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!

Creative writing with Jay Mariotti: 'Bad Journalism'

I was warned by my "blogging buddies" that Jay Mariotti's latest piece on FanHouse might make my eyes bleed. 1) It's an attempted assassination of blogs (on a blog... can't we stop this blog-on-blog violence please?) 2) It's completely misguided and about three weeks too late, and 3) It's 1,800 words long. Well, I'll let the other buddies tackle points one and two, but below is your solution to the length problem. I've taken the liberty of editing Mariotti's piece down to less than 300 words. All of the words are from Mariotti's original piece, and they all appear in order. I've just cut out a lot of the fat in the middle. You'll still get the gist: blogs, basements, steroids, desperate media... you know the story.

"Bad Journalism"
By Jay Mariotti (edited by Alana G)

I am one of the fortunate ones. Twelve months a year, I'm paid to STRRRRRETTTTCCH THE TRUTH or make something up.

But this pet tarantula has a blog to randomly drop names of so-called legitimate journalists. The sports writing business is rife with reckless idiots.

We all wonder to ourselves if every major leaguer has a functioning computer. Go to hell. If you know an athlete who uses a Web site, here's the problem. One inaccurate swoop out of the womb may as well be MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. A Web company would have profited from blogging buddies on steroids.

In a post headlined, "The Curious Eyebrows,'' Ibanez left nothing for conjecture. Harold Reynolds, if you can believe it, instantly became the hottest potato whose only sin might have been a strained groin.

That guy is a thief. He has used my urine in his mother's basement.

It demeans everything with one stroke. Nobody is above desire. That should be the message: desire, idiot. A fool who hasn't been properly trained to grasp the Internet will make assumptions like that. It's a shame anyone can be Tony Kornheiser.

Because the Internet is a gateway to a keyboard, an ancient columnist named Rick Telander suggested devious things. Death warmed over.

And Alex Rodriguez, loaded, delivered many names to me through the years.

As writers, broke, we'd probably have no solid colleagues. These are desperate times in the media.

The first thing a professor ever told me was, "Get angry.” A few years back I was framed by the Chicago Bulls, which should tell you how corrupt the place was.

So it bothers me when a writer doesn't game 80 percent now.

Not.

UPDATE: Here are some other blogger takes on Mariotti's piece:
Jerod Morris of Midwest Sports Fans (the one who "started" this particular battle)
Hugging Harold Reynolds (absolutely destroys Mariotti line-by-line)
Can't Stop the Bleeding (tells Mariotti, "check your libel laws, son!")
Awful Announcing (points out Mariotti is a hypocrite... shocker!)
Sportress of Blogitude (concedes that Maritotti is indeed the expert on "bad journalism")

ESPN lifts Donovan McNabb post from Yardbarker without giving credit

UPDATE: ESPN has issued a correction!

ESPN has an article running on its homepage right now about how Donovan McNabb is encouraged by the Eagles' picks and moves. The source for the story was McNabb's Yardbarker blog. You see how I hyperlinked that so you could go read the source yourself? Yeah, ESPN didn't do that. They mentioned that he said these things "on his blog" but did not link to it nor mention Yardbarker anywhere in the article.

The article goes on to quote from McNabb's post at length -- 211 words in total, which is 45% of his entire 464-word entry. There is virtually no information in the article besides a listing of the Eagles' picks and moves and quotes from McNabb's Yardbarker post. The bottom of the article notes that "Information from ESPN reporter Michael Smith and The Associated Press was used in this report." Again, no mention of Yardbarker.

On the bright side, it's good to see that Yardbarker is such a respected platform for athlete blogs that an athlete's blog post is quoted as if coming from a direct interview. Yardbarker verifies that all blog posts are truly from the athlete, and the media trusts our authority.

But for Yardbarker to not be mentioned or linked at all in ESPN's article feels like a deliberate sleight. ESPN has done this many times before, sometimes crediting McNabb's Yardbarker words as coming from DonovanMcNabb.com (where they do not appear), other made-up sources, or nowhere at all. To the TV folks' credit, I heard that McNabb's blog post was mentioned on Sports Center earlier today and credit was given to Yardbarker. But the web article does not give proper credit. And I may add that quoting the meatiest 45% of another's copyrighted article goes way beyond any kind of newsworthiness fair use.

ESPN has been making an effort to embrace this "new" medium of blogs recently. The clumsy Blog Buzz TV segment has been improving, so I hear. But failure to link and give proper credit to blogs has been a persistent problem. This infuriates and alientates bloggers, who are generally very mindful of proper hat-tipping netiquette.*

But anyway, is this really an issue of giving blogs credit? Or just an issue of giving proper credit to sources, period? What kind of journalism is being practiced in these ESPN "news" articles? Was AP the one who lifted the quotes and then ESPN just followed off the AP version? Could someone at ESPN please get back to me on this? I have sent a message through their feedback form.

*I would direct ESPN to read Matt Ufford's FanHouse post from two years back, "How to Give Blogs Credit: a Handy Guide for the Mainstream Media," but alas, AOL seems to have destroyed it. Here's the Ballhype link to give you an idea of how linked up it had been at the time... high-five again, AOL. UPDATE: Thank you Matt Watson for passing along the new link where Ufford's guide lives! Too bad the old link doesn't redirect to it, but oh well.

Local News in L.A. Shows Yardbarker Video, Credits YouTube

Ohh mainstream media! I took the time to add a Yardbarker logo to my Andrew Bynum hula hoop video, and I even put the link to my Yardbarker post about it on the YouTube page of the video. But Fox's Channel 11 in L.A. covered the logo and credited the video to "YouTube." Oh well, at least the local news viewing population got to enjoy Bynum and his hula hooping.

Here's the clip of the newscast, courtesy of "Television."



I mean... courtesy of Elie Seckbach of ESNEWS. Thanks for adding a Yardbarker.com subtitle Elie!

Big News Day at FanHouse aka AOL Sports

Hundreds of people were laid off from AOL yesterday, NOT including AOL Sports General Manager Derrick Heggans who left on his own accord and was "not forced out." Also, March Madness coverage begins and will melt your face off!! FanHouse DOMINOTES the interwebs!!!!

Mainstream Media Caught with Bacteria on Its Balls Again

This spoof piece about beer pong giving you herpes managed to infect the mainstream media last week. As with all these gaffes, the original spoof is actually quite funny, clever, and clearly satirical... I'll let Stephen Colbert do the rest of the cheerful hating for those who haven't seen it. Thank you Jason Gurney for the tip -- I've been slacking on my internet policing of fringe sport reporting this week.

Bill Dwyre vs. Elie Seckbach: Another Jealous Jab from Old Media

My old friend and internet colleague Brett Pollakoff tipped me to this story, noting that I love "media wars." Jeah!!

It seems that columnist (and former sports editor) Bill Dwyre from the L.A. Times took a couple of cheap shots at our dear friend Elie Seckbach, whose one-man-show you may have seen on YouTube. As Brett points out, Elie's entertaining and informative videos have been viewed millions of times in the short time he's been posting them, which is traffic that a newspaper columnist can only dream of.

Dwyre describes Elie's interview of Coach Popovich in a condescending manner, closing with, "You can catch the interview on MyHighSchoolFilmClassAssignment.com." Oooooh burrrnnn!!! The thirty-something-year-old man who is helping to forge the way for new media and kill your own antiquated notions of sports reporting is nothing but a high school film student! Good one, Billy!

Keep up the good work, Elie. Nothing motivates me more than haters, so I hope you feel the same.

P.S. I would be doing a disservice to the interwebs if this post didn't include a shout out to the sports blogosphere's favorite bumbling newspaper "reporter" Niki D'Andrea of the Phoenix New Times. When you get a minute, check out her new blog 'Anal Hipster' (that's not a joke) in which she takes her own nameless pot shot at me. Apparently she's salty that Alana G appears all over the first page of search results for Niki D'Andrea. Google page rank is a b*tch, ain't it! UPDATE: the Anal Hipster post has been removed, but here is the cached version. DANG Google, you really are slaying it!

Yes, Brian Spaeth Is My Boyfriend

Well, we had been trying to keep it on the low-low, because it's kind of taboo for two sports bloggers to be dating each other. But it looks like the Phoenix New Times will probably be outing us in their next cover story, so I'd rather people hear it from me first. Yes, Alana G and Brian Spaeth are indeed a hot item! This has been going on for some time. It's the reason I had such a large acting role in Who Shot Mamba? and why I figure prominently in Brian's new book Prelude to a Super Airplane.

You can read all about us making out on Brian's blog.

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!

Alana G's Thoughts on FanHouse BETA

I'm not sure I have too many thoughts other than confusion. As you may or may not know, I used to be the producer of AOL's FanHouse, following after the Blogfather Jamie Mottram and John "the Loch" Ness. Word from the inside is that a lot of internal things have changed since my departure amid controversy. Starting next week the site is also going to get an external change as it moves to FanHouse BETA.

There are still a lot of really talented bloggers at FanHouse, many of who are my friends. As long as those folks are still writing, there will still be good content there to read. Query whether readers will be confused by the addition of Jay Mariotti types, the increased emphasis on MSM leanings, the retro-ESPN nav, and the departure of a lot of the funnier bloggy bloggers... especially as AOL rebrands its sports channel as FanHouse... But hey, I'm sure they paid some marketing geniuses a lot of coin to come up with this, right? At least the new site looks alright. And the logo totally resonates with me and makes sense.

My favorite part of the site is the ultra-corporate Preview page explaining the new brand (FANHOUSEATTITUDE, totally rad!!). The following excerpt makes my eyes bleed. Anyone who has ever worked with me, John, or Jamie will know why.

Pete Holiday, Bad Decisions, and Fake Boobies!

This post about FanHouse by my friend and former colleague Pete Holiday is a great read for anyone who has ever suffered at the hands of ridiculous corporate politics, seen the movie "Office Space," or prefers real breasts over silicone.

My lawyer has advised me not to comment further at this time, but go read Pete's post! And then for old time's sake, watch this video.

Today's b00bz brought to you by the blogosphere's resident plastic surgeon, Dr. Awful Announcing.