Hey Steve Milton, don't throw out your notes

Here's an article on Scott and Tessa's con artist soul mate, Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the football player with the dead grandmother and the dead girlfriend run down by a drunk driver while suffering from leukemia. He bravely played on.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130117/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-quotes/

When the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, Sports Illustrated asked the journalist who had written about Te'o's loss to explain his fact checking process.

There was sort of one. Not the greatest. A lot of it was taking Te'o's word for it, and writing it off when attempts to verify Te'o's account with Lexis Nexus searches and other research came up with nothing (no accident report, no hospital records, no funeral notice). Another thing the reporter was unable to confirm was the dead girl's actual existence.

There were Te'o associates on campus who supported Te'o's account of the relationship. And at the end of the day, why would he make it up?

The story ran.

So the reporter spent about 5 days on the story beforehand. Looking back, there are holes in his fact checking, but at least a fact-checking attempt was made. Despite the tears of the football player and the passion of his pastor, and the supporting statements from those on campus, the reporter at least made some attempt at independent verification, although it wouldn't rise to the level of secondary sources.

But It wasn't like the figure skating media that ingests everything straight from Scott and Tessa's mouths and throws it up directly onto their keyboards.

House of Anansi Press paid Steve Milton to write a book with Scott and Tessa. This book didn't just transcribe Scott and Tessa's own words. It was also written in the voice of Milton. Milton didn't do any fact-checking. And Anansi didn't require any.

Although it's someone else's story, a professional will make sure the story he's paid to tell is true, and the words he writes in his own voice can be verified.

There's nothing terribly praiseworthy about the Sports Illustrated story proceding even though the reporter was unable to unearth corroborating evidence. But he didn't cover himself in complete shame. He actually DID do some research. He simply rationalized when his research came up with blanks.

Did Steve Milton research the "backlash, mostly on the internet" that he writes about as fact in his latest kneepads piece on Scott and Tessa? Did he research the rift when they told him about that?

The rift, remember, was the pivotal event of the book he wrote with Scott and Tessa. This rift didn't have a vague timeline. It had a specific timeline. Tessa had surgery in October 2008. She was back in Canton in December 2008. In between Tessa and Scott claim they were completely estranged, disengaged; they'd literally disconnected.

They didn't see each other. They were never in each other's company. They didn't talk. They didn't text.

Except for the fact that they did. All of this is easily checked with a simple google - forget subscriber-user database searches. On damn google. Bam - there's the Skate America interview from November 2008. There's the John LaBatte appearance. There's their Canadians 2009 free dance while the commentator (someone inarguably close to them) specifically describes the time they spent at Tessa's London apartment working on the program while she recovered.

So Steve Milton is a fiction writer? Did Scott and Tessa's book have the subtitle "based on their true story"?  or "A fictionalization inspired by real events"?

When Steve Milton appeared at a couple of book signings with Scott and Tessa, did he notice she wasn't as slender through the middle, that her face was full, boobs bigger, hair thicker - that she was pregnant?

IOW is he a hack, a liar, a dupe, all three, or what?

What's going to happen when P.J. Kwong follows up with them? Is she going to substantiate what they say? She's on the web herself. She knows the sites. The internet isn't some amorphous uncharted mystery territory. It has URLS, screen names, indexes, forums, links all over the place, organized discussion, and the skating part of the web is very small, as Scott and Tessa are well aware seeing as how they have exploited that fact for years. If the backlash exists P.J. can find it over lunch.

Is she going to do a simple archive search to see where the backlash is? Is she going to ask them WHO told them there was one?

I think she's going to assume - or pretend to assume - they are honest. Which is not reporting. Which is not conveying accurate information. When Scott and Tessa drag third parties into their stories about themselves - in this case, the public - they can't be the only source on the things they are asserting. The evidence is available - free - for anyone writing about them to check out for themselves. Why doesn't anybody do it?

This vague shit about filtering isn't reporting. You don't become aware of something in the fucking atmosphere. You are told about it and someone with a name and or job tells you, or you read it yourself.

Where are these people who confuse fact and fiction? On what web page? Most internet users have user names. Which screen names are confusing fact and fiction? What Virtue Moir thread has fans insisting they're together because their on ice performances are so convincing?

What Scott and Tessa do is similar to what Chris Wallace did while interviewing former President Clinton some years back. Clinton agreed to the interview because they were going to talk about his work in Africa. Chris Wallace blindsided him by telling him that after the interview was announced, he'd received a bunch of emails demanding that Clinton be asked why he hadn't done more to stop Al Queda prior to 9/11.

Clinton, no fool, called him out and left Wallace a mewling sack of squirm in his interviewer's chair. Clinton knew there had been no influx of emails demanding Wallace ask Clinton about Al Queda. Wallace made it up as a pretext for promoting the Fox News storyline that Al Queda and 9/11 was Clinton's fault and not Bush's.

So, while figure skating is frivolous, and certainly everything out of Scott and Tessa's mouth is weightless, they do something similar. Make shit up about what the public is doing so they can talk about what they want to talk about.

However, it is the journalist's job to make sure what Scott and Tessa claim is happening actually is happening.

Again, it is not a time-consuming or complicated task to double-check the web pages and message boards where figure skating is discussed. Skate Canada does it every single day. (So Skate Canada also knows Scott and Tessa are lying.) It's not complicated to do simple logic and ask Scott and Tessa how they are so sure there is backlash when they simultaneously claim to be divorced from the internet. How did they come to have such a clear idea of what was being said?

P.J. Kwong has a responsibility to not simply say "Oh well, they must be getting it from somewhere" and move on.

Yes, they must be getting it from SOMEWHERE - so ask them WHERE. Stone up and get a real answer, not a vague filter crap one.

If someone like P.J. or these other "journalists" are too busy to fact check, then their only option is to put everything Scott and Tessa say in quotes. Their only story is that this is what Scott and Tessa say or claim. And that's IT. They have no right to use Scott and Tessa as the primary and only source on what a whole bunch of other people are doing and saying in a medium they don't even read. P.J. is busy. Fine. Then that's what she should do.

Scott and Tessa are not sources. They are subjects. I know the journalists kiss ass, are more uber fans than writers. They want to be liked by Scott and Tessa. They laugh and fawn. But they're not just writing about Scott and Tessa, they are writing now about what Scott and Tessa say about fans even though none of these reporters are able to produce a single piece of corroboration, nor have heard of the backlash til Scott and Tessa told them about it. Fans are actual people. And they've tightened the focus by saying fans "on the internet". The skating fandom operates in a small corner of the internet where they can be easily found and reviewed.

Scott and Tessa can say all the shit they want about themselves - unless of course there is evidence on the public record that they have just lied through their teeth - as there is about the rift. And of course, they charged money for that book and were paid by Anansi, so the fact that the book contains a central lie is extremely relevant information; it's not private or their version of themselves. It's an outright lie.

But nobody checked it. Fine. They damn well better check what Scott and Tessa say about their fans. That's a third party. That requires independent fact checking. Scott and Tessa told them where it existed - the internet. Go to the fucking internet and double check it, or shut up and don't report it as fact.

Media today is all about grabbing the eye. That's more important than careful research. But you can't have it both ways. If you want to get the headline out there fast and not support-the-story, then your story is "Scott and Tessa SAY this." That's your story. They can't become your subject as well as your source for factual declarations in the piece you write.

Who do they think they are?

That's a real question, not rhetorical.

Their friends, along with the members of the media as fascinated with them as many fans have been, along with their families, declare that Tessa/Scott are great people. Part of it is Virtue Moir's talent, and their willingness to challenge that talent. Partly it's they're gracious and unentitled in person. Some of it is just good showing - poised, patient, always with the game face.

For example, there's the family friend who posted on her facebook that Scott and Tessa are "such good kids and always will be - what you see is what you get" despite the fact that she's a sham contributor and has helped them lie. ("You two are the best couple on earth!" is an example of her captioned enthusiasms under facebook sham spam). But when she says things like "What you see is what you get" - she believes it.

I think it goes to a parochial mindset cut through with immaturity. It's the entitlement and complacency that comes from "We're right because of who we are, not what we do." They're undisciplined, and unwilling to think critically or challenge assumptions they hold about themselves.

Who are the targets of the sham right now? The media? Most of those who interview them know they're together.

It's the public? Just the Canadian public? Is it the fans in front of whom they frequently don't even pretend they're not together?

What about those "dedicated" (™ Scott Moir) skating ladies?

Or the crazies that EVERYBODY in the public eye has?

The internet? Who gives a fuck about under a hundred people on the internet - so much that you  market a years-long program of ridiculous and insulting lies? That's not a problem - that's a nuisance. Stop thinking about it and it's not even a nuisance.

It's all Tessa and Scott self-indulgence and ego. They were anticipating revealing their status long before now, but when they realized they could get away with the pregnancy they decided why not continue to Sochi.

What they do now isn't necessary. It's not important to their mental health, to sustaining their personal life, to protect anything. They do it because they can. If you can treat a group of people you don't respect without respect and get away with it, why not do it? That's them.

If they had revealed their status, there would be no significant fallout. The media ignores what Tessa and Scott want ignored, emphasizing only what Tessa and Scott want emphasized. How often has a media package referred to their dramatic withdrawal at the 4CCs, for example? About never, I believe. That served its purpose and now it's like it never happened. The media would likewise ignore the lies in the book, the lies in their interviews, the anecdotal fables, the gratuitous embellishments and gaslighting.

When has anyone ever decided to notice that Tessa and Scott were in public together during the time they claim to have been completely out of touch, that they appeared on television for an interview, that a close associate of theirs, while commentating at Canadians, told us that both Tessa and Scott were away during her recovery, not just Tessa, because Scott was with her? Again, never.

There would be no can of worms. Fans would know their status, that's all.

It's power. They don't want fans to officially know (unofficially is fine) because Tessa and Scott want to hold onto the power they have to manipulate in petty ways and in what they once may have imagined are important ways.

There are no more important ways. There's no "the power to protect our privacy." Scott's own confused and inane explanations about getting side-eyed from fans (which doesn't bother him) while at the same time, keeping hands-in-pockets so as not to - what? Bump into somebody who also recognizes him but now he has to receive direct eye contact or suffer a greeting? - matched with their habit of baiting and stirring the pot, along with their correct insistence that they can go under the radar whenever - their privacy doesn't hinge on pretending to be platonic on social media. Their control of legit media has never depended on it either. The coy come ons and games they play show that's nonsense.

There's just pathetic and petty left. They like being one up, knowing something the fans don't, pulling fans' strings, reading how wrong fans are about everything, thanks to the lies they push on the fans, thanks to stringing fans along and setting them up to be wrong.*

How can you be convinced Tessa/Scott are wonderful people unless you believe the skating public are nobodies who don't count?

Social media happens mostly outside legit media, certainly broadcast media, so Scott and Tessa can treat fans with their characteristic mean spiritedness without it being held against them. Legit media prefers to ignore it because legit media is generally not a fan of social media either. Legit media prefers to control the narrative, and social media challenges that.

Virtue Moir go out of their way to remind fans of their pariah status. They could throw up a photo on www.virtuemoir.com, especially after Scott directed fans there once he left his fan facebook. It's not neglect. They do things like direct fans there and then ignore it on purpose. They don't want fans. They don't like fans.

(ETA - they've now changed the photo on www.virtuemoir.com, and lo, is it a new photo like the first two? Of course not. That would be sharing something. It's two stills from a gala performance everybody's seen from every possible angle already. It's Scott's fan facebook all over again.)

Some people have blamed the blog. Oh the blog has harrassed them.

Yes, because they never lied to fans before the blog. And because an ice dance team that wasn't together would let their buttons be pushed by some insane blog claiming they were. The only reason they let themselves react to the blog is they're together and married, have a child, and they're lying.

So let's say they're pissed because how dare some nobody (which is everyone who isn't them, someone they know, or someone of high status) call them out? So what you do is continue to treat countless well-intentioned people like garbage because you think it helps you score points against an anonymous blog.

If it wasn't the blog, they'd find another reason to piss on fans, believe me. They will always find an excuse.

It also makes Scott's friends feel important. So there's that. We all like to feel important by screwing with anonymous nobodies, or with people stupid enough to take us at our word.

Maybe Scott and Tessa are in the category of neurotic insecure people who aren't comfortable unless there's people they can look down on, and in the skating world and among family and friends, they're in a top dog position where this egocentricity is indulged. Maybe having extraordinary talent has made them believe they're extraordinary PEOPLE, superior to common people who have to pay for tickets to skating competitions, who can't skate the way Tessa and Scott can.

I think there's one category of people that don't excuse and rationalize Scott and Tessa, and that category is figure skaters. Figure skaters with more natural humanity and empathy than Scott and Tessa, skaters who don't resent it when they have to breathe the air others breathe. Skaters who are flattered when fans put together a video or some other shout out because these figure skaters are grateful there are people "out there" who notice and appreciate the work they put in. Figure skaters who see Scott and Tessa actively working to alienate a public other skaters would kill to have and don't say anything in public ... right now.

Scott and Tessa don't need the public. They don't care about post-eligible blowback. They're set. The judges will give them the points. They'll have money whether they suck up to the public or not - they're not financially insecure. Since they don't need fans, why bother treating fans with common decency? One of the axioms of good business is to allocate resources where it will generate the best return, and public good will isn't something Scott and Tessa give a shit about.

There's no incentive for them to be decent, so they're not. I know it's noticed by fellow skaters who'd make different choices even if they found themselves in Scott and Tessa's impossible-to-understand, unique position. You know what it is? Disappointing that they haven't the courage in their public life that they have on the ice, and it's fans who get the fallout from that.
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*Callback to Scott saying anyone who thinks Tessa is too sweet and innocent for Carmen doesn't know her at all.

Isn't that what you both want, Scott? Nobody to know either of you at all, not even the basics about your marital status? How can you say something like that, when if people don't know Tessa it's because of her decisions and yours? You're the one whose used "sweet" as the go-to adjective for years whenever you were asked to describe her. Just because this year the promo spin for Carmen is different doesn't mean it makes sense to scoff at people who think of Tessa as sweet, mostly thanks to everything you've said.

Meryl and Charlie SD press conference, Taipei, Taiwan

Something makes Meryl and Charlie look sad, weary, turned off, and pissed off, and it ain't coming in second.

Me sad too, Meryl and Charlie. Me sad too.

And Meryl? Love you for this. It's February. A chill is appropriate:

They have gone through a lot this season," Davis said of the Canadians. "I'm not exactly sure what happened, but we don't really think about it too much. When we come into competitions, we worry about skating our best. When we leave a competition, we're thinking about how we can improve. I'm sure they are disappointed but we are excited and happy with how we skated.

A lot of people are alarmed by V/M these days, wondering why somebody reality-based doesn't step in and stop it.

When a figure skater experiences a "thigh spasm" in the middle of a lift, it inhibits their range of motion when they withdraw and skate to the boards. It hurts like a mofo. They don't look like this when they have a program stopping muscle spasm:

Conveniently, what stopped the program was a spasm so far up her leg there is no question it wasn't shins.

Noted though, that a lift strains the core (a core that needs to be not only strong, but ELASTIC for dance lifts) not a thigh.

P.S Nice costume Tessa. Suits the fd masterpiece nobody ever sees.

This guy's left quad actually hurts