What It's Like When The Media Circle Their Prey: A Collection Of Jim Tressel/OSU Public Records Requests

Back in March, Yahoo! broke the story that Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel knew his players were selling memorabilia in violation of NCAA regulations eight months before the school claimed it learned of the scheme. A media scrum ensued. A few days later, we sent Ohio State a public records request asking for the public records requests that other reporters have filed this year. Here's what we got.

There's nothing earth-shattering in there, though it's always interesting to see just how the buzzards circle. Most people are after the same sort of information. A few reporters zag as everyone else zigs. In particular, Joel Chow of WBNS-TV (page 10) gets a gold star for going after the lists of will call tickets. Nice idea, Joel. And Shaun Assael of ESPN (page 7 below) can only be applauded for following up on his colleague's request for all the other requests, similar to ours. Way to keep the pressure on, Shaun. We see you watching us watching you. Do you see us?