Mangino to West Virginia ... or not

[sportymcgee]

The Lawrence newspaper was fooled by a guy posing as Mark Mangino's agent. Ouch.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/dec/19/mangino_negotiations_west_virginia/

 

[Chi City 81]

Oops.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Great line in the comments section:

How can professional journalists get duped by this? Don't they know that Mangino's agent would have talked to the KC Star first?

 

[Norman Stansfield]

Oh man, that's embarrassing.

Tom Keegan, the editor there, is a good one. Gotta think he's spitting nails over this.

 

[wickedwritah]

Was this done through sports or did someone contact the newsside?

I'm thinking it's the latter. Think sports would've caught this.

 

[sportymcgee]

It was sports. And the Lawrence paper wasn't the only media outlet called ... just the only one to fall for it.

 

[Simon]

It's Kansas...what do you expect?

 

[Hammer Pants]

1. Read caller ID.
2. Get address.
3. Pain.

I'm amazed things like this don't happen more often. It sucks.

 

[kingcreole]

The old "get two sources" thing would have come in handy here. It would be cool if the LJ World published the phone number that was called, however.

 

[Riddick]

shouldn't the lawrence paper have some sort of number for Mangino? Someone they could have called for backup info?

 

[playthrough]

1. Read caller ID.
2. Get address.
3. Pain.

I'm amazed things like this don't happen more often. It sucks.

Things like a hoax caller gets treated as legit, or that a paper throws up something on its website that it wouldn't dream of putting in print without better sourcing, then gets burned? I thought of the latter first.

 

[Write-brained]

Was this done through sports or did someone contact the newsside?

I'm thinking it's the latter. Think sports would've caught this.

I dunno, Wick. If someone called me claiming to be Mangino's agent I would patch him on through to sports - specifically the beat guy - to let them figure it out. If not, I would question why someone is cold-calling me with the tip of the week without first going to someone they know.

Anyway, I always try to verify what some stranger on a phone tells me. Don't care who he says he is. Otherwise it's not going in. I know for a fact my editor would ask me if I know this guy is who he says he is.

There are ways to deceive us. Easily. I'm not so sure this should have been one of them. Sounds like someone just got a little too anxious to be first and it backfired.

 

[Canuck Pappy]

We don't have caller ID at our place. We asked our publisher for it and he said he will try and get it next year when he does the budget.

 

[Write-brained]

We don't have caller ID at our place. We asked our publisher for it and he said he will try and get it next year when he does the budget.

We don't either. It really sucks.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

I remember this kind of thing happening to the AP reporter in Washington during a Wizards coaching search. The reporter was looking for Rob Ades, who was the agent for Mike Jarvis. He went through the NYC phone book and found a "Rob Ades."

Unfortunately, it wasn't the correct one.

The guy sure played the part, though. He told the reporter something like "Jarvis is also interested in a Big Ten job" which sent Brian Ellerbe, then the interim guy at Michigan, into a lather.

I felt badly for him, because I think he was suspended over it.

 

[HandsomeHarley]

I knew it wasn't true because ESPN.com's Jayson Stark didn't report it.

 

[Platyrhynchos]

Mangino's not going anywhere until he runs out of microwaveable burritos in his freezer.

And that's going to be a long, long time.

 

[Some Guy]

To me, this is just another lesson of the Brave New World of got-to-have-it-now-how-cares-if-its-accurate Internet reporting.

Notice the paper posted a statement from the fake agent on its website "while continuing to pursue the story."

In the old days, they probably would have realized it was a hoax before they published it anywhere.

 

[Riddick]

you know what's pretty sad is, i bet someone could pull another one over on them in a couple of weeks if they really wanted to.

 

[Taylee]

Some of our phones have caller ID, and I told our EE if he ever decided to get rid of it, I'd pay for it myself.
It's been worth the price many, many times.