ESPN guilty of teller becoming the tale

[MylesKnight]

Good article. In my mind, ESPN is only good for two things, College Football & College Basketball Game Coverage.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=schreiber_leanne&id=3828530

[mckerney]

In my mind, ESPN is only good for two things, College Football & College Basketball Game Coverage.

Don't forget Mayne Street.

[RendeR]

Nice article.

[Logan]

She does a really nice job in her role, I look forward to her columns.

[JonInMiddleGA]

ESPN's job is to draw viewers for its advertisers, period.

Case by case here
1) The Mortensen thing sounds bad, but ultimately if his sources claimed so & so does anything change (other than the absence of a denial) by not calling the Raiders? No, so I'm struggling to see much of a foul here unless you're a fan of cliched responses that there's zero credibility for (even if the Raiders tell the truth, do you really believe them when they issue the stock denial?)

2) Cris Carter is simply pandering to one of the available audiences, that's what he's there to do. Don't want stuff like that on the air, don't put him on the show. And I find it almost amusing that this largely clueless ombudsman seems to think that anyone at ESPN outside of M&M and the show producer actually, you know, heard what he said before he repeated it with Tirico. Nobody sits around & airchecks shows in that kind of time, just doesn't happen.

3) Werder had sources that said what they said, so the story itself seems reasonable. Should they have followed up with a p.r. piece for T.O.? I wouldn't have, but they clearly made a conscious decision that they wanted that to happen rather than not have much else from one of the more quotable figures in sports so they played nice. I don't much like it but again, it's all about drawing viewers & I imagine they got more than their average share for the lovefest.

4) The NBA/college switcheroo kind of baffles me. It was a network promo, they crosspromoted it on another network show and frankly Vitale doing an NBA game is bigger news than an early January regular season contest.
If I had known he was doing it I might have even watched for a few minutes, which is more than I would have done/did otherwise. Completely much ado about nothing on this one I'm afraid.

[chesapeake]

Mortensen admitted fault because he did screw up. A reporter is only as good as his credibility, and a credible reporter provides the viewer with bith sides of a story.

Mort serves as both reporter and analyst, so if he, after reporting to the viewer what the Raiders' response was, says "I think the response was a load of crap," he would have satisfied the requirements of both worlds. It would have been good reporting because he provided you with what both sides were saying; and it would have been good analysis because the Raiders peddle a lot of crap.

[RainMaker]

It's a good article, but those things are just what ESPN wants. The Ed Werder situation brought them tons of publicity. Chris Carter is there link to a different demographic. The basketball switch was just ESPN promoting themselves over the game, something they want to do.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

LeAnn Schrieber is fantastic. She's a bone thrown out to all the people who care about how shitty ESPN is while ESPN gleefully continues to be shitty.

[chesapeake]

News is no longer news anywhere. It is all about entertainment.

That said, we're talking about a sports network, not a news channel. I find Fox News and CNN, who purport to be news networks, to be far more disturbing.

[Atocep]

LeAnn Schrieber is fantastic. She's a bone thrown out to all the people who care about how shitty ESPN is while ESPN gleefully continues to be shitty.

I agree she's fantastic. I believe she signed on for two years originally and that should be up soon. I hope she sticks around because her critiques of ESPN are better written than 99% of the other stuff ESPN has on their website.

I will say that ESPN seems to have changed a few things. Sportscenter is the first thing that comes to mind. They definitely scaled it back a bit from the direction they had it headed in a couple years ago and that was a big part of one her critiques. ESPNews is still the place to go if you want something at least somewhat close to the old Sportscenter, but at least you don't have to see musical guests and no more of the "who's now" bullshit.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

They did "The Greatest Highlight" last year with Berman embarrassingly recreating calls. They'll do something stupid again this year.

[Atocep]

ESPN's job is to draw viewers for its advertisers, period.


As long as they present themselves as sports news with real sports journalists I disagree. I know reality is different and so does everyone else. That doesn't give them a free pass for trying to present sports as if its professional wrestling instead of taking their duties as journalists seriously, though. Until they step up and admit they're not a real sports news network anymore they have every right to be called out for pulling the shit they pull.

[Atocep]

They did "The Greatest Highlight" last year with Berman embarrassingly recreating calls. They'll do something stupid again this year.


LeAnn Schrieber wrote about that in one of her monthly pieces and it was actually positvely received by most of the people that wrote to her.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

SportsCenter Mt. Rushmore of Sports

Duan!: Prepare For More In-Your-Face Rick Reilly Goodness (http://deadspin.com/5132556/prepare-for-more-in+your+face-rick-reilly-goodness)

Yes, more Rick Reilly!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Meanwhile, today I'm left scratching my head at why Bruce Springsteen graces the index page of espn.com .

Is the world of sports that devoid of any news?

I mean, if you want to go the politic route at least run with Tiger Woods first political appearance or whatever, at least that has some connection to sports.

[MikeVic]

ProFootballTalk.com - ESPN, FISH DECLINE INTERVIEW ON STEELERS AND HGH STORY (http://www.profootballtalk.com/2009/01/20/espn-fish-decline-interview-on-steelers-and-hgh-story/)