Another chink in the armor at ESPN

I've told this story before, but years ago in a newscast we ran some feel-good story involving a car dealership. We came out of that story tossing to the sports segment.

News anchor: That's a great thing they're doing.
Sports anchor: Eh, all car dealers are sleazy.

The General Manager suspended the sports guy for two weeks. When he returned, he had to hand-write letters of apology to every car dealer who had done business with the station.

When the last letter was mailed out, he got fired.

 

That was intentional, right?

 

We had a story set to run several years ago about how a local fast-food joint was erroneously charging extra sales tax (we were a suburb, the state sales tax was 5% at the time, but the large metro city in the area assessed an extra 1% to pay for a long-since-blown-up stadium, and the restaurant charged the larger rate despite not being in the city). The publisher spiked the story because he was afraid it would make the new business angry and not want to advertise. Then, every time for the next week he walked through the newsroom and the reporter was there, he would make snarky comments about "those extra three cents." To my knowledge, that restaurant has NEVER bought an ad in the newspaper.

What has been alarming is that, in the area I work, one minor league team gets a disproportionately large amount of coverage in the major metro compared to other minor league teams (whose sports have been significantly more established in the market and have established fan bases), and the paper carries its water when it lobbies the legislature for a stadium deal, et al. Turns out said team spends a small fortune in advertising with the newspaper. The other teams don't. It's clearly pay-for-play.

 

He deserved it.

 

Sportscaster should have gotten his money's worth, picked out the car dealer he hated the most, and said the man has been having sex with teenagers for 10 years.

If you're going to get fired for saying something, don't go half-assed.

 

They should just scrap the website altogether and make the website what it's slowly turning into....Stephen A. talks for two minutes about something.

But they should just let him run wild with it.

"Stephen A. Thinks Pepperidge Farm Cookies Are the Greatest And Chips Ahoy Should Apologize"
"Stephen A. Reads His Grocery List"
"Stephen A. Stuffs Max Kellerman in a Trunk and Won't Let Him Out Until He Swears Fealty"

 

Pathetic. A newsroom that compromises its integrity doesn't deserve to last, IMO.

I may have told this story before, but years ago one of our advertisers threatened to pull advertising and sue the paper I worked for because I had written something unflattering but true about the advertiser's daughter. It wasn't a vindictive hit piece, it was merely a mention of something she did within a larger story.

After seeing that I had my facts straight, my executive editor essentially told the advertiser to piss off. To no one's surprise, the advertiser backed down, never sued and never pulled advertising.

Advertising in the in the paper doesn't give anyone a right to direct coverage.

 

And, here we go again.

 

Shoot, everyone knows Capt. Luck fought for the Northerners.

 

Especially after they moved from a border state to fucking Indiana, Indiana...

 

Best auto commercial ever.