Niki D'Andrea adds Twitterjacking to her arsenal of cluelessness

If anyone else had done this, I might have ignored it. But this is Niki D'Andrea, and I'm a big fan of running jokes.

When last we saw the "reporter" from the Phoenix New Times, she was quoting hilarious excerpts from a satirical blog post as fact and basing an entire cover story on the false premise that NBA Commissioner David Stern was thinking of imposing a "tattoo cap." That's right, she actually believed that each team could be limited as to how many tattoos their players could have. The story made it all the way through the New Times "editing" process and was published as the cover story during All Star Weekend when tons of NBA players and fans were in town. OOPS!!

Somehow she wasn't fired, and I later got tired of caring about the so-called journalistic standards of a shoddy old-media publication.

Then a few weeks ago D'Andrea started following me on Twitter, so I followed her back. And then this...

I tweeted a link about a Cornell email scandal, giving RT credit to @coco_cure (Coco actually should have given RT credit to the original source who I discovered later, @guestofaguest). A few minutes later, D'Andrea tweeted the same link, with the same exact headline, and gave no RT credit at all. Why do I think she got the link from me? Because the story is three days old and a Twitter search on the subject showed that very few other people had been talking about it at all today, and not with that particular shortened URL.

By the way, it's not like D'Andrea just doesn't understand the concept of RT because her timeline shows she has RT'd plenty of other people. And there was plenty of room to give RT credit.

It could be she was just embarrassed to give hat tip credit to me in particular. But more likely she was just hoping I'd write up another one of my blog posts to add to her robust Google search results. I'm always happy to take a few minutes out of my day for that!

Alana G Haters Part 2: Phoenix New Times Edition

Welcome to what will hopefully be an ongoing series, Alana G Haters. Anyone who knows me knows I loooove haters! Thanks for keeping me humble, guys!

In Part 1 we met a lovely lady named WifeMomBlogger who hated on a satirical post about my felonious voter fraud activities on election day. Girl, you had me LOLing, because I know your whole pro-McCain blog was just a big satire too! Go Obama!

In Part 2 we will meet some new Alana G Haters who have come out to hate-hate-hate because of my critical post about reporter Niki D'Andrea and the complete breakdown of journalistic integrity at the Phoenix New Times. Unfortunately, among the 15 or so blog posts and news articles that I've found on the subject, I have not yet come across a single one that has hated on me. So we'll have to settle for the hater commenters.

We'll start with a comment from the Alana G post reacting to a passage of mine:

"Jeff in Boston" says: 'As a female trying to earn my own credibility in the media world as an editor at Yardbarker.com.' Self promote much? Jesus Christ, who the fuck cares? It's sports writing, sweetie. Get upset about real things.

Thanks for the comment, honeybunch. You're totally right, my mention of my place of employment was totally over-the-top self-whoring. My B!!

Now on to the comments on Niki D'Andrea's hilarious retraction blog post.

"Billy Shields" says: I've never seen such self-righteous claptrap. This Alana G (whoever she is) is nothing but a celebrity (you know what), and she acts all holier-than-thou about a mistake in New Times. The paper fucked up, admitted it immediately online and in a blog... What does this schoolmarm think the reporter is going to do? Commit suicide over an error in an f'n tattoo story about basketball players? Please, Alana G! This has nothing to do with the economic collapse or world peace. Give it up and go back to servicing celebs...

Billy, you're so funny, acting like you don't know who I am! As everyone knows, I'm a famous "celebrity (you know what)"... (if you don't know what a "you know what" is, you better look it up on Urban Dictionary). As for being "holier-than-thou," what can I say, you've got me there -- guilty as Swiss cheese! Now the "schoolmarm" comment had me stumped for a second, I had to run to my small-town school dictionary to look it up. Apparently it refers to a person who exhibits a strict adherence to arbitrary rules. Got me there again! I totally harp on arbitrary rules like "basic journalistic integrity." My friends always get so annoyed with me like when we're hanging out at the mall and I'm just like, "Jennifer, oh my gawwwd you totally didn't fact check that article AT ALL." As for your assertion that "this has nothing to do with economic collapse or world peace," well, I'd say that's up for debate, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since the rest of your comment was so on point. I could bask in the hate of this comment for ages, but I gotta run and service some celebs!

"Tanya Teal" says: Gotcha! Don't you just live it when Internet dweebs this game. They all think they would never make a mistake. Listen to them all scream behind their phony names/handles. Even Alana G doesn't use her real name.This was a story about NBA players and their tattoos; the tattoo cap was an aside. It was a stupid error; Niki should've dug deeper before going with it, but this outrage from the 'revenge of the nerds' bunch is hard to stomach. These idiots are just mad that they don't have real jobs.

Tanya! Girl you just came out swinging with your opening: "Don't you just live it when Internet dweebs this game." Your use of jibberish cuts right to the heart of the matter, but only for those intelligent enough to decode the clever wording. Clearly I'm too dumb for that... touche! You go on to hate on my last name "G" -- damn that always hurts, because I've been teased about it ever since I was a little girl... "Alana, your family is so poor they couldn't even afford a real last name" or "Hey Alana, the alphabet police just called, they're charging you with robbery." As for the "revenge of the nerds" comment, I think you've cleverly lobbed one over my head again, because I totally love that movie... and as I remember, all the nerds got free porn, impressed the ladies with their lovemaking abilities, kicked the jocks' asses in the carnival, garnered the support of the cool black frat brothers, and in the end got a nice house to happily live together in. As for being mad that I don't have a real job, oh that's a zinger! I see what you were doing there, using sarcasm to make fun of me like 'Jeff in Boston' for being such a blatant self-promoter about my full-time job at Yardbarker.com. Well done!

"terrytown" says: yeah, i'd check the ip addresses of these outraged commenters to see how many of them are alana g trying to drum up biz for her little inside edition-esque blog that nobody ever heard of before this.

You got me terrytown! I've been creating multiple identities to post comments on a New Times blog post. I guess I ought to also come clean about the multiple identities I maintain every day as authors of various blogs and news publications on the internet -- how do you think I got all those links to my little blog post in the first place?? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...) As for my blog being like Inside Edition, OMG that's like my favorite show, thanks so much for the compliment!

"Tom Terrifi" says: Well, Alana G., when you live in a glass house.... All anybody has to do to see what kind of ditz you are is read your pathetic web site. And by the way, some of us can read more than 800 words at a time. Ever heard of a book, dummy?

Oh man, Tom, you really terrifi me with these hater words! First of all, I feel so exposed knowing that everyone might have clicked over to see my pathetic website... I'm so embarrassed! And you're probably right that some people can read more than 800 words at a time. Stupid me, I totally gave up after reading the first 800 words of Niki D'Andrea's article because it was reading like a rambling high school paper and I didn't think it was physically possible to go on. But you've obviously got stronger reading faculties than I do. As for this "book" thing of which you speak, no, I had never heard of it, but I asked my friend Andrew about it and he said this one could make a cool gift for the New Times folks.

Phoenix New Times 'NBA Tattoo Cap' Debacle: What Had Happened Was...

UPDATE 11/3/10: Phoenix New Times fails again with a Steve Nash retirement hoax.

Earlier I mentioned a curious Phoenix New Times article about tattoos in the NBA that refers to a ludicrous NBA "tattoo cap" whereby teams would be limited to 61% arm and neck tattoo coverage as a team. David Stern is quoted as saying he does not want to "scare the bejesus out of affluent demographic groups." The New Times article claimed FoxSports.com as the source, but was in fact quoting a clearly satirical blog post by Con Chapman that appeared in Fox's community section. Fellow sports media professional Matt Watson originally alerted me to the article and we got a good laugh out of it. I then tried unsuccessfully a couple of times to get a response from the paper. In the meantime, I made contact with the hilarious Con Chapman, and we had a good laugh about the matter. Finally this morning I got a message through to the author of the article, Niki D'Andrea.

Ms. D'Andrea seems like a very nice woman, and I hate to be a hater here... after all, there are lots of very nice people who just aren't web savvy, aren't quick to understand things, and make terribly embarrassing errors... but those people should not be PAID STAFF WRITERS AT NEWSPAPERS. As a female trying to earn my own credibility in the media world as an editor at Yardbarker.com, I actually feel personally upset by incidents like this. Sh*t like this brings us all down. This woman was going around asking NBA players about this proposed tattoo cap. My mind implodes.

Niki replied to my email right away and asked if we could speak on the phone. She indicated in her email that she still wasn't sure if she had been duped or not. Couple of things: 1) How could you still not be sure you had been duped? Read the full hilariousness of the Con Chapman post, consider the sheer ridiculousness of David Stern's supposed quote, do a quick Google search to see if any news site talked about this "tattoo cap"... 2) If you are trying to get to the bottom of this matter, why do you want to waste time talking to me? You have no idea who I am. Spend your time talking to the NBA or a trusted source who reports on the NBA, right?

I found out later why she wanted to talk to me -- so she could quote me in her retraction blog post! Not that I mind being quoted, I think it's hilarious (although the last portion of the quote is not what I believe I said...). I guess I know that you are always on the record when talking to a reporter -- forgive me for forgetting that she's a reporter.

Anyway, in our phone call she told me that she had "heard" about the tattoo cap, couldn't get the NBA to return her calls about it, did a Google search and found the FoxSports "article" and... decided to go ahead and print it. Questions still unanswered include: 1) Since when does one Google search yielding one satirical blog post constitute adequate reporting? 2) Where was her editor? 3) Where was the fact-checker? 4) Where was the guy who takes out the trash who occasionally watches Sports Center who might have leaned over her desk and caught a glimpse of this story and realized right away that it was completely unbelievable?

I still have not gotten a reply from editor Rick Barrs about this story. Which, by the way, is the cover story... on stands now... in Phoenix... while the entire NBA world visits for All Star Weekend. OOPS!

Again, I'm not usually a hater. But incompetence like this (on the part of the author, the editor, the whole New Times organization) needs to be addressed, and not just with a cutesy "mea culpa" blog post. I know so many talented writers, editors, bloggers, and fact checkers who all struggle to find work. To see people like D'Andrea and Barrs holding staff positions at papers makes me angry. If you think I'm being overly harsh for one mistake, I challenge you to read the full 5,000 or so words of this article and tell me it doesn't have several other suspect items. For that matter, Google Niki D'Andrea and see what others have said about her previous work. (Now, if you want to see some quality investigative reporting, check out this incredible piece by Ed Kohler about how the New Times organization exploits the Digg system to get traffic. Somebody give THAT guy a promotion!)

One last thing, in her retraction blog post, Niki refers to me as "a sports blogger in Pennsylvania." Perhaps she deduced this by Googling the area code of the cell phone number I gave her. You know, instead of just asking me, the direct source. I'm actually a sports editor in California.

Note to journalists: the photo at the top of this post is SATIRE. Please do not reproduce as fact.

Thank you to those who have linked up this story, including ESPN's True Hoop, Poynter.org, Heat City, MediaBistro (x2), Sports by Brooks, The Big Lead, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (x2), The Two Man Game, Bootlegger Sports, Sporting Madness, Can't Stop the Bleeding, Arizona Sports Fans Network, DallasBasketball.com, Brian's Thoughts About Airplanes, Strangepup, Los Angeles Times Pressmen... It is also being talked about on Gawker, Matt Davis, Yardbarker, NYMag, Maynard Institute, The Kicker...

UPDATE: Just found a piece published yesterday at Truth Wins Out (via David's Open Forum) slamming Niki D'Andrea for another article she wrote. The error and consequences on this one seem even larger than this NBA tattoo cap story.

UPDATE 2: I received an email from Niki D'Andrea saying the claims made in the Truth Wins Out link immediately above are part of a "slanderous smear campaign." I don't pretend to know enough about the story to sort out the details, but I'll offer the links to D'Andrea's two stories published on the matter. Regarding the NBA story, D'Andrea did tell me, "If you want to drag me through the mud over the first mistake I've ever made in more than 15 years in journalism, that's fine. Go ahead and have your day in the sun." Glad she picked a whopper for her FIRST mistake! I have to wonder what kinds of things she's been reporting on to make it 15 years mistake-free with a research method that consists of searching Google, quoting blog posts, and then failing to research further even when her "knee-jerk reaction" is that the story "might be a joke."

UPDATE 3: Thank you to all of the comment haters for humbling me!