The case against OSU and the Dirty Game? Seems there may have been better targets, and it should of stayed on focus but…
Well maybe not a crock but was very poorly done, when faced with multiple “incorrect” statements things were edited and changed and then they try to change the initial purpose?
http://newsok.com/former-si-staffer-examines-the-dirty-game/article/3884181
http://mediumhappy.com/?p=4050
The biggest questions and lies and sensationalism from SI:
1. Does our story explain HOW Oklahoma State improved, which is our stated purpose in embarking upon this series? (The answer is “No”, by the way). Because Stanford improved greatly over the same time period. So, for a time, did Notre Dame. And they don’t, to my mind, pay players or do the hostess sexing (Notre Dame does not even have hostesses) or give no-show grades (Everett Golson, anybody?). And if either school did, wouldn’t that be a much BIGGER story?
2) We could find lots of schools (North Carolina, e.g.) who are involved in similar shadiness who have not improved. So isn’t our premise flawed?
C) None of this is a problem if Sports Illustrated does not state in its official “Overview” the following:
How does a Division I program make such a large leap in such a short time? SI dispatched senior writers George Dohrmann and Thayer Evans to begin searching for the answer.
I’d argue with the honesty behind this statement. I have no proof, but here is what I believe happened. Evans, who knows the Sooner State well and was raised there, goes in search of low-hanging fruit. He tells the editors that, via old contacts and people he has come across while wearing out the soles of his cowboy boots in the past, that he can dig up some dirt on corruption taking place at Oklahoma State. Terrific, someone thinks, but HOW do we frame it? Oh, I got it, let’s say it’s an attempt to discover a reason behind Oklahoma State’s rapid ascent.
E) About Thayer Evans…. I’d like to know:
1) Did these interview subjects, all of them, realize that they were being interviewed?
2) Did these interview subjects, all of them, know that their conversations were being recorded?
3) Did any of them ask, “What’s this story about?” and what was Thayer’s answer?
Granted, there’s a gray area when interviewing people for a controversial piece. There are also baseline ethical standards. If you read this blog entry you may find it hard to reconcile the idea that Evans was acting ethically in the pursuit of this story.
WD0AJG