ESPN Ombudsman points out failings in Leach commentary
For anyone still interested in the Leach situation - or in ESPN being held somewhat accountable for their standard of journalism - this piece on the biased Alamo Bowl commentary is pretty good.
over 2 years ago
britishbruin
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ESPN Ombudsman
I read the column and thought that it was well reasoned. Clearly the whole situation was a minefield with ESPN’s inherent conflicts of interest, and unsurprisingly ESPN seems to have done a mediocre job handling the delicate situation.
The bigger issue I see with ESPN is that it purports to be a “news” organization. SportsCenter and those shows “report” on the news whereas the telecasts of games do not necessarily affect the in game outcome, but the production and commentary shape the experience of the viewer. Their game telecasts create the news to a certain extent. My problem with ESPN is that they pretend to be a news organization when in fact they are a sporting event promotion, marketing, production, and distribution organization. What does the acronym stand for? Entertainment sports programming network. Say what you will about the 24-hour news channels, but they state from the get-go that they are all about newness i.e. CNN is Cable News Network and Fox news.
All in all it is really neat that ESPN has an ombudsman writing columns, but they are the same organization with the same priorities and structure.
Ed - you have the bigger issue nailed down
It’s something we have discussed before. The way ESPN has MTVized sports broadcasting has been toxic and hasn’t had a net positive impact on sports. It’s a big reason I often find NBA unwatchable, baseball boring (it was always kind of boring to begin with) and general cynicism on how these guys cover other sports.
This is the same network that has looked the other way when figures like Carroll and Calapari poisoned their respective sport. For them it is all about ratings and a good story. That is why they have no problem looking the other way anointing the Trojan’s as the Decade’s greatest team even though it was most likely built on a pile of illegal cash.
Back in the 80s and even early 90s I couldn’t wait to watch SportsCenters, college pre game shows and the way they covered sports. It has all gone wrong number of ways in recent years but MTVization of sports is a big part of it.
The Ombudsman piece is nice but he is not addressing the elephant in the room (not to mention what Shelly Smith did two weeks ago).
Guilty Pleasure
I rarely watch any pre-game or post-game “analysis” because it is mostly fluff. They throw out nonsense statistics and unsupported opinions (Unlike the fantastic work I regularly see here on BN). The loudest person wins. Case in point why does every NFL show have a loudmouth wide receiver filling the “recent former player” slot?
My main guilty pleasure though is watching Lee Corso make his final pick on College game Day. He likes to ham it up and put on some kind of mascot paraphernalia for his pick. In my head I know that it is obnoxious and silly, but it makes me laugh. That “tradition” epitomizes ESPN. Rile up the crowd. Make some folks laugh. Quick segue to the game.
A couple of quick points N
Your post brought some thoughts into my head, a couple I wanted to share briefly:
1. MTV sucks. MTV used to be great when I was a kid. When they were original and all they did was play music videos. That was the entire freakin’ point: it was Music Television. It was all music, all the time. They incorporated some shows, like Beavis and Butthead, but even then, the shows were about music (every B&B had them watching music videos and saying how it sucked or rocked). Now? MTV has next to no music and a lot of crappy shows that pander to the lowest forms of entertainment (read: Jersey Shore). ESPN has followed the MTV model (going from original ideas and programming to pandering to idiotic masses). Now, ESPN also sucks.
2. I hear a lot of chatter about how U$C is the team of the decade, or the greatest college program of the decade. How the f**k does that happen? When I think of teams of the decade, I think of a dynasty. You know, like the Steelers in the 1970s, the 49ers in the 1980s, the Cowboys in the 1990s. Those teams either won it all or came real close every year in those respective decades. You know, teams that are consistent champions.
U$C? From the 2000 season to the end of the present season, they have appeared in exactly two BCS NC games. They beat Oklahoma at the conclusion of the 2004 season to win it all. They lost to Vince Young and the Horns at the end of the 2005 season.
Two title game appearances in a ten season span. Oklahoma appeared in more title games, winning in 2000, but falling just short in 2003, 2004, and 2008. LSU and Florida actually brought more than one title home in the decade (LSU in 2003 and 2007, Florida in 2006 and 2008). Hell, even Ohio State is more deserving than U$C. They won it all in 2002, and made it to the title game (to fall short) in 2006 and 2007. Texas is on par with U$C, winning it all once, then going down to Alabama. Yet, I don’t hear a lot of talk of the Longhorns being the team of the decade.
I mean, seriously, they dominated a Pac-10 that had no real parity until the last few seasons. Big deal. They won one title. One. So where does all this “dynasty” talk come from?
It’s ridiculous, but the WWL and the morons at the LAT need to spin U$C as the “team of the decade” because it’s in their financial self-interest to do so (second largest media market in the U.S.).
But this is what we should expect from a “news” organization that employs a complete hack moron like Shelly Smith.
by Bellerophon on Jan 24, 2010 11:33 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah
MTV, used to watch it all the time until they stopped playing tunes. I have no idea what channel MTV is on these days. I don’t even care.
As for Southern Cal, yeah the WWL constant pimping of them is just hilarious (and ridiculous at the same time). One factor to keep in mind re. Trojans’ "success’ in last decade. Not only it was (allegedly) fueled by piles of illegal cash, they got a huge assistant from the incompetent Karl Dorrell, who basically ceded the entire recruiting turf while he was in LA.
They are also using the OJans to hype their
ESPN Los Angeles subsection. Since LA doesn’t have an NFL team, they are the closest thing to it, so hyping them up to get ratings and hits has more to do with business than anything else. It would probably be more intense if the Lakers weren’t the top NBA team. The whole thing stinks out loud, as much as we in the Pac-10 would like more coverage on the west coast, proping this bunch of cheaters as legitimate is just irresponsible.
"UCLA is a special place to call home"
by S Jay Bruin on Jan 25, 2010 10:18 AM PST up reply actions
I agree
He went on and on and on, but said nothing. A great lawyer I know used to say “Thank you for giving us all that information, but could you answer the question. Was ESPN out of line with its coverage of the Leach situation?” He never answered that. He figured that if he just went on long enough, you would forget the issue.
I mentioned at Double T Nation that I the response was basically all sophistry.
What concerns me is the sense that "news" is now a "product."
Granted, it’s been like this and heading to this for the better part of, oh, DECADES, but it is still worth considerable concern.
Until Fox or Comcast or someone else challenges the all-powerful WWL, which has exclusive contracts with the FBS, ACC basketball, Monday Night Football, etc., etc., etc.I sincerely doubt that any good-faith-balanced sports reporting on a national scale will be impossible.
Sports media, just like political media (i.e. Fox vs. MSNBC, with CNN trying to toe the middle-line) will just be more and more polairzed.
In the days of three major networks, news organizations were obligated to present more balanced analysis (to mixed results), by sheer circumstance as well as doctrine, BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE WAS ON.
Now, the entire cable TV spectrum is the equivalent of an enormous newspaper… and everyone simply looks atthe page (i.e., channel) they want, and discard the rest.
Just our luck, though, ESPN is the only writer, the only columnist, and the only photographer for the sports section.
By analogy, ESPN is Plaschke. We need a Murray, a Malamud, a Krikorian, a Brady, an Adande (one not on WWL payroll) — we need VOICES.
M
"In this program your passion bucket must be full to play SC." -- CRN, to Dan Patrick, 1/2008
Interesting comparison to Fox News
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show did an interesting piece on the symbiotic relationship between Fox’s ‘news’ and ‘opinion’ shows (as they claim that their ‘opinion’ shows shouldn’t be expected to be neutral about important issues of the day).
Basically boiled down to, Fox News first reports some fact. The opinion show then puts a big spin on it. The next news show then makes comments like “some are saying that….”, so that now in the ‘fair and balanced’ news section they are essentially sourcing their own opinion show and getting the message out there… and so it continues. Similarly, ESPN ‘commentators’ seem more at liberty to report things in a one-sided fashion and add throw away accusations as ‘color’, while the News people tend to present things in a more balanced way… anyone remember Dickie V announcing CNC on his way to $C?
I actually think kudos is due to ESPN for having an ombudsman, given their essential monopoly in their field. I’m not sure there is any need for him to come out and say ‘this is wrong’ when he lays out all the ways in which ESPN could have done better with it. I appreciate that they have a specific forum on their site in which they give someone full space to write up criticism of ESPN itself.
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