7.27 - Deconstructing a Smear Campaign

The South Bend Tribune continued its series of articles aimed at casting Charlie Weis, Notre Dame and top recruit Jimmy Clausen in a negative light. Without any evidence, the SBT has embarked on a strategy of guilt by lack of association.

Its technique is to bring up something about the above triumvirate, find some commonality, however tenuous, between them and something that could have gone wrong or has the appearance of being wrong, then bunch them together in an attempt to smear Notre Dame and Coach Weis.

Today the South Bend Tribune managed to publish two stories with no context, limited and inapplicable facts, no attempt at balance whatsoever and an egregious omission that should be grounds for terminating both "reporters."

Quite the statement you say. Read on McDuff.

Let's begin with the article entitled, "Pragmatic Approach: Can ND maintain principles and athletic dominance?" A worthy subject on its surface, but this article is not about athletics; this article is solely about football. The headline is a set-up.

The authors, Jeff Carroll and Bob Wieneke, broaden the reach to athletics in order to bring in quotes from Ellen Staurowsky.

Who is she?

According to the SBT, "A former college athletic director who has written books critical of the commercialization of college sports, Ellen Staurowsky came to South Bend last year on her lecture circuit. With ND student-athletes in the audience, Staurowsky expressed her opinion that the economic dynamics of college sports are corrupting the educational aspect of universities."

Her claim to fame is a book she co-wrote entitled, "College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA Amateur Myth."

States one review, "This book strives to show that the NCAA formally abandoned amateurism and has passed rules that have transformed scholarship athletes into 'university employees.'"

According to Publishers Weekly, "They accuse the organization (the NCAA) of pretending to embrace amateurism while fighting for professionalism during the past half century; of helping colleges avoid suits by seriously injured athletes who were being used for financial gain; and of allowing schools to give athletic scholarships to students who were unqualified academically. The authors further charge the NCAA with sabotaging women's sports programs in an attempt "effectively to deny women equal educational opportunities."

Okay, first of all the scope of her book covers big time athletics in general, not football in particular, a significant point the SBT fails to mention. Second, her focus is how athletics corrupt the educational aspect of athletics, an area Notre Dame football is currently excelling in with record team GPAs.

According to the Library Journal, "A major theme of the book is Title IX and its effect on women' sports. The authors believe that it was a mixed blessing, providing women more access while forcing them into the competitive male model where education is incidental to athletics."

In sum, she has absolutely no personal expertise in major college football and believes all big time sports are essentially wrong and have been for a century.

A century.

By the turn of the century wrote Staurowsky and her co-author, sports were "evolving into an unrelated business of the university, and athletes were being relegated to the periphery of academic life."

Not that turn of the century six years ago, the one that took place 106 years ago.

What the SBT fails to disclose is that Staurowsky believes no sport that gives out scholarships is an amateur sport and that she specifically has an axe to grind for big time men's sports. Dr. Staurowsky is well known as an advocate for gender equity in athletics and women in sport media.

So here's a person who doesn't believe in college scholarships, thinks that big time men's sports infringe on women's sports, that even women's sports have become corrupted and the SBT decides she's the perfect person to give perspective on the negative effects a resurgence of Notre Dame football will have on the school.

This is the person they ask for perspective? It's like asking Rush Limbaugh about liberals or Al Franken about Bush.

Worse still, Staurowsky has no experience in the big time athletics she writes about. She was the athletic director at Ithaca flippin' College. Here's where the authors don't even make even the slightest effort at maintaining journalistic integrity.

Not only is the reader unaware of her conflicts, but the authors don't even attempt any balance. Gene Corrigan would have been a perfect person to provide balance, instead Wieneke and Carroll offer this: "One Irish female student-athlete in particular took exception to Staurowsky's thoughts, putting up a heated defense of both her school and her own academic diligence."

They don't tell us what the defense was.

They don't even name the person and do nothing to broaden the counter argument.

That's not just irresponsible and unprofessional, it's unethical.

Now here's where their argument really goes screwy.

Follow Staurowsky's logic and you would find that she thinks Notre Dame, even while playing under Willingham, was incapable of not compromising its ideals. So asking her whether Notre Dame can maintain its ideals while competing at the 'elite level' is inane. She doesn't believe it's possible, period. At any school. Yet the authors do so as if Notre Dame were treading into some uncharted and dangerous waters. Notre Dame's had decades of experience balancing academics and athletics and been consistently successful as demonstrated by its six AFCA awards (second only to Duke.) There's no question whether Notre Dame can do this, it's done it... well.

Unbelievably, Carroll and Wieneke throw that bucket of putrid mud at Notre Dame in the face of the very facts that belie their entire point.

"This past year, Notre Dame student-athletes logged a combined 3.226 grade-point average in the fall, a school record, then followed that with a 3.224 in the spring. ND athletes completed more than 2,300 hours of community service, an increase of 340 hours over the year before."

Notre Dame not only improved as a football team and kept to its ideals, but improved upon the criteria by which those ideals are judged. In other words, there was no reason to write this article except to smear ND.

The next part of this "article" is laughable. Our reporters offer this meaningless factoid as if it represents something nefarious: "A Google search for the phrases 'Notre Dame' and 'Just like everyone else' finds 11,700 matches. Another search, for 'tarnished dome,' returns 5,310 matches."

I'd expound, but that's just stupid.

A Rock reader responded thusly: "I thought you would be interested to know that a search for "South Bend Tribune" and "unprofessional" returned 14,200 hits on Google. A search for SBT and "Hack" returned a remarkable 131,000 hits. Wow, now I know that the SBT is a lousy paper."

But the worst is for last.

Later in the article, the authors introduce a former Notre Dame football player named Allen Sack, also a professor at the University of New Haven (Conn.). When asked about Weis Sack replied: "Is he going to sacrifice the academic standards? My opinion so far from the feedback I get is that he wants to win, he'll do what he has to do to win, but he's not going to cross the border." In other words, he doesn't believe ND will compromise to win.

Why does his opinion carry so much weight?

For one he played on the 1966 National Championship team.

Second, he's an expert on NCAA reform.

Third and the truly unbelievable omission worthy of firing a reporter or both, HE CO-WROTE THE BOOK WITH STAUROWSKY!

Did they think no one would notice?

The SBT not only doesn't mention that fact in the entire article, it takes his informed expert opinion and sticks it 36 PARAGRAPHS below those of his co-author, who makes the outrageous charge that Notre Dame will have to compromise its ideals.

Yet, it could have been immediately refuted at the top of the article and should have been if there were any attempt at balance.

Let that sink in for a second.

Feel sick? Me too.

Carroll and Wieneke also wrote an entire article questioning the practice of allowing early entry candidates without seeking one, not one, positive opinion (of which there are many) about the practice.

I could go into detail, but at this point, the SBT's smear campaign is self-evident. The irony that these authors are hypocritically using and inflating the very Clausen hype they're bashing can only be lost on the dullest of minds.

One wonders whether anyone with experience in journalism had oversight over this parade of unprofessional and unethical slam pieces.

Red Smith grieves.

~ The Rock