Meet the Girl Accused of Catfishing Management 360

48.92K

Beejoli Shah

09/04/13 03:37PM

Filed to: impostors

USC alumna Kelly Speca is the girl at the center of a catfishing scandal targeting Beverly Hills-based management company, Management 360.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Management 360 fired a mailroom worker last month after accusing her of concocting over a dozen fake e-mail accounts and posing as industry movers and shakers in an effort to raise her profile at the management company. The alleged falsified celebrity connections included Christopher Nolan, Behati Prinsloo (the future Mrs. Adam Levine), and Anthony Kiedis. According to the Reporter, the e-mails were used for both networking and flirting with superiors, but it was one tall tale about housesitting for David Fincher that ultimately blew her cover.

The Reporter did not report Speca's name, but multiple sources within Management 360 and former employees who work with Speca have confirmed to Defamer that it was indeed her. A quick search for Speca on LinkedIn reveals a recently scrubbed profile for 'Kelly S.' - former companies include Management 360, HBO, Legendary Entertainment, AMC, Fox, and FX, just to name a few.

In addition to her entertainment aspirations, Speca, a transfer student who majored in Narrative Studies, was also a reporter for The Daily Trojan—posting articles on Libya, faith-based politics, and a fur ban in West Hollywood—and a volunteer for the Museum of Tolerance.

We reached out to both Management 360 and Speca, both of whom declined to comment.

3

JazzJedi Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 04:51PM

So is it awkward that I knew this girl when she interned at the same company as I did last summer?

Beejoli Shah JazzJedi 09/04/13 05:39PM

I hear from other bosses she's had at internships that she was quite lovely at all of her internships, and really good at her job/going places. Which makes this even more heartbreaking - she would have been a rockstar regardless.

JazzJedi Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 05:43PM

Yeah her LinkedIn has multiple endorsements from important people that seem to be glowing praise. I imagine it can't be faked when you have a review from the President and Chief Creative Officer at Legendary Entertainment.

She was an interesting individual to be sure. I would have assumed she was going to do pretty well! This news was kind of shocking

1

skahammer Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 03:43PM

That's a curious list of celebrities to impersonate — some real stretch goals on there (Nolan, Fincher). But I suppose there was an underlying logic.

If you were running this scam yourself, which celebrities would you choose instead, for maximum believability and impact. I figure you could attribute anything to Alec Baldwin, for example, and no one would bat an eyelash.

5

Beejoli Shah skahammer 09/04/13 04:20PM

Well, Corey Feldman, obviously.

1

skahammer Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 04:22PM

Now you're talking.

I'll add Courtney Love to the list.

7

CurtRoland Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 03:51PM

I'm never going to understand Journalism 2013. They write a story. You kindly provide a link to their story but still write a shortened version of their story. Totally fair within today's news org "rules" and "standards"...but 1) How is that good for an industry that needs profits; 2) how can any industry sustain that as a model?; 3) what incentive does any news org have to create great stuff when others can just reimagine it? Isn't it only fair to give us the headline and then simply give us the link to their story? What gives you the right to "recap"...and by "recap," I mean simply telling us everything they reported.

7

Beejoli Shah CurtRoland 09/04/13 04:07PM

1. Different angles (our story wasn't just on the specifics, but on a larger piece of the puzzle THR didn't report).

2. If news outlets didn't cover the same stories, there would be on news outlet total and I may not be a Cold War kid, but I'd prefer not to live in Communist Russia where newspaper reads you, thanks.

3. Not everyone reads every news outlet ever, so it stands to reason that covering interesting pieces that ones own readership might be into is still a good business practice.

But to each their own media consumption habits.

3

JAC CurtRoland 09/04/13 05:51PM

This model can be viewed as a form of publicity for the original journalism.

Instead of talking about the piece by the water cooler or at lunch, a blogger does so on the internet ... and provides a convenient link to the original source. For free to the original source.

As Beejoli suggests in the third point of her own response to you, blogging can serve as a news aggregation: a person finds a blog that covers an area of interest for him/her, and goes to that blog as a centralized source for news of interest. The person can then click on links to the original news pieces. Many of the pieces are those which the person would not have the time to find or even awareness to search for.

1

CurtRoland JAC 09/04/13 06:08PM

1) It absolutely can serve as aggregation...if it's aggregation. So if the author says: "Hey guys, go to this story" — and that's it — then that's perfect. That's the definition of aggregation. For instance...Drudge links the headline. That's it. Then the original news creator gets the clicks, ads, eyeballs. That's totally legit, fair and appropriate. What happened here, however, is this: Someone read a story...and then rewrote the story. With a link provided in order to make them feel better about rewriting said story.

2) Water cooler example isn't quite accurate. My buddies and I talking in the lunchroom about a story isn't for a profit. This site is for profit. So re-reporting is done so with the hopes that people come HERE instead of THERE.

1

JAC CurtRoland 09/04/13 06:18PM

Your misgivings seem to come down to one question: whether this model deprives the original sources of revenue.

Internet clicking is not a zero sum game. As I mentioned, for some people a blog is more a gateway to find and click on links to the original sources.

You're apparently suggesting that, on balance, the original sources lose clicks due to people clicking on a blog, reading the piece there, and not going to the original link.

I'm suggesting that perhaps the original source gets a net gain in clicks. The blog may expose enough more people to the story - and the original source link provided therein - that the original source actually benefits by more clicks than it would have received had the blog not featured the story and provided the link.

I do not know how the numbers crunch; blogging/journalism aren't my industry.

1

CurtRoland JAC 09/04/13 06:23PM

I am fine with what the author did. It's within the rules. But if the rules don't change, then journalism is doomed. Not fake doomed. Not snarky doomed. Truly doomed.

1

JAC CurtRoland 09/04/13 06:32PM

How so?

If blogging does result in a net increase of people viewing the original news sources by clicking on the links, then isn't blogging serving to feed and water the original journalism?

(ETA: On a side note, it's worth noting that Beejoli Shah's work often includes some original journalism of her own, as someone else observed in this thread.)

1

CurtRoland JAC 09/04/13 06:34PM

How's that working out so far for the industry?

JAC CurtRoland 09/04/13 06:36PM

It's your concern; you raised it - so you tell me.

As I already mentioned, I don't know how the numbers crunch on the net effect of blogs providing original links.

1

CurtRoland JAC 09/04/13 06:50PM

It all looks great on paper. Sharing, spreading the word, finding gems, passing them along.

But everyone's rewriting everyone else. And in this case, the process was extremely transparent: Person with writer job finds Story X. Thinks Story X is interesting. Rewrites Story X (or, with your words, talks about Story X).

That might SOUND very sweet:"getting the word out" and "free publicity" — but again — that's not what this was. Getting the word out is this: "Hey everyone — I found a terrific story about a Hollywood agency. It's awesome, well crafted and beautifully written. You won't believe it. Here's the link to The Hollywood Reporter, and tell us what you think of it." Isn't that more fair? Doesn't that accomplish the same thing — without stealing the thunder?

And I believe you when you say you don't know the numbers, but you seem very astute and well educated. Are you really going to claim you don't know how bad a state the industry of journalism is in?

It's very simple: I write a story. The internet picks it up all over the world. So my story is diluted. That's bad business on any level. Journalism is a product, so let's replace it with something tangible. I make a cool belt. People make the exact same cool belt all over the world. Not just talk about it...MAKE it. So my cool belt isn't that special anymore, is it.

So here we are with Journalism 2013.

2

Beejoli Shah CurtRoland 09/05/13 03:22AM

I would like to point out, as mentioned, that much of this story was original work. I had to link to the THR story to provide some context, so that I wasn't giving you a resume rundown of a female you've never heard of a propos of nothing. The reporting on who the girl was entirely original and not sourced from any other website. So while I understand your complaint in theory, a very simple read of this article clearly lays out what information is contextually shared, and what is original.

To speak to your larger point about content aggregation vs. journalism, I've read all your points and they legitimately still don't entirely hold water for me. I don't pretend that what I'm doing here is pure journalism in any sense. But no article that's been posted by me has ever solely been a restatement of the facts - all news pieces have included a take on said facts, wherein the 'take' article is clearly differentiated from the original. The original article is absolutely the better place for a full breadth of the situation, but I would like to point out: many legitimate news outlets post articles without linking to the news article who broke the story first. At least here, you're choosing to read the author's view (if you so desire it), and then can go read the original article and form your own opinion. It's an entirely different model of content consumption from traditional journalism.

1

CurtRoland Beejoli Shah 09/05/13 11:06AM

This is why you are a decent human...because you understand your process. Too many journalists today yell, scream and argue about things. I like you because you are honest about the work...and that means a lot to readers like me.

6

ohnoshebettadont Beejoli Shah 09/04/13 03:45PM

Reading this story is pure entertainment 720.