Media Bashers Gone Wild
Since Redskins owner Dan Snyder took over the Extremeskins.com message board back in 2005, its members have been happy to serve as his personal media attack dogs.
One of Snyder's most extreme henchmen, Arthur Mills, who has more than 25,600 posts on Extremeskins.com, has frequently rallied the pack against any journalist who wasn't typing in burgundy-and-gold. Mills, for example, headed up hate campaigns against Washington Post beat writers Jason La Canfora and Nunyo Demasio, including setting up a thread called The Nunyo Files that chronicled every alleged error that appeared under Demasio's byline. In exchange for his attackery, Snyder gave Mills a seat in the press box during Skins games.
But last week, like overbred dobermans, the Extremeskins.com pack turned on one of its own. A poster pointed out some mistakes in a story on the team's Web site by Casey Husband, who writes for the Redskins news service. In the build-up to Saturday's draft, Husband had written about a three-team deal on draft day 1999 that the Skins were a part of:
[Washington] traded its 12th overall pick and multiple mid-round selections to the Chicago Bears for the fifth overall pick. Then the Redskins swapped first-round selections with the New Orleans Saints, dropping from fifth to seventh. The Saints got their man in running back Ricky Williams, while the Redskins drafted Champ Bailey and obtained a first- and third-rounder in 2000.
An astute Extremeskins.com member pointed out that the 1999 trade didn't go down the way Husband's story said it did. Instead, that year, the Skins dealt first with New Orleans, then Chicago. This revelation sent many folks on Snyder's message board into Nunyo Files mode against one of the team's paid messengers.
"There is no excuse for this Casey Husband guy to FUBAR it all up in that article – it's his job to get it right," read one posting.
"WOW – he works for THE MAN," read another. "This d-bag [Husband] is Director Of Publications for the Washington Redskins......even more of a crime to FUBAR the facts up in that article. Now knowing he is the team publicist, his articles are worthless, especially draft week."
Skins management stepped in to save their reporter. A poster identified himself as an editor of Redskins.com and ordered the attack dogs that were tearing Husband a new one to heel.
"Redskins.com strives for accuracy," wrote the poster.
The erroneous passages were deleted from Husband's story. No correction was ever appended to the unfiltered piece, however. Mills, who before his career of throwing bombs at Post writers had landed a single byline in that newspaper, hadn't weighed in on the in-house screwups before the Husband-beating thread was removed from Extremeskins.com's front pages.
9:58 am
Dave,
Glad to see you continue banging away.
One correction I'd appreciate you making is suggesting the Husband conversation was "removed" from the front page. On ES, conversations live as long as the last post allows them to. Meaning, as new posts and threads come in, threads are routinely moved to lower pages.
Everything on today's front page will be on tomorrow's second, generally, and so on.
The conversation on Husband is still here:
http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196655&highlight=Casey+husband
A simple search field with his name would have revealed this to you. Gary Fitzgerald posted in that thread and corrected the error. Typically when an error is brought to anyone's attention, that's what you do.
The other day in Howard Bryant's notebook, he said Anderson was from Louisville, when he was from Arkansas. And it said the team amassed 13 sacks when it amassed 20. And, the lead in for the Wynn quote was a Gibbs lead. I let Howard know and he thanked me and called the editors to make changes. I didn't check if they were, but, I suspect they were, and I suspect no correction was noted on the page. Want to look it up with me?
In any case, I was not around the board a ton last week so I didn't have a chance to chime in. I also rarely chime in on errors before contacting people directly asking they be changed. I would have contacted Gary and let him know the problems so he could have changed them, but he already had.
Often the errors in the Post, especially with Nunyo, were explained away and never corrected or noted when they were. So, it was easy to have fun with him. Harder to have fun with Casey when Gary quickly changed the problem.
One would almost consider the quick response good journalism. Or, do you disagree with the concept of correcting errors? I'll try to come back to this later to see if you have replied, or you can contact me via e-mail.
10:04 am
Dave,
To aid you, here's the corrected Bryant piece.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801056.html
Here's the original.
http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197219&highlight=Howard+bryant
I was involved in this discussion, but not against Bryant. I always try to deal with these people as professionals who care about their work and try to help them correct them where I stumble across any mistakes. Nunyo was simply a case study in arrogance as he refused to make corrections when they were this, and more, obvious.
Any questions Dave?
You can always free to talk to me instead of about me. I'm usually at ES, where you can ask anything you wish and probably receive a pretty good audience both in support of you and against you. Or write me or call me. I'll be happy to help you understand whatever it is you currently don't.
1:37 pm
Art Mills:
my post doesn't say anything incorrect about the Casey Husband-beating thread being removed from your "front pages," which you mis-read or mis-wrote as "front page." and there's no mention in my post of Howard Bryant. so, no questions. thanks for posting.
2:17 pm
No worries Dave. I'm sure we both know you were intimating that the thread was removed from view by someone acting to protect Husband in some way. But, now that you have strongly refuted that you weren't saying that, I'll thank you for your clarity.
No, there is no mention of Howard Bryant, which, strangely is a shame, don't you think. It would seem you are concerned whether I was able to see Husband's error in time to comment while your eyes missed multiple factual errors in the Washington Post.
I mentioned Bryant not so much to draw your attention to the errors as to explain I don't ever jump immediately to public lashings for mistakes. I always deal privately and I still presume the person cares enough to make changes. I've thanked Howard each time I've helped find corrections for him. I appreciate his attention to those details to assure he has clean copy.
Hell, he could work for Redskins.com, which has moved as fast themselves to correct errors. Now, if I can get you to stop hinting that anyone started focusing on media errors after Snyder acquired rights to the board and use the quote you have from me that I've been doing this for years, long before the Redskins ever knew my name -- in fact, the Nunyo Files is an example of such -- you'd almost not seem so hell bent on an agenda yourself.
Too much to ask?
Oh, you should enjoy the stuff you're about to read though. Starting a campaign against Shapiro for suggesting the media won't vote for Monk for the Hall to punish Snyder. And, I had a little fun with Jason in today's Fan View on Redskins.com.
Make sure you hint that someone at Redskins Park asked me to. Not true, but, makes me smile thinking you think it :).
4:32 pm
Art Mills:
again, you mis-read or mis-quoted what was written, and, intentional or not, without that misinformation you don't get to ask for a correction, which was the whole point of your post, right? then you laud howard bryant for thanking you when you pointed out his error. thank me, Art. you also write that you launched your Washington Post-bashing clearinghouse, the Nunyo Files, "long before the Redskins ever knew my name." really?
7:41 pm
Dave, you wrote:
"Mills, who before his career of throwing bombs at Post writers had landed a single byline in that newspaper, hadn’t weighed in on the in-house screwups before the Husband-beating thread was removed from Extremeskins.com’s front pages."
I asked you to correct the impression this clearly left that you intended to suggest someone removed it from the front pages to avoid scrutiny. You claim your phrasing was merely your own lack of understanding of how web pages work, or, perhaps even innocent in nature. That's fine. I didn't ask for a second correction once you corrected the impression given verbally.
Unlike you, I actually will allow that when you say something, you mean it and it's the truth. I have told you when the Nunyo Files started before, and, I even told you when they ended. Go look at the last date I updated the first link. That day was the day the team made contact with me for the first time.
But, you already know this because you've actually quoted me on it in your paper once before, so, either you forgot you did, or you have chosen to disbelieve what you were told without offering anything to suggest I haven't been hammering at bad journalism for years.
I fear, Dave, you seem far more fixated with me than I do with any reporter. I read copy on a subject I enjoy following and make comment. If you'd like, I can help give you some exposure to an actual audience by pointing people to your stuff here so they can offer you some assistance and readership. Would that prove beneficial to you?
3:39 pm
Art Mills:
there's something to that fixation charge, Art. you're the least boring redskins writer i know of. and anybody who tries to write for a living has to be in awe of your output.
sure, all those smiley faces you put in your copy on Dan Snyder's site are pretty creepy for a guy your age, but your extremeskins counter now says you've made 25,861 posts on the message board Snyder owns. that's a post a day FOR 70 YEARS! and it's all in your spare time.
also, as i've told you, whenever i go to Snyder's site i see that the power your words have with the crowd that gathers there is like L Ron Hubbard's over scientologists. forget big fish/small pond, you're the whale of that puddle, and as much as anybody you're responsible for the hilarious and even admirable us-against-the-world tone of Snyder's site.
obviously, i also think you're full of crap. in your latest post here, for example, you wrote: "You claim your phrasing was merely your own lack of understanding of how web pages work, or, perhaps even innocent in nature." no, i didn't. where the hell'd that come from? lemme answer: you made it up, like you made up "page" in your previous post. everything i'd written on this subject is right here, so any buffoon can tell you made it up.
and you also write that "the Redskins," which i take to mean Redskins management, didn't know who you were while you were cranking out the Washington Post-bashing Nunyo Files. Art, if you're saying you had no dealings with folks at Redskins Park during the peak of your anti-media career -- before may 17 2005, according to the dates on the post you directed me to -- well, that doesn't ring true.
but, again, you're never boring. i love reading your hokum. keep it coming!