Sarah Phillips
May
02
Making Time For The Wednesday Linkage
I haven’t been able to links for a couple of days. I have a few leftover stuff since Monday, but nothing totally clogging up my browser, but I do want to give you a full set of stories today.
I’ve done my best to summarize the whole bizarre Sarah Phillips/ESPN.com/Scamming people story and that’s over here. If there any updates today, I’ll try to bring them to you, but it appears that there’s a new development every hour or so.
Let’s try to get what I have to you now.
Tom Weir of USA Today also looks into the Sarah Phillips saga.
Mike McCarthy of USA Today says Tiger Woods is being criticized for doing an end run around the news media and answering questions from fans via social media.
Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deistch critiques ESPN’s and NFL Network’s coverage of the NFL Draft.
Kurt Soller of Esquire catches up with TNT’s Craig Sager and discusses his loud wardrobe.
Multichannel News reports on ESPN’s ratings for its first weekday English Premier League game.
Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life notes the NFL Draft was the second most watched in history.
Former ESPN’er Dana Jacobsen has started her own blog and says she’ll keep us up to date on where she lands next.
Greg Wyshynski at Yahoo’s Puck Daddy notes that HBO has renewed 24/7 for another NHL season and will get more input from the league’s media arm.
Greg talks with NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins about the league’s Stanley Cup Playoff ratings and other matters.
Jeff John Roberts at paidContent wonders if Bleacher Report can make its writers into viable media stars.
ESPN Ombudsman Jason Fry of the Poynter Review Project looks at one man who oversees the Alleged Worldwide Leader’s interviewing technique.
Ed Sherman at the Sherman Report warns how not to use Twitter like the Chicago Sun-Times’ columnist Joe Cowley.
Jason Dachman of Sports Video Group writes that Harris Corp. which done a lot in developing broadcast equipment and had a hand in sports will now get out of the business.
Timothy Burke at Deadspin has the audio of Gus Johnson calling MLS action over the weekend. That’s right, MLS.
John Koblin at Deadspin says pariah Sarah Phillips and her partner-in-crime, Nilesh Prasad have been career scammers.
Deadspin’s Erik Malinowski has a parody Tweeter breaking character and giving his side of the story in the Sarah Phillips saga.
To Ben Koo of Awful Announcing who notes that the Tuesday late night edition of SportsCenter ended in silence.
Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel says the Crossing Broad blog posted an upskirt pic that was shown on TV and the site’s editor doesn’t get why the uproar.
Neil Best of Newsday talks with New York Knicks TV voice and ESPN NBA play caller Mike Breen.
Congrats to Neil as he celebrates 5 years of his WatchDog blog. Neil and I share a milestone today.
Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette writes that MLB Network will air seven Minor League Baseball games this season.
Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says CBS has made one announcement for its SEC football schedule for the fall.
Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com talks with Gus Johnson about him calling soccer games.
Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog is amused at boring and extremely verbose ESPN.com columnist Gregg Easterbrook’s fears about DC NFL Team QB Robert Grifffin III’s play in the rain. I used to love Easterbrook’s TMQ columns, but they now grate on me. Can’t read them anymore.
Barry Jackson at the Miami Herald has some South Florida sports radio moves.
Jerry Garcia at the San Antonio Express-News goes over the Sports Emmy winners.
Mel Bracht from The Oklahoman says the Thunder continue to set local ratings records.
Mel says TNT’s Charles Barkley is squarely in the Thunder’s camp.
Robert Feder at Time Out Chicago says the Chicago Sun-Times have put sexist columnist Joe Cowley on what’s called “Final Notice.”
Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch did not like how one female TV host kept hitting on St. Louis Cardinals World Series hero David Freese during a morning show segment.
Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune has TNT’s Kenny “The Jet” Smith discussing the Utah Jazz’s future.
Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail isn’t too thrilled about having the Maple Leafs on the next season of HBO’s 24/7.
Sports Media Watch says the Manchester Derby scored for ESPN on Monday.
Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says CNBC is doing well with the NHL Stanley Cup Conference Semifinals.
Dave Kohl at the Broadcast Booth has a look at the sports radio scene across the country.
Normally I don’t link to Bleacher Report slideshows and it’s one of the things I’ve disliked about the site for a long time, but I will link to the 20 Hottest Redheads slideshow only for the fact that they used a pic that I posted of Jen Royle from last year’s Five Women Who Make Me Stop Flipping The Remote post. Actually that pic came from Jen herself so they should really credit her and not me.
And that’s going to do it.
May
02
How A Bizarre Story Gets Even More Bizarre
Yesterday, Deadspin published a story on an ESPN.com freelance writer who was seemingly hired sight unseen after writing for a gambling website. The over 5,000-word story by John Koblin details how this writer, Sarah Phillips, got entangled into a scheme to purchase or in the case of the Deadspin story, outright steal Facebook and Twitter parody accounts in the guise of creating a sports comedy site. Shortly after Deadspin posted its story about Sarah Phillips, ESPN.com canned her and then all types of stories came out on her schemes to buy up the accounts and also how she with a partner attempted to scam people out of money. In addition, this Sarah Phillips not only misrepresented herself, she tried to conceal her identity by using another person’s pictures as Larry Brown Sports discovered.
Not only is Deadspin continuing to update its story, but it’s finding out more information on Phillips.
Aaron Nilsen writes how he was scammed by Phillips out of his Twitter account and how her partner attempted to threaten him.
Ben Koo from Awful Announcing then looks at Phillips buying up a popular Twitter parody account to filter traffic to her sports comedy website.
And then Ben investigates Phillips’ mysterious partner, Nilesh Presad, who seems to be the mastermind behind the scams.
Before Tuesday afternoon, Sarah Phillips was a blip on the radar screen. Now, she’s become a whole meme herself on Twitter. For her part, Phillips responded to the charges on her Twitter account.
Phillips has gone from Oregon sports fan, to a columnist for a sports gambling website to a freelancer for ESPN.com and alleged sports scammer in a relative short period of time.
Sawley Vickrey of Larry Brown Sports suggests that Phillips may have started to scam people to cover her own gambling debts.
Wherever this leads, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of her. And one thing she should learn from all this is that when the internet goes against you, the world can be a very lonely place.
The only thing I can think of that can describe this whole story is OMC’s How Bizarre. Indeed how bizarre, how bizarre.
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