We’re back again to examine more bad aggregation. This week’s column will cover aggregation missteps (poor/no sourcing, misrepresentation, and more) from Sept. 6-13.
5. @SportsCenter Instagram account takes one line of Kyler Murray’s quote, gets bashed by Cardinals’ SVP
The amount of context to provide with something can be difficult, especially on social media platforms like X/Twitter and Instagram that often reward brevity and snappy quotes. But the way ESPN’s @SportsCenter Instagram account (as with their X account , often known for questionable moves in the Omar Raja-led era ) took a quote from Arizona Cardinals’ quarterback Kyler Murray got ripped by Cardinals’ senior vice president (media relations) Mark Dalton:
Here’s that actual Instagram post, which did feature the video of Murray’s response, but as the second image that many won’t click through to. It also featured just a tag for the Cardinals’ Instagram account.
The full context of Murray’s quote there is notable for him saying who gets the ball is on his offensive coordinator and the called plays. That doesn’t necessarily make the one-sentence aggregation fully wrong; most reasonable people would probably assume that Murray was not saying his job isn’t to throw the football, but rather that he’s executing the plays he’s given and throwing to the open receivers in read order under those plays, and the sentence alone doesn’t contradict the fuller comment. But this was a case where the fuller context certainly is more helpful than the one-sentence aggregation, and it’s understandable why Dalton took some exception to that move from the high-profile @SportsCenter account.
Rating: **
4. JPA Football tweets “TYREEK HILL SCORES A TOUCHDOWN AND PUTS THE HANDCUFFS ON” for video not showing that
One of the wildest stories Sunday came from Miami Dolphins’ receiver Tyreek Hill being detained and handcuffed by police outside of their stadium. Then, during their win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Hill celebrated a long touchdown catch by pretending to put invisible handcuffs on and having teammate Jaylen Waddle “unlock” them. However, one of the most widely-shared accounts of that, from JPA Football, featured a video clip that cut off before the handcuffs, but a description suggesting it had that:
The CBS broadcast actually didn’t fully catch this. However, it caught more of it than shows up in the above clip. This 19-second clip from the actual NFL account goes a few seconds longer than the one JPA Football shared, and it shows the start of Hill’s handcuff celebration at 0:18 before the cut:
And the celebration can be seen more fully in video from the stands, like this from Carlos Gil:
The JPA Football account wasn’t wrong that Hill did do a handcuff celebration. But it wasn’t great to tweet that in a way making it look like the handcuff celebration was in the attached video when it wasn’t.
Rating: ***
3. Barstool Sports doesn’t update Deion Sanders song report after Joel Klatt pushback
One of the big problems with aggregation, even aggregation that’s done well, is not picking up on changes to the initial report. That happened with Barstool Sports’ “Big Tennessee” writing about a DenverSports.com (the website of local radio station 104.3 The Fan) piece from Jake Shapiro after the Colorado Buffaloes’ loss to Nebraska, with Shapiro’s original piece headlined “Deion Sanders’ style had nothing for Matt Rhule’s substance.” One note in there sparked particular aggregation, with Shapiro writing that Colorado head coach Deion Sanders told the band not to play their fight song after his son Shedeur scores in favor of playing Shedeur’s rap single:
That tweet includes a link to Shapiro’s piece in a following tweet, and the Barstool piece on this (titled “Deion Sanders Reportedly Told the Colorado Band It Can’t Play the Fight Song After Shedeur Sanders Throws a Touchdown Pass so the Stadium Can Play His Rap Song Instead”) also properly linked it, so there’s no issue there. But the problem is that Shapiro’s report is, at the very least, not completely correct. And Fox Sports analyst (and Buffaloes’ alum) Joel Klatt notably called out the Barstool Sports account for that:
Of course, the picture is a little more murky than that might make it sound, as Klatt’s colleague Brady Quinn noted:
Colorado eventually put out a statement saying “This is not true” when it comes to the part about Deion asking the band not to play the fight song and the fight song not being heard in the stadium, but their statement noted that there is a pause before that song for “a small snippet of” Shedeur’s rap song (and a similar practice for kicker Alejandro Mata’s selected song):
Deion Sanders then went off on this during a press conference with “That’s idiotic. Y’all know that. When you saw that, you know that was a lie. We gotta start having some accountability for this.” The level of that response can be criticized considering that Shapiro’s line here was partly correct (the “snippet” of Shedeur’s song plays immediately after his touchdowns, with the fight song only following that), but Sanders is correct to note that Shapiro’s piece at the very least omits that the band does still play the fight song, just on delay.
Curiously, DenverSports.com has not updated Shapiro’s piece with any of that context, or any of the responses from Colorado and Sanders. But, more importantly from the bad aggregation standpoint, Barstool has not updated their piece despite the high-profile pushback on it from the likes of Klatt and Sanders. The initial aggregation here was reasonable, but the story has evolved since then, and that should be noted. (It’s worth mentioning that other outlets that picked this up, such as Sports Illustrated ‘s FanNation Colorado site , did appropriately update their pieces.)
Rating: ****
2. Colin Cowherd discusses fake Travis Kelce tweet on air
Radio and/or television discussions of tweets often come with some aggregation problems, as they can’t include an actual link to the source. This is particularly bad when it comes to spreading misinformation, as viewers or listeners have to rely on the hosts on if the information they’re seeing and sharing is accurate. And this has led to a lot of shows spreading misinformation on air, with the sources there ranging from fake player accounts to fake insider accounts . The latest case of that came from Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd sharing a supposed Travis Kelce response to a ( real ) Elon Musk tweet, one already extensively debunked by organizations including Snopes (which confirmed via DM with the originator he made this up):
This is not the first time Cowherd has shared inaccurate information on his show , and not even the first time this week . But this one stood out as particularly bad aggregation of a widely-debunked fake tweet.
Rating: *****
1. Grok claims ESPN fired Shannon Sharpe
X/Twitter AI program Grok has been remarkable for all the facts its summaries get wrong, from Mike Gundy quotes to Bronny James memes to game stats and scores and beyond . Its latest misstep? Claiming Thursday that ESPN was going to fire Shannon Sharpe over the sexy broadcast on his Instagram Live, even while aggregating tweets that said the ( true ) opposite:
Grok can make mistakes indeed. We’ll see how the new Grok-powered segments work out for Pat McAfee.
Rating: *****
Aggregator standings (these are bad):
@_MLFootball: 23
@NFL_DovKleiman: 15
@SKProFootball: 15
X/Grok: 8
Colin Cowherd: 5
@jasrifootball: 5
Redditor @thefortitude: 5
@GolazoAmerica: 5
@Spotify_Swift: 5
Barstool Sports: 4
Fan Recap: 4
@SleeperNFL: 3
@PHLEaglesNation: 3
@DiscussingFilm: 3
@CBSSportsGolazo: 3
@BR_Betting: 3
@SportsCenter: 2
@TheDunkCentral: 2
Aggregation subject standings (these are not bad):
@TheABinKC: 5
@TheDunkCentral: 5
Kent Babb/ The Washington Post : 5
Pat Brennan/ The Cincinnati Enquirer : 5
AFP: 5
Reuters: 5
The U.S. Sun: 5
Mark Craig/ The (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune : 5
Mike Florio/Pro Football Talk: 5
Mike Silver/ The San Francisco Chronicle : 5
DenverSports.com: 4
TWSN: 4
@AryePulli: 3
Big Play Slay : 3
The 25/10 Show : 3
Deadline: 3
Ryan Michael: 3
Tom Fornelli/CBS Sports: 3
Natasha Dye/ People : 2
Clarence Hill/ The Fort Worth Star-Telegram : 2
@AZCardinals: 2
Thanks for reading This Week In Bad Aggregation! User submissions are always welcome via e-mail or Twitter .
The post This Week In Bad Aggregation: Grok claims Shannon Sharpe was fired, Colin Cowherd cites fake Travis Kelce tweet appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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