Detroit News on Brandon: "Pressure Relentless" (Includes Shoutout To MGoBlog)
Angelique Chengelis has an ARTICLE in today's Detroit News. Whoever wrote the headline summed it up nicely: "Scrutiny Relentless on Embattled UM AD Dave Brandon". It's great to see this issue continue to get front page treatment (although Schlissel's measured approach won't satisfy all who frequent this board).
The alumni survey gets a lot of attention, and MGoBlog gets a shoutout, in typically accurate Chengelis fashion:
Also on Tuesday, MGoBlog, a Michigan fan blog, published email exchanges allegedly made between Brandon and several fans. The blog could not verify Brandon wrote them, but the responses credited to him were dismissive and smug.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:12 AM ^
"Pressure Relentless to Shut Down MGoBlog." I was like, "can he do that?" ha ha
October 30th, 2014 at 8:40 AM ^
I'd hoped the original title was clear, but I've added some of that thar punctuation-type stuff to the title to make it a little clearer. You're certainly not the only one around here with tired morning vision!
October 30th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
of Field of Dreams show last night on TV. I didn't realize MG was an actual player.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:07 AM ^
I remember my infinite joy when (pre-internet days) I pulled out my Total Baseball book, and looked up Archibald Graham and found the listing.
Still love that movie. Just such a perfect piece of joyous peaceful movie making. Nothing earth shattering, but I always feel better for watching it.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:23 AM ^
I was a little disappointed in Angelique's characterization there. I get why she wrote it that way but she could've spent a little more time on it - the way she wrote it, it sounds like Brian just published stuff and found no evidence at all of its veracity. There's certainly a preponderance of evidence; admitting that you can't be 100% certain is not the same as 0% certain, which is how it came off in the article.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:25 AM ^
Yeah, I thought the same. She sort of made it sound like an Ace Williams deal when it's about 98% certain that these emails are legit.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:26 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 8:47 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:09 AM ^
dismissive and unprofessional is not mentioning it. Angelique gave the emails their due as one element in a series of Brandon "hits".
October 30th, 2014 at 10:55 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
Comical coming from the print news establishment which has a habit of publishing unverified stories with the sole basis of evidence coming from unverified and unknown "sources".
October 30th, 2014 at 9:04 AM ^
The Freep had editors, too. That didn't stop them from allowing their staff to publish inaccurate content that was based on a lack of journalistic integrity.
/still bitter
October 30th, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:08 AM ^
That didn't Rosenberg and the FREEP.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
I think you accidentally a word.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:34 AM ^
And Angelique is usually not one to stir things up with her Michigan coverage. The fact that she wrote this in the first place was a pleasant surprise.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 8:27 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:52 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 8:31 AM ^
I liked her characterization, in the sense it was the polar opposite of Olberman taking the e-mail WD shared here as gospel. Brian may speak to this at some point, but if I was in his shoes I'd appreciate the fact that Angelique noted that there's not 100% certainty of the accuracy. It helps avoid spurious libel claims, etc.
Granted, it would have been nice if she had written up Brandon's asshattery at the Dexter award event ("I don't read blogs, yah de dah ya de dah") but my impression is the email issue is not the headline topic in the mind of the general reading public that it is here.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:09 AM ^
Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree that she shouldn't just run with it Olbermann style, and that (as noted above) she has editors to answer to and space issues and such. And honestly if "there's not 100% certainty" was the phrase she'd actually used, I don't think I'd complain.
I just think it would've been a great deal more accurate to write one extra sentence along the lines of "MGoBlog concluded that it wasn't possible to verify the authenticity of the emails with 100% accuracy, but to the extent it was possible to do so, appeared to provide evidence to that effect."
The way it is now doesn't really do justice to the extent of the work Brian did, is all.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^
I like Angelique. I think she does the best job of covering the program of any of the Detroit newspaper writers. (Given that I haven't read anything out of the Freep in six or seven years, I wouldn't know about them.) However, I suspect there is an element of MGOBLOG being the competition to her and her employers. In general, I suspect newspaper reporters are hesitant to give too much credit for blogs when they do a great job of "real" journalism.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^
But I thought the same thing. Papers today don't have the resources they did even 10 years ago. Something like chasing down some random dude's assertion that his aunt got a crazy email probably doesn't make the cut when it comes to the decision on where they can afford to put their time investigating a story.
In this case - and it would hardly be the first time - an internet blog scooped the MSM. That's not even counting the numerous times that sites like Yahoo! Sports did a far better job of investigative reporting. That's got to sting a little and in that context, even mentioning the MGoBlog story is more than many other MSM outlets will do.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:46 AM ^
"yah de dah yah de dah" is written "yadda yadda." This isn't 'Nam fergoddsakes, there are rules.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:54 AM ^
the WD email was not mgoblog sanctioned content
the conviction that these emails are almost certainly real is mgoblog sanctioned content
this situation doesn't call for the polar opposite of Olbermann's sloppy reporting
the two situations aren't comparable at all in the way you are comparing them
October 30th, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 8:58 AM ^
I didnt like it either. I read her words exactly like you did "Hey this blogger published some shit on Brandon that if true, and we really have NO way of knowing if it is true or not, looks kinda bad. But it might not be true. Might be total bullshit - no way for us to know."
Looked to me like they were trying to cover their asses just in case Brandon survives and they have to deal with him in the future.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:41 AM ^
Angelique wants really good access to stories, people, events, etc. in the future at U-M and she's just being careful not to go overboard on the accusations just in case by some miracle Brandon stays for a while as AD. This is in contrast to certain past writers for the Freep who didn't seem to care as long as they got the BIG story.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^
Don't think Brandon staying should be categorized as a miracle. The Apocalypse would be a more fitting description.
That or hide your kids, hide your wife.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:08 AM ^
Brian himself the emails could not be 100% authenticated and DB never acknowledged him so why should she risk her credibility proclaiming them to be legit when she did none of the sluething herself?
October 30th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^
That way it's not her saying they're real...it's her reporting that MGoBlog says they're real. Important distinction.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^
I'm surprised at the reluctance to accept that the emails are authentic. It seems the press are demanding a higher standard than usual.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 12:19 PM ^
to anything published by a fan blog as having major credibility when it comes to reporting news of wider public interest than its own audience, and because of that, even if a newspaper beat writer monitors that blog for the sake of her own coverage, they tend to downplay the tone, both to cover their own
In this insance, i would say that Brian took much greater care in researching the veracity and authenticity of the Dave Brandon email responses than most newspapers would before publishing results, though their newsworthiness is only relevant to the extent of the current unease regarding the Athletic Department and DB's future in running it.
I mean Brian's mission was to determine to the best of his ability whether the DB emails were legitimate or a serious hoax aimed at discrediting the AD, especially after the Keith Olbermann worst sports person in the world rant on ESPN credited the blog for publishing his private response to a fan email.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:27 AM ^
Hopefully Schlissel is working back channels and we are simply waiting for the new AD to find the right time to make his announcement.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
and I think he is working behind the scenes to get the most golden parachute possible. . .it's almost like the more desperate we want him gone, he drives up his price to exit. . .
October 30th, 2014 at 12:13 PM ^
He'll resign in the end.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:38 AM ^
Wait, wasn't the whole point of that post to verify that Brandon did indeed write them with evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt"? That's a bit dismissive of the actual reporting done. Somehow I think that if she published the same article after doing the same research in her paper, it would be charachterized as 'verified', with obviously the same caveat that nothing on computers can be absolutely 100% without Brandon signing an affadavit that he did, in fact, write them. God knows they've presented stories as verified with less to back them up than what this blog did with the e-mails.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:43 AM ^
However, Angelique needs to play a delicate balancing act. She can't excoriate Dave Brandon lest she suffer JUB's fate (which would essentially put her out of a job). At the same time, she can't simply dismiss it outright. It was on ESPN, after all. That alone is newsworthy.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:55 AM ^
This is more or less what I was thinking in regards to how Angelique put the portion regarding MGoBlog. For the paper's purposes, this is a very tactful way to simply report that those e-mails appeared and were reported on here without making any specific swipe at Brandon or the athletic department, which they wouldn't want to do anyway for access reasons.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:49 AM ^
I think the best approach would have been to note that Brian and Ace did all they could to verify the emails, and came up with no evidence indicating that the emails were anything less than authentic - and noted that the obnoxious emails came from multiple sources. And further noted that Brandon had an opportunity to deny the validity of the e-mails, and instead deflected the question in a douchey manner. ("Doucheflection"? Is that a word? It otter bee.)
But the MSM still operates in a world straddling print and the web, so I think it's unlikely for the News to go into a lot of detail. Given those constraints, I think she handled it well.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:59 AM ^
you guessed it-- a Fox News Investigative Team
October 30th, 2014 at 10:33 AM ^
a Carl Monday investigatve report . Yes.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:07 AM ^
that is the wise thing to do in his posiiton and it sounds like he has done that. He just needs to make sure that the measured approach does not cost us valuable time to find th right AD and head coach. Contrast that with Brandon's "process" which was a total charade as he had already decided to fire RR after OSU and likely had decided to hire Hoke soon after that. DB's fake deliberation to appease certain factions just cost the football team valuable recruiting time.
In other words, assuming that they plan to follow the timeline Brian suggested yesterday of firing DB mid November that gives them a month or so to find the AD and then another month to find the Head Coach. Sounds about right.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^
If Drew Sharp had written it, most of the readership would be apoplectic about it. But Angelique's track record and the soft corner most people have for her results in a much more forgiving response.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^
Sounds like were getting closer to DB being gone. From what Tom Beaver is saying, the "runner is in scoring postion" as it relates to DB leaving. He also said it would take a "unknown hail mary" for him to survive.
Looks like the 1st shoe is going to drop within the near future.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^
As Brandon being Smaug. And yes, that would be a good comparison. Brandon will not leave his Michigan Stash of Gold without a fight. I leave it up to someone else on here with better knowledge of the posters as to who could play the characters to fight Smaug. I think we already know who Brian is.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:00 AM ^
These emails represent DB's attitude so precisely that, in effect, they are true, despite whether they're actual fact or not. Brian's approach was responsible investigative journalism, and he characterized these emails in a fair manner.
On the other hand, we must gaurd against the potential of internet "media" to misrepresent people; to perform character assassination by inference or downright chicanery. That's why responsible media outlets have editors. Anyway, those emails were out there, they fit Der Schlockmeister to a tee, and Brian investigated their veracity.
Dave Brandon is trying to use the hallowed traditions of the University of Michigan, which we have been building for nearly two hundred years, as a stepping stone to kickstart his political ambitions. Get this straight DB: WE ARE NOT A RUNG ON YOUR CAREER LADDER.
Der Schlockmeister has failed on so many levels, the sooner he's gone, the sooner we can open the windows at the Athletic Department and clean out the putrid stench from his toxic ambitions. We will be Michigan again.
October 30th, 2014 at 12:06 PM ^
loved Brandon because he energized the athletic program: UTL ball games, outdoor hockey games, updated the facilities for non-revenue sports, etc. Now the football team sucks and Brian can't blame his guy Hoke so Brian has to rally his troops and get them to attack Brandon.