The Quizbowl Resource Center

So, this looks to be a thing that places are covering. I thought it would be useful to have all the links to news articles as they come out in one place so that people could scan them for mis-information etc. Like, when the Atlantic link had egregious lies in it, that was corrected super quick by this method. So, let's get it all together and updated.

Insidge Higher Ed http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013 ... mpionships

Gawker http://gawker.com/5991885/epicenter-of- ... ng-scandal

Deadspin http://deadspin.com/after-cheating-alle ... -458367356

New York Magazine http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... ating.html

Boston Globe http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/22 ... story.html

Businessweek http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-0 ... ting-probe

The Atlantic Wire Blog http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics ... owl/63438/

Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-2 ... probe.html

MSN Blog http://now.msn.com/harvard-quiz-team-me ... mpionships

LA Times http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/ ... -74976443/

WBUR http://www.wbur.org/2013/03/22/harvard- ... llegations

Gamedayr http://gamedayr.com/gamedayr/harvard-st ... pionships/

Minn Public Radio http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collec ... rnam.shtml

Sidespin http://sidespin.kinja.com/what-the-harv ... -458379241

KTAR http://ktar.com/23/1620392/Harvard-stri ... ent-titles

Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/22/ha ... nt-titles/

ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/harv ... UzGklGUy5k

KXAN http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/national/H ... s_22805298

Chi Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-us ... ory?page=1

Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/us- ... um=twitter
I think that's up to date? Keep it coming, and maybe note innacuracies here along with contacting with corrections?

I am 100% sure this will get a mention on national television if Harvard makes the Sweet Sixteen, maybe in the game tomorrow as well.

What kind of attention/reputation do you think quiz bowl in general will get because of all this mess?

Another: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/national/H ... s_22805298

It might be wise for NAQT to create a one-page press release, or something similar, with some basic information on it to avoid massive distortion about the basics of the case, about what our game is, or about what it does/doesn't say about our community as a whole. ("What is quizbowl?" "How is it played?" "It is not the case that anyone currently at Harvard is responsible for anything," etc.)

Not entirely about the scandal, but it popped up under Google News results for "Harvard Quiz Bowl"
http://www.hollywood.com/news/celebriti ... new-mexico

Also, the AP seems to have put out a report that's being picked up by all sorts of local news outlets. If there's one possible plus here, it's that it's becoming increasingly likely that Andy won't be able to avoid people directly asking him about it.

UPI: http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/03/22/Harv ... 363980055/

Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/us- ... iz-scandal

There should be stuff coming up with the Harvard Crimson and a new (better) article from the Boston Globe, as I've just spoken to both.

There's no such things as bad publicity?

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-us ... 7055.story

There's been vague talk about putting together a press release, including details about quizbowl and extending invitations to the national tournaments, and sending it to all these reporters. Does someone want to take the helm of this project? It's an unfortunate event but this is the most press quizbowl has ever gotten, and we should take advantage of it.

No offense, but does anybody really care what the details of quizbowl are? It's not especially apropos the news story, and I certainly hope we don't plan to do outreach through this event.

EDIT: I do think we should ask them to attend a national tournament though.

Kooikerhondje wrote:No offense, but does anybody really care what the details of quizbowl are? It's not especially apropos the news story, and I certainly hope we don't plan to do outreach through this event.

EDIT: I do think we should ask them to attend a national tournament though.

Well, I think asking them to attend a national tournament would be a form of outreach, depending on how you use that word. I don't mean to ask them to write an uber-detailed article about how a quizbowl question works, but I think ICT legitimately has a lot of human interest, particularly in the wake of all this. It may feel a little dirty but if we can get some good out of all this, we should go for it.

Okay, that's a good plan then.

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:There's been vague talk about putting together a press release, including details about quizbowl and extending invitations to the national tournaments, and sending it to all these reporters. Does someone want to take the helm of this project? It's an unfortunate event but this is the most press quizbowl has ever gotten, and we should take advantage of it.

IIRC, Eliza Grames' major is in Public Relations or something related to that, so this sounds like something she might be interested in if contacted.

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:

Kooikerhondje wrote:No offense, but does anybody really care what the details of quizbowl are? It's not especially apropos the news story, and I certainly hope we don't plan to do outreach through this event.

EDIT: I do think we should ask them to attend a national tournament though.

Well, I think asking them to attend a national tournament would be a form of outreach, depending on how you use that word. I don't mean to ask them to write an uber-detailed article about how a quizbowl question works, but I think ICT legitimately has a lot of human interest, particularly in the wake of all this. It may feel a little dirty but if we can get some good out of all this, we should go for it.

It doesn't feel dirty at all. This is a great idea, because of a reason I think you had in mind but failed to emphasize: Taking advantage of this press and having reporters at a nationals event would demonstrate to the outside world the things that are good or awesome about quizbowl, which even in light of all these events I think very few us would dispute completely outweigh the negativity that a cheating scandal can bring. That's why we're all still here, talking about how we can prevent things like these in the future. So the reason I mentioned above is: Exposing what's great about quizbowl and why we love it can do a lot of redemptive work toward how the public might perceive quizbowl based on the negative press we're getting right now.

I'd also say that ICT is better than ACF Nationals for impressing reporters, because of things like it looking, at least superficially, more official and organized, it being hosted at a hotel convention center, shorter questions, etc.

gyre and gimble wrote:

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:

Kooikerhondje wrote:No offense, but does anybody really care what the details of quizbowl are? It's not especially apropos the news story, and I certainly hope we don't plan to do outreach through this event.

EDIT: I do think we should ask them to attend a national tournament though.

Well, I think asking them to attend a national tournament would be a form of outreach, depending on how you use that word. I don't mean to ask them to write an uber-detailed article about how a quizbowl question works, but I think ICT legitimately has a lot of human interest, particularly in the wake of all this. It may feel a little dirty but if we can get some good out of all this, we should go for it.

It doesn't feel dirty at all. This is a great idea, because of a reason I think you had in mind but failed to emphasize: Taking advantage of this press and having reporters at a nationals event would demonstrate to the outside world the things that are good or awesome about quizbowl, which even in light of all these events I think very few us would dispute completely outweigh the negativity that a cheating scandal can bring. That's why we're all still here, talking about how we can prevent things like these in the future. So the reason I mentioned above is: Exposing what's great about quizbowl and why we love it can do a lot of redemptive work toward how the public might perceive quizbowl based on the negative press we're getting right now.

I'd also say that ICT is better than ACF Nationals for impressing reporters, because of things like it looking, at least superficially, more official and organized, it being hosted at a hotel convention center, shorter questions, etc.

Yeah, this is all good stuff that I had in mind, but you put very well. I'm writing up a preliminary release now and plan on sharing it with a couple people--other volunteers are very much welcome.

P.S.: Your quote about the awesome stuff about quizbowl is great, and I hope you don't mind if I include it.

Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/ ... 8G20130322

Radio show featuring Andrew Hart: http://www.kfan.com/player/?station=KFX ... d=23014341

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:Yeah, this is all good stuff that I had in mind, but you put very well. I'm writing up a preliminary release now and plan on sharing it with a couple people--other volunteers are very much welcome.

P.S.: Your quote about the awesome stuff about quizbowl is great, and I hope you don't mind if I include it.

Yeah, go for it. Though I think the bit about how this scandal doesn't affect our (at least most of us) willingness to continue participating in an activity we love was the more meaningful part of my post.

NESN: http://nesn.com/2013/03/harvard-strippe ... g-scandal/

Star-Tribune with comments from Hart and Cheyne: http://www.startribune.com/local/199636 ... =news-stmp

Daily Mail lol: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml (another achievement unlocked here)

The article from Bloomberg has been printed on the Toronto Star's website, so the news has made it to Canada as well.

Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant wrote:Radio show featuring Andrew Hart: http://www.kfan.com/player/?station=KFX ... d=23014341

The Andrew Hart part begins at 14:16.

Hey guys, the error-ridden Atlantic Wire article was reposted a few times, like http://news.yahoo.com/harvard-sullied-i ... 06334.html. While the original article added a correction at the end they didn't take the time to ask the other sites to fix their errors. Could someone ask the author to track down these reposts so they reflect accurate information? I'd do it myself, if you know, I wasn't one of the three people mistakenly implicated by the errors.

And I don't see that many new articles coming out on this, but it would be great for NAQT to make a clarification statement like Matt Jackson suggested somewhere earlier.

Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant wrote:Radio show featuring Andrew Hart: http://www.kfan.com/player/?station=KFX ... d=23014341

Andrew Hart allegedly has swag. Can someone confirm this?

gyre and gimble wrote:Hey guys, the error-ridden Atlantic Wire article was reposted a few times, like http://news.yahoo.com/harvard-sullied-i ... 06334.html. While the original article added a correction at the end they didn't take the time to ask the other sites to fix their errors. Could someone ask the author to track down these reposts so they reflect accurate information? I'd do it myself, if you know, I wasn't one of the three people mistakenly implicated by the errors.

And I don't see that many new articles coming out on this, but it would be great for NAQT to make a clarification statement like Matt Jackson suggested somewhere earlier.

It would be nice for NAQT or some other authority (maybe a Minnesota player?) to clarify this with the reporting entities, since it would really stink if this misinformation persisted.

This flurry of news articles has come full circle. We started at the shitty sensationalist blog network owned by a Brit, and ended with the shitty sensationalist British tabloid. Not counting the initial Inside Higher Ed piece I mean.

I posted a correction about the lack of culpability from the rest of the Harvard players on the Atlantic article as soon as I saw it (it's under my real name so you can verify it, despite my apparent "hatred" of Harvard or whatever). You can all make sure people know the real story by commenting on the articles now while you wait for the corrections sent in to the source to be incorporated.

I will stress that in the only major interview I've given on the subject (the Minneapolis Star Tribune), I tried to specifically point out the rest of the Harvard players, several of which I consider friends, were innocent. I did not give a full statement to the Higher Ed interview so I apologize if that sounded a bit curt but I was in a hurry and the interviewer did not really identify himself that clearly in my opinion. If I am contacted for any more comments, I will again stress that it was only Andy (and the rest of the cheaters) as the guilty party.

Matt Weiner wrote:I posted a correction about the lack of culpability from the rest of the Harvard players on the Atlantic article as soon as I saw it (it's under my real name so you can verify it, despite my apparent "hatred" of Harvard or whatever). You can all make sure people know the real story by commenting on the articles now while you wait for the corrections sent in to the source to be incorporated.

I did see that and I appreciate it, as I do the efforts of everyone else lending a hand to keep this under control.

I also checked out this podcast...does the state of Minnesota have some sort of apologetic complex about vacated sports victories, or is it just this guy? He seems so awed that this time Minnesota wasn't the one giving up victories. I've personally never even heard of the opposite case. I was also amused that he thinks people are rioting at the library and banners are supposed to go up somewhere. The Minnesota team should get this going.

I tweeted @jktrotter because that's a pretty egregious mistake to make.

merv1618 wrote:What kind of attention/reputation do you think quiz bowl in general will get because of all this mess?

It's not important unless it's important enough to cheat in. This legitimizes quiz bowl. Maybe?

gyre and gimble wrote: I also checked out this podcast...does the state of Minnesota have some sort of apologetic complex about vacated sports victories, or is it just this guy? He seems so awed that this time Minnesota wasn't the one giving up victories. I've personally never even heard of the opposite case. I was also amused that he thinks people are rioting at the library and banners are supposed to go up somewhere. The Minnesota team should get this going.

Minnesota had all of their wins for a few years in the late 90s (including their Final 4 run in '97) in men's basketball vacated due to some very, very bad academic fraud.

Northern Central Railway wrote:

gyre and gimble wrote: I also checked out this podcast...does the state of Minnesota have some sort of apologetic complex about vacated sports victories, or is it just this guy? He seems so awed that this time Minnesota wasn't the one giving up victories. I've personally never even heard of the opposite case. I was also amused that he thinks people are rioting at the library and banners are supposed to go up somewhere. The Minnesota team should get this going.

Minnesota had all of their wins for a few years in the late 90s (including their Final 4 run in '97) in men's basketball vacated due to some very, very bad academic fraud.

Google the head of Cal Mark Yudof.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/ ... es-titles/

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/0 ... story.html

The first, understandably, focused on Harvard but I wish the Globe had done a little more to celebrate Minnesota's and Chicago's wins. Overall though, I think these articles are the most accurate and well-informed so far, especially the Globe's which got perspectives from people who weren't directly involved (namely, Matt's). As far as I can tell, the only mistakes in these are the Crimson saying I'm the current president of Harvard Quizbowl.

Brief mention on HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/2 ... ef=college

(Edit: Oh dear heavens, quiz bowls...)

~T~

tiwonge wrote:

merv1618 wrote:What kind of attention/reputation do you think quiz bowl in general will get because of all this mess?

It's not important unless it's important enough to cheat in. This legitimizes quiz bowl. Maybe?

Yeah, I agree with this. Maybe my personal euphoria* about all of this exacerbates my contrarianism, but this is a net positive for quizbowl. This is a dramatic and interesting story that shows quizbowl is a real, formal, competitive activity. Even if people's first impression is that the activity is so competitive it drives people to cheat, that's a way more publicity-friendly angle than pious, this-game-is-about-learning homilies that are boring and lame. And any publicity is good publicity: I've explained the basics of quizbowl to probably a dozen people by now and not even through media.

*I was going to post this in the Venting thread, but I'm not really even mad about any of this. Of course, I agree with Mike that nothing now can really recapture the moment itself (I particularly miss not drinking deep of that divinest anguish of the audience's Chicago-hatred), but even as an affected party I'm pretty much just happy.

The story was mentioned on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning. I don't have a link yet, but I'll try to find one.

EDIT: my father told me it was mentioned; he may have thought a reference to the test scandal from last year was a reference to this. I'll check to make sure, but it seems he was mistaken.

The publicity is almost certainly good *for* quizbowl, in that it will probably help "recruiting" somewhat and provide more exposure for the activity. That's great!

I do not know if it is good for ex-quizbowlers who put the fact that they used to captain a team/founded a student organization on a resume, because if the only thing an employer has in their mind about quizbowl is "people cheat at that" it might cause certain (stupid) assumptions to come into play. I got a question from a co-worker yesterday that went "You used to do quizbowl, right? Are quizbowlers really cutthroat or what?" I don't like the assumptions there. It's not a big deal and I wouldn't put myself in the hat of "people hurt by Andy Watkins," but I did not enjoy it and I expect some more of it next week.

That said, the stuff that's been quoted from non-Andy Watkins in the media so far has been awesome and y'all are doing great.

I think if I updated with the url's to ALL the coverage at this point I'd be over the character limit. Dunno if there is some good way to organize 'em

Here is AOL video's coverage, with what looks like some bits from an ABC 5 station bit on it, stationary video of NAQT's webpage and captioning of Watkins' NAQT statement.

http://on.aol.com/video/harvard-student ... -517720171

But is there a Taiwanese news video yet?

I wonder if this were translated into other languages what mistakes they'd make...

Also, anyone DVR'ing Harvard's tournament game tonight?

non-media, but apparently MMA forum-goers weighing in with a poll etc http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/showth ... p=81170839

Rothlover wrote:non-media, but apparently MMA forum-goers weighing in with a poll etc http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/showth ... p=81170839

We've hit peak surrealism.

Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:But is there a Taiwanese news video yet?

I can't wait to see NMA quizbowl animations!

For what it's worth, this story is about 50 minutes away from being totally irrelevant to the outside world.

Reddit, (on which Watkins is a user) http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1 ... nt_titles/

Harvard needs a 22-0 run with 4 minutes on the clock. Only one Harvarder I know has that kind of magic in him...

Chronicle of Higher Ed blog - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/ha ... in-advance

Matt Weiner wrote:I posted a correction about the lack of culpability from the rest of the Harvard players on the Atlantic article as soon as I saw it (it's under my real name so you can verify it, despite my apparent "hatred" of Harvard or whatever). You can all make sure people know the real story by commenting on the articles now while you wait for the corrections sent in to the source to be incorporated.

Thanks for doing this. I was disappointed that NAQT didn't put greater emphasis on the fact that the rest of the team were innocent.

Also, I think it was bad form that NAQT did not even send me an email notifying me about the situation, so I didn't have to learn that I had lost my title from a fucking Gawker article posted on the Harvard quizbowl email list.