BD, I'm not a lawyer, but risk seems apparent. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, and hopefully gumby will visit us during his campaign work -- but a lot of responsibility for maintaining the credibility of a news organization falls on its managing editors, who have to get a strong sense of the level of corroboration, nature of the evidence, and validity of the anonymous sources. Obviously the levels of rigor aren't the same across entities, and it's notable that ESPN of all entities broke this story, and neither they nor any other outlet has elaborated. One of the interesting things about the unnamed sources in the ESPN piece is that they aren't accompanied by any named sources, either. That's especially significant because unnamed sources are frequently the very same name sources cited in an article, but with certain quotes and other information attached to a request for anonymity. So the degree of shadow is curious, and so is the absence of quotes in a story that contains only vague descriptions of what, exactly, occurred, and when it happened.Bear Down Vegas wrote:LH - Would you say that this is potentially a lawsuit situation? I mean, it seems like it could have been incredibly mishandled & has done an immeasurable amount of damage. And not only to Sean Miller.Longhorned wrote:I believe #1 is the case, and is also widespread, even for the more prominent mid-majors.Olsondogg wrote:I will say 2 things I believe to be true.
1. We paid for recruits
2. There is no way Miller was saying what is alleged on wiretap. He isn’t that stupid.
But I stop there. We don't know anything else. And I think it's kind of dumb that people in the sports media are reaching such strongly stated conclusions based on a story broken by a sports network.
I'm pretty sure there are people on this board who know what a news report looks like. It's detailed and specific. It protects its unnamed sources while clarifying the nature of the leak and the evidence and showing the evidence. I thought the piece that broke Friday night was a prelude, but literally no elaboration whatsoever has followed. I have no doubt that the ABOR is noting these oddities. ESPN is showing every indication that they're in over their heads, and somebody needs to answer why ESPN, and not an actual news outlet, broke this "story."
These problems will either get resolved or magnify as the days go by.
I defended ESPN at first, but this hasn't unfolded like I thought it would.