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The New York Times, Thayer Evans and CYA

Posted by Sailor Ripley on January 18th, 2009 under Football, Recruiting

Faithful readers of and irritated visitors to this site are quite familiar with the New York Times – Thayer Evans – Jamarkus McFarland Family ménage à trois of hilarity. For a recap of the situation, please brush-up here.

Today I came across this offering from the Grey Lady – Internets division. Scroll down to the section entitled The Wild Party.

A few choice items:

On Dec. 26, Thayer Evans, a Houston-based freelancer…

Thayer – Looks like they are distancing themselves from you just a bit, you freelancer. Freelancing being a term with synonyms like loose cannon, lone wolf, free agent and working on your resume.

Adams said that since The Times article was published, her son has been the target of racial slurs from angry Texas supporters, and she said she would not let him talk to reporters in the future.

As far as I know, words like venal, liar, pawn and buffoon have no racial connotations whatsoever.

Tom Jolly, the sports editor, and Mike Abrams, who was editing the 2,800-word article on deadline on Christmas Day, said they did not press Evans about the party.

“I felt like we made the best efforts we could under the circumstances,” Evans said.

Buzz. Sorry, no points there, guys. You’re in the news business. If you don’t have time to do your job correctly, then that’s your problem. Coal in your stockings.

Thayer – Come on in to the blogosphere. I’ll be happy to set you up with an OU blog, because I’m not sure you will be called on as often at the New York Times. Besides, here in the blogosphere, you can be as niggardly with the dispensing of facts and portrayal of reality as you want without having Clark Hoyt following behind you with a pooper scooper.

No, Kashemeyia, niggardly isn’t a racial slur either.

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38 Responses

  1. bob said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 10:22 am

    wonder if she’s going to let him to talk reporters when he gets to OU? or are they giving her the locker next to his (when she’s not at her new mysteriously timely car/bank/pr job of course)

  2. Bob in Houston said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am

    “I felt like we made the best efforts we could under the circumstances,” Evans said.

    What circumstances might those be? When was that paper written? When did Evans get it? From whom did he get it? If it wasn’t McFarlane, forget Texas — he owed McFarlane a call to find out why he wrote what he wrote.

    Unless, of course, he was told *not* to say he’d gotten it. If that were the case, to me, the paper becomes worthless. It’s not like the guy is going under cover and publishing state secrets… he was a writing a feature story.

    That was a terrible example of how to commit journalism… at least the kind I was taught.

  3. pasotex said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am

    Best effort under the circumstances?

    “Evans had stayed close to McFarland and his mother, Kashemeyia Adams, for months, and he recounted an intense courtship of them by coaches and boosters.”

    So which one is it, were you with them for months developing a story or was it a last minute holday rush job?

    The last minute excuse is transparent nonsense and contradicted by the rest of the story.

  4. Navy Horn 16 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 11:30 am

    Sounds like we lucked out again. Something tells me this kid is going to go down the same path as Bomar and Perrilloux.

  5. ctex80 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 11:37 am

    CYA indeed. Thayer Evans has gone rogue!

  6. thirtyand0 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 11:40 am

    At least when can all remain confident that the kid is serious about academics. That much has got to be true. Right?

  7. Bob in Houston said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    From the story:
    “(Evans) said that if anyone at Texas had spoken to him, it would have violated N.C.A.A. recruiting rules. And, he said, he did not want to give either Texas or Oklahoma information they could use to try to influence McFarland’s decision.”

    1) It’s not against the rules to comment on your own recruiting practices, or to reiterate how Texas had no connection to any such “party.” (Like say, “We don’t do things like that.”) It’s only against the rules to talk about specific recruits.

    2) Technically, McFarland is still recruitable. Why Evans believed it was “fair” to let Texas get hammered without doing a minimum of checking is beyond me.

    Haven’t cared to click. Is he still posting on that blog?

  8. yeller journalists unite said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    I once worked with Thayer and he embezzled millions from orphan aid agencies to the third world.

  9. Brian Combs said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    It does look like the Times is trying to put everything on McFarland and to protect their editor, Evans. I suppose it’s not surprising that they would do so.

    However, McFarland is an established OU homer, and it was the editors responsibility to make sure the work had been checked, especially with a story as inflammatory as this one was.

  10. Scipio Tex said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    Great article.

    That was as an uncomfortable combination of distancing and feeble excuse-making as I’ve ever seen. I was picturing a guy who just stepped off the elevator in the Four Seasons with his mistress in tow running smack dab into his wife’s best friend.

  11. t1climb1 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    And here we have the NYT seeking a bailout of its own. Shocking. [/feigned surprise]

  12. Bob in Houston said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    As I posted when this originally came out, the key is that the editors didn’t question any of it when they were reading it.

    That means they believed it, or at least that it was plausible. It also means that the story didn’t really mean enough to them to make the effort.

    I’ve been in newsrooms on Christmas Eve, so the latter definitely was a factor. They’re plugging the space with stuff that can be read in English, so that they can get out of there as fast as possible.

    If Evans had tried to put that story into, say, the DMN, it never would have happened. The DMN is much more likely to understand the context.

  13. RansomStoddard said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 2:49 pm

    The NYT has become the equivalent of the Weekly World News.

    As for the rascist slurs from Texas fans alleged by Nutty Mommy, I call bullshit.

  14. DBH said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    I’m sure our rivals in the recruiting realm will cut and paste the unsubstantiated allegation that J-Mac and his momma have been the subject of racial slurs from Texas fans. So the hit-piece will be the gift that keeps on giving for those who hate the Horns and the so-called retraction is as damaging as the original piece.

    When will the New York Times disclose that Evans is a shameless homer for one of the cheatingest programs in college football history? Fuck Thayer Evans and The New York Times.

  15. Newy25 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pm

    When you say “Fuck The New York Times” you must realize they are on the brink of bankruptcy and face litigation for making up a story about John McCain and a Thayer-Evans-style-BS-factless-hatchet-job-biased-story affair.

    The government they want a bailout from is the one they spent years making up conspiracy theories about. They are all kinds of fucked and Longhorn fans need not waste their energy hating a soon to be extinct organization.

  16. DBH said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    I anxiously await the demise of the Times, for any number of reasons that don’t all involve Longhorn football.

    Hopefully, when Thayer Evans loses his sugar teat, he can get a job washing dishes during the graveyard shift at Denny’s.

  17. yeller journalists unite said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Maybe it wasn’t Thayer Evans. But I heard he did it.

  18. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

    The thing that irritates me the most about all this is that when the story broke, a number of sites (Deadspin, Doc Saturday, EDSBS, etc.) all talked about what a great story it was mainly because of the lurid description of the party.

    Which may or may not have ever happened at all.

    Now, will any of those blog sites come back and say “we may have spoken too soon about the greatness of this article, sorry ’bout that Texas”?

    Who knows. I do know the NYT has never given back their Pulitzer for Walter Duranty’s reporting on the Ukrainian famine.

  19. kchorn04 said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    So they discuss their issue with the original story throwing out baseless allegations only to allow for more baseless allegations of racial slurs in the new article?

  20. Walter Duranty said:

    January 18th, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    What famine?

    Joseph Stalin is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.

  21. coolhorn said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 5:49 am

    This “explanation” from a Times editor sounds more like an alibi, while giving the paper the opportunity to dump on UT fans with mama’s “racist comments” comment.

    I spent a long time in the journalism field, and from my first day in the business, I understood that you confirm everything. You also make an attempt to contact BOTH sides in a dispute, whether or not it’s a holiday.

    The bad thing for the UT football team is that the damage is done, and no lame explanation is going to undo it. Opponents can cut and paste what they need for negative recruiting, and use the line that hey, this is from a national newspaper.

    If the NY Times was once a great newspaper, it’s salad days are over. I would expect more credible reporting from the Star or National Enquirer. I suppose the Times would be okay to wrap fish…or not. It might taint them.

  22. Chooky said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 7:44 am

    Stephen Glass didn’t have a problem with Evans’ article.

  23. The Anti-Santa said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 8:16 am

    Besides, who can blame a guy for letting things slide a bit on a holiday like Christmas?

  24. Walter Duranty said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 9:29 am

    In fact, I consider Evans’ work as intellectually honest and worthy of a Pulitzer as my very own…

  25. Hippie Killer said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Look for Jackie Shipp to break up with mom on February 5, 2009.

  26. WhoooTex said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am

    I’m disappointed at thebiglead.com’s take on the situation. They/he are/is totally ignorant of the facts.

  27. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    January 19th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    “I spent a long time in the journalism field, and from my first day in the business, I understood that you confirm everything”

    Not anymore. Not it’s “confirm everything that fits the preconstructed narrative”. Anything that runs counter to the narrative is, of course, a lie.

  28. ThayYa said:

    January 20th, 2009 at 7:15 am

    I was just reporting on the mighty Sooners (Boomer Sooner!) and was not biased in the least covering the outrageous atrocities perpetrated by the Texass alumni and athletic supporters.

    I don’t hate the sorry, no-good longhorns in the least, Texass!!

  29. DougNTexas said:

    January 20th, 2009 at 7:05 pm

    My problem is where are the UT lawyers and Bellmont Hall?

  30. TaylorTRoom said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 7:47 am

    The good news is that with Carlos Slim underwriting the NYT, you can expect their football coverage to improve. Oops, I meant futbol.

  31. Bob in Houston said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am

    “My problem is where are the UT lawyers and Bellmont Hall?”

    Not a whole lot for them to do on this one.

  32. FUCK YOU said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    Sailor Ripley-your articles suck, ignorant scum bag.

  33. Minnesotahorn said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm

    I want to thank FUCK YOU for having the courage to voice what the majority of America has been feeling for a long time.

  34. Facebook User said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    FUCK YOU –

    I know. That’s why I don’t write very many of them.

  35. Chooky said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 12:54 pm

    Catchy username.

  36. TxTower said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    I want to thank FUCK YOU for having the courage to use his real name.

  37. Chooky said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    He’s from Singapore.

  38. Minnesotahorn said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Why didn’t Dr.J Horn just use his normal handle?

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