MSU Spent $500k in January to Monitor Nassar Case on Social Media

Michigan State University spent over $500,000 in January to monitor social media posts surrounding the Larry Nassar case, according to the Lansing State Journal. As of March, the university had been billed a total of $9.69 million by “law firms and consulting firms in connection with work on lawsuits or communications strategy related to Nassar's criminal case and related fallout,” the newspaper calculated. Weber Shandwick, a New York-based PR firm, was tasked with “collecting and evaluating news articles” as well as collecting “accounts of victims and their families, journalists, celebrities and politicians.” In documents obtained by the Journal, the firm logged 1,440 hours of work totaling $517,343. Eighteen different Weber Shandwick employees worked for MSU. This comes after Larry Nassar’s boss was also found to have committed sex crimes, according to authorities.