*Addendum* Rosenberg wrote the massive post-press conference story, and even when the University itself calls out the Free Press in their response, illuminating the garbage in the original Rosenberg story, not one mention of it in the recap of the press conference.
I'm attempting to look at a larger issue here: the failure of a group of (supposedly) professional journalists to put out a totally factual story, to instead try to sell a few extra newspapers.
The context here is of course, the NCAA investigation into the Michigan football program's compliance with the limits on official practice time, and issues with monitoring said practice time (i.e. quality compliance staff not doing what they are paid to do).
Sidenote: Did you know that college athletes devote a lot of time to athletics??
Related Documents: UM's formal response to the NCAA (PDFs), and the original notice of allegations.
OK. Mike Rosenberg was a good journalist before writing that above story. He attended Michigan, and wrote for The Daily's sports page while he was here. Not sure if he had some bad weed that week or if he took a conversion trip to Columbus, but he should know better. He baited two freshman football players into twisting their words around to get Rich Rodriguez in trouble, and it's no secret that Rosenberg was never a fan of the Rodriguez hire. Rosenberg inferred from Hawthorne and Stokes's comments that clearly Michigan was exceeding the number of allotted practice hours, and unnamed players backed up his assertion. We have since learned that some of those players were disgruntled Carr recruits who didn't like putting in the work, or just players who wanted to support Rodriguez and got fooled. This included Morgan Trent, Terrence Taylor, possibly Terrence Robinson, Charles Stewart, and Tony Clemons. Mark Snyder, who usually covers day-to-day Michigan football developments, got completely sucked in by the allure of a smash story, and reported information that wasn't verified.
All the quoted players also made it appear as if everything they were doing as part of offseason activities, and workout regimens, was mandatory. Again, if you're a journalist with half a damn brain, doesn't something go off inside said brain saying, "gee, I wonder if I should ask the coaches what's required of their players?"
They in turn printed information about: how Sundays were brutal on players, how they had to do every workout activity, and skip class if needed, and all this added up to approximately eight hours each day during the week and after games, and nine hours every Sunday. Even I know that if you coerce a player into telling you what you want to hear, that doesn't make it true.
Yes, Michigan did admit to violations on this issue, simply because the NCAA did find that two quality control staffers weren't following the rules -- but not nearly as damning as Snyder and Rosenberg made it out to be. They got their information from dubious sources, and used what was a detailed investigative piece to take a shot at the school and at the coaches. For what reasons, I don't know, but they succeeded in making Michigan out to be the villain of college football, and an exception to the rule that all the giants of the sport have ever done anything out of line.
To base a story on a simple lead of 'voluntary workouts exceeding NCAA rules' is bad journalism, and The Free Press, and Mike Rosenberg and Mark Snyder and their editors, will all eat their hats, and their own shit, when they realize every school in the country likely treats voluntary workouts as being 'voluntarily mandatory.'
That USA Today story linked above should be put on Rosenberg's and Snyder's pillows, because they were clearly blinded by their pursuit of a bogus story. Michigan or any other school would never force players to break rules, but by the example of a school in East Lansing, clearly Michigan is the devil.
And I'm the unemployed journalist.
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