Michigan football team.
I would consider pursuing a real boycott, not just a no-link, no subscribe, no read type.
I mean one where we identify any business advertising in the Free Press and generate an online list of people that will not be buying, consuming, attending, using their products and/or services anymore as long as they are advertisers, and regularly communicationg that list to the business and being sure they are aware that at some point advertising in that paper will have a net negative impact on their bottom line.
I think we could take it there pretty easily.
I have a question for the legal types - under what grounds can an FOIA request be refused (not just in the short term, but long term)? Do privacy laws trump FOIA? How does the Florida State FOIA case during their academic cheating scandal affect this (if at all)?
JeffB
I'm an attorney but I have no real experience with FOIA requests and that area of the law, but what I'm guessing is that in order to refuse a FOIA request, the University must offer a competing Constitutional or statutory right at play (i.e. students' right to privacy, etc.) that is more compelling. I'm not sure if these kind of things are ever litigated, but if they are, the Court would probably apply a balancing test determining whether the disclosure of the information to the public is paramount to the proferred right that would be violated by its disclosure.
This is to say that the FOIA request will probably be determined on a case-by-case basis. A giant academic cheating scandal about the football team may not trump those students' rights to privacy, but if the scandal were more widespread and perhaps included officials who held public office (i.e. political corruption), then a court may determine that it does trump the right to privacy. It would all depend on the circumstances.
If there are any other MGoAttorneys on here with more experience in this area, feel free to call me out on this being wrong.
The operative Freedom of Information Act for the stuff we've been talking about here is MCL (Michigan Compiled Laws) Sections 15.231 -15.246.
And it is easy to do. So easy that even Mark Snyder and Jim Schaefer of the Free Press know how to do it.
http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-164-17337_18160-51242--,00.html
Very concise. This is state law so it takes a back seat to federal law. That's where the student privacy protections are found. ("Records which if disclosed would violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (primarily student records).")
Labadie or Draper and ask them to care for it. Maybe they'll get around to it by next year. If it showed up sooner, it would prove that they are part of the group trying to bring down RR. There's already enough information to summarily can both of them.
Let me see if I've got this straight. The Free Press protects the identity of players for fear that they'll face retaliation, even though most/all of them are no longer at Michigan (and thus are beyond the reach of would-be retaliators). And, of course, the only player names they do disclose are of freshmen who were still on the team and who were blindsided by a reporter with a hidden agenda (who then proceeded to misrepresent what these freshmen said as indicative of violations that we now know didn't happen).
Next, in the course of Michigan's investigation (brought about by the Freep's yellow journalism), a number of football players are questioned, after presumably having been promised (and being legally entitled to) confidentiality. So, here comes the Free Press, contending that this promised confidentiality should be tossed out the window so they can get the information, go back behind closed doors, and then come out and declare (surprise!) that their story is completely consistent with, if not vindicated by, the information gathered in the Michigan investigation. Of course, you'll have to take their word for that, because the Free Press is not about to disclose the raw data underlying their report (as Michigan has done, of course).
Obviously, Michigan has responded to the Free Press's FOIA request by citing a statutory exemption from disclosure of student records. (You see, Michigan actually takes seriously the responsibility owed to its students, rather than the crocodile tears shed in the Free Press report about overworked/abused student/athletes.) It would have been appropriate, however, if Michigan had responded to this FOIA request by saying, "You First!" Naw, why should there be any need for transparency or accountability in journalism?
It is just sad and dissappointing that our very own newspaper caused all of this. There used to be a day where honor and intigrity meant something and that if you were a rat/snitch you were the scum of the earth and sometimes got killed because of it. To me the newspaper and media are the scums of the earth.