The Chicago Tribune’s Telephone Game
domer.mq - 9:22 am
By now you’re all familiar with how the Chicago Tribune’s Notre Dame beat writer, Brian Hamilton, saw a blog post about college kids acting like college kids and decided to manufacture a “news” story about it, first in his own Chicago Tribune Notre Dame blog, and then, once some apparently desperate editors got ahold of it, the Chicago Tribune itself. And today, we find the inevitable results of the mainstream media “telephone game,” as Philly.com, the website for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, took Hamilton’s speculation and reported it as fact.
Essentially, the phrase (bold is mine):
For the second time in a year, Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen may have to explain his alleged participation in a situation involving alcohol.
…written by Hamilton has been transformed on Philly.com to…
The Chicago Tribune reported that Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and at least two other teammates are being investigated by the university for possible violations of the school’s conduct code.
And that, kids, essentially sums up what pisses me off so much about the behavior of Brian Hamilton and the Chicago Tribune editorial staff. They’ve managed to make themselves the Pre-Crime unit of sports media. Use enough of the terms “may,” and “could,” and “might,” and the Tribune can say just about anything about anyone, knowing full well that their voice will be heard, but the words will likely be misconstrued until the readers read and the listeners hear the fantastical claims that they really want to make because the more fantastical the story, the more money from ad revenue.
And hey, who can blame the Tribune for making the development of revenue a priority over the pursuit and accurate reporting of news? After all, have you noticed how the Chicago Tribune is essentially dead? At this point, any desperate attempts by Brian Hamilton and the Chicago Tribune editors to keep their jobs are less death throes and more involuntary, postmortem releases of gas.
Face Mask
Funny MQ, and sadly true.
August 6, 2008 at 9:46 amTrey
San Antonio Express-News picked this up too and basically reported it as fact. I’ve written the sports editor and voiced my displeasure that they feel it is necessary to support this kind of hack journalism
August 6, 2008 at 9:51 amMike
This kind of stuff really pisses me off purple monkey dishwasher.
August 6, 2008 at 9:55 amDeepTeaKup
More importantly, what does this say about Weis that he would let his starting QB develop an alcohol problem. There has been a terrible errosion of proper values at ND, I think Weis should be fired and an immediate NCAA investigation launched.
August 6, 2008 at 11:58 amThe Biscuit
Yes, DTK! Clearly this is a huge blackmark for Weis. I mean, it’s right up there with AK-47’s (UF), Assault and Battery (entire SEC), and .407 BAC readings when driving (your beloved skunkbears).
August 6, 2008 at 2:36 pmdomer.mq
No baiting the natives, DTK.
August 6, 2008 at 3:33 pmDeepTeaKup
Biscuit,
I can not begin to tell you the joy I got out of the UF story. How can you even begin to defend that?
But seriously, does this not show some type of poor judgement by JC? He is rightly or wrongly in the spotlight here and the standards are a little different for him than the rest of the ND student body.
August 6, 2008 at 3:56 pmdomer.mq
DTK,
Suffice it to say that Biscuit, I, and the rest of HLS know far worse stories about football players from when we were students than dressing up in dumb uniform and drinking beer while under 21.
EDIT: And what I mean by bringing that up is, we don’t expect the ND QB to stop being a college kid just because he’s the most high-profile player at the most high-profile college football program in the world. We just expect him not to do anything stupid enough to hurt himself, others, or ND’s reputation. Having some drinks underage, hell, really laying one on a few times a week in the offseason wont hurt ND’s reputation in my eyes. Lord knows more often than not, we were personally doing things at least as bad as drinking while younger than 21.
Wait. That came out wrong.
August 6, 2008 at 4:01 pmDeepTeaKup
Domer,
I agree with the sentiment that in the grand scheme of things this is not really a big deal (still want the NCAA investigation though). All I am saying is that perhaps JC needs to be a bit more careful when out in public.
August 6, 2008 at 4:29 pmdomer.mq
DTK,
That’s the thing though. It’s not unusual at ND for the football players to be “just one of the students.” I know it’s quite unusual at other programs, but these guys at ND have always been a regular part of the social scene. Now they have to start segregating themselves because some idiot took a picture or because some creep facebook-stalked them? I think I’ll draw the line there. Having the athletes be as much a part of the student-body as any other student is a vital part of what makes ND special. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In fact, it’s such a special part of ND that I’ve always found fans/alums of other programs just don’t even comprehend it.
August 6, 2008 at 4:52 pmDeepTeaKup
Domer,
I can appreciate that ND tries to have a fully integrated student body but then to say that this is all “a regular part of the social scene” kind of makes it seem like the Beer Olympics are part of the status quo. Don’t get me wrong, I find the drinking age laws in this country way out of touch with reality, but you can see how this may look to some people. Fact is there are many people who still have their heads in the sand when it comes to kids in college drinking.
Like I said, for me this is not really a story (still need a thorough NCAA investigation here though) except to say maybe JC needs to be a little more careful sometimes.
August 6, 2008 at 6:47 pmTBone ND
Hamilton may be a liar!!
August 6, 2008 at 6:48 pmTBone ND
JC as far as I could tell was not out in public. JC will have be very careful of Hwho is around him.
August 6, 2008 at 6:53 pmI am amazed that college aged kids are around alcohol!
Put yourself in JC’s shoes, how do you feel Mr. (I’ll make smoke so I can holler “There’s FIRE!!”) Hamilton.
domer.mq
DTK,
It is exactly that. The Beer Olympics is, actually, all part of the status quo. It’s older than I am. It’s like Rally in the Alley or Pig Tostal or any other number of parties at ND. And I don’t care if some people take offense to it or have their heads in the sand. I’m willing to bet most people are rational enough to get that drinking in college, even when you’re not 21, is part of the entire “thing” about being in college.
August 6, 2008 at 6:58 pmJC and the others need to be no more careful than any other domer. To expect more from them is to under-value the rest of the student population.
domer.mq
And DTK, it’s not that ND tries to have a fully integrated student body. It’s that ND actually does have a fully integrated student body. In fact, I’ll bet these 2 photos came from a set of dozens of photos at the same party. It probably wasn’t some geek taking a photo of the football players. It was someone taking photos of people at a party. The football players just happened to be some of those people.
August 6, 2008 at 7:01 pmThe Biscuit
I get what both of you are saying, and you’re generally at the same place. I’ll side slightly with DTK in that JC just needs to watch who he’s hanging with, what he’s doing, and when. It’s just the reality of cell phone/digital cam college. In a few weeks when he’s 21, sure he’ll be legal. But he still won’t want to have pics of him doing shots on the web – so he’ll want to watch who he’s doing shots in front of. Sad, but true.
August 6, 2008 at 7:45 pmdomer.mq
The problem with that thinking, Biscuit, is now you create an environment where things get confrontational when that one dude that nobody really likes (the one that thought diving in Stonehenge was fun, for example) takes a picture even though he knows the player would rather it not be taken. You’ll create little Jr. Paparazzi.
August 6, 2008 at 8:10 pmThe Biscuit
I don’t think it creates it, I think it’s there already. I’m sure JC and his boys are not happy with whoever took that picture and posted it on the net. Not at all. He/she is hated already, simply because it happened. I’m just saying that, unfortunately, they need to avoid those people unless they want to deal with this repeatedly. Good thing is that, regardless, no one will remember this in a month.
August 6, 2008 at 8:24 pmdomer.mq
The problem is, the advice, you’d give JC or other ND players now also applies to any student – any person, really. How long until we have little facebook-blackmailing trolls snapping inopportune photos of people and then plastering them all over the place? Celebrity is dead because everyone’s a celebrity these days. You can no longer define “celebrity” with a bright line. And what privacy laws that do exist were never designed for the world we’ve got.
August 6, 2008 at 9:43 pmdomer.mq
To better flesh out what I just said, what advice would you give the people on facebook or myspace that have 1000s of “friends” simply because they’re good looking or whatever. Are they celebrities? As a result, should they go about being more cautious than the rest of us because someone might take a compromising photo?
August 6, 2008 at 9:52 pmThe Biscuit
they should only be cautious if not being cautious would be bad for them. for the random internet ‘celeb’ as you define it, their getting attention (good or bad) is clearly a good thing to them. hence, the trolling around for friends as they just scream ‘look at me, look at me’. but for JC or any ND player, any bad attention is just that – bad. nobody is writing articles on The Big Lead or any other relatively big web site about the millions of other kids in the US drinking underage. So I like your theory, but it’s just not all that accurate. If it was, every day there’d be a huge stink about some under age kid getting caught on digital cam/phone cam drinking…those stories don’t happen, though.
August 7, 2008 at 10:43 amDeepTeaKup
Domer,
There is one other thing to consider, JC brought some of this on himself. He attracted a lot of attention to himself with his recruitment and his announcement press conference bordered on embarassing. Now that he is in college though, everyone is just supposed to leave him alone and let him blend in? I would argue he didn’t handle the aforementioned announcement in the “Notre Dame way”. He most likely will turn out to be a pretty good QB, but there is no denying he was a bit of a prima donna leading up to this.
August 7, 2008 at 11:35 amdomer.mq
Biscuit,
August 7, 2008 at 1:00 pmI think you’re dismissing the issue with “random internet celebs” a bit. Many of them occur without them having every taken action to become so.
DTK,
JC certainly brought some of his “fame” on himself, but what of the other 3 football players involved in this thing? This isn’t a JC issue. It’s an ND football issue. Did they bring it upon themselves by being close to JC?
The Biscuit
MQ, do you really think so? You think people often become ‘celebrity’ of any kind without wanting that, at least a bit? I’ll admit someone like Bartman never wanted to be known. But people that put up splashy Facebook pages and then troll from thousands of friends want it. At some level if you want to be a big time CFB or NFL player, and especially QB, you want it as well. But that’s besides the point. How many of these ‘net celebs dont want to be famous? I’m sure there are some, but it’s a pretty small percentage. And if you’re in that small percentage that dont want to be famous, then yes you have to be a bit careful. It’s not rocket science – just do your boozing with good friends, and not out in public so much. Is that as fun? No. But can Jimmy and 5 other football players throw a party with 10 girls and a PS3 in their dorm and have a good time? Yes. I didn’t see a ton of pics of BQ when he was at ND drinking, and I’m pretty sure he drank. It’s do-able, but it takes effort. Is it lame that that’s what we’ve come to? Absolutely. But that’s reality.
August 7, 2008 at 1:39 pmDeepTeaKup
domer,
Honestly, JC is really the only one who is mentioned by name in the headlines. Do you really think the other two will get the same type of scrutiny?
August 7, 2008 at 1:42 pmDeepTeaKup
Biscuit,
I only remember seeing pics of BQ grabbing other dudes crotches (not that there is anything wrong with that). I think JC’s are better, the only thing missing was Kyle Orton’s “Drink Like a Champion Today” t-shirt.
August 7, 2008 at 1:44 pmdomer.mq
DTK,
The other 3: Armando Allen, Brian Smith, and James Aldridge are all extremely important cogs in the ND machine. Will they get as much scrutiny from the media as JC? Nah. From ND’s ResLife? Probably.
August 7, 2008 at 2:38 pmThe Biscuit
To clarify: the scrutiny from ResLife will be about none. They’ll get a talking to, which is all they deserve.
August 7, 2008 at 4:22 pm