E:60 . . . every week there's some very good stories, and some fluff

Watching a rerun of last week's episode right now. Really like Nichols' story on the gymnastics kids and the abusive coach. Thought she hit the right tone, especially with the interviews of the youngsters.

Watching Smith's story on Darren McFadden right now. Stories like this one are why showing the reporters and producers discussing every single story isn't always a good thing.

Producer: I feel like I've seen this story before. What's different about this one?
Smith: Because his name is Darren McFadden!!

Yes, McFadden is a once-in-a-lifetime player; it's so rare to see a star running back go high in the NFL draft. Good to know that ESPN reporters can fall prey to the same hero worship as a rookie prep jockey.

And Smith further noted McFadden's troubles, said he wants to tell the story, "and maybe people can come away with a different view of McFadden." Yay, fluff piece.

Anyway, I usually am pretty impressed by this show, if only for the effort.

 

I haven't seen it, but I don't like that attitude of "I'm going to show a different side of him." You're a reporter, it's not up to what "side" of the subject you show. Just go out and report on the story and we'll decide how we view the subject and what sides we saw.

 

I hate the "newsroom meeting" thing.
You are all not that interesting.
Show me the story and I'll make up my own damn mind.

 

The only amusing thing about the newsroom meeting is the tendency to gang up on Jeremy Schaap.

Other than that, there seems to be a lot of fake drama. In one episode, Salters said she didn't know about Parkour, didn't care, and basically thought it was stupid. So the table said, 'Then YOU should do the story on it!!"

Yay.

 

I agree. I usually enjoy the show, but the newsroom scenes are so staged and contrived. It's almost as bad as MTV's "The Paper" with the playing to the cameras.
But I enjoy the stories for the most part. A step below HBO's "Real Sports" but still pretty entertaining and informative.

 

Agreed. But other than that, I think the show is solid.

 

I did enjoy the episode where Michael Smith was trying to pitch a story on Chad Johnson as the misunderstood superstar. When he kept pitching it and the fact that he had several children by several different women, none of whom he was married to, Salters got visibly exasperated with him. Great stuff.

 

Interesting story here about Tom Farrey's story on Miguel Tejada, which just aired. Not sure what's more interesting, though. That Tejada accuses Farrey of being the "enemy." Or that this story comes courtesy of MLB.com, baseball's house organ.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080421&content_id=2567104&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

 

Don't know how much faith you can put into Tejada's allegations against ESPN given his past.
Saw the episode Tuesday on "Fight Club," don't know what it had to do with sports, but Jeremy Shaap seemed really excited to do a story about it.
Honestly, I was expecting more from this series. The VOs aren't done very well, the interviews are the typical "two people sitting in chairs," the writing and story ideas could be better. I think they'd be better off just reading The Magazine aloud and using the photos like documentaries do.
The features on College Football Gameday and/or NFL Films Presents are typically more interesting.
They really need to do stuff on youth all-star team scams, scholarship scams, how about an interview with that Reno kid who held the presser saying he was going to Cal, or Steve Bartman?. Now that would be interesting. As it is, the staff sounds like they get their story ideas from the New York Times and/or marketing people.

 

I just saw last week's. I thought the Smith puff piece on McFadden was incredibly weak. He acted like he was going to shed some light on some of the bad things in his past but instead he just glossed over them. He was careful to point out that McFadden is/will be paying child support for the two children he fathered out of wedlock without having a DNA test, as if that's some incredibly noble gesture. Maybe he just knows, based on the timeline, that he did B his L in those women and they got pregnant. I just thought it was a weak piece that tried to paint a picture of a guy, but the reporting and the facts didn't support it.

If I'm Tejada I'm pissed at the Astros PR staff more than ESPN. Why the hell would they allow him to get in that position. Why would ESPN send a reporter from its investigative show to interview him about baseball? With the Mitchell Report stuff alone you'd think he and the team would want to avoid that type of interview. And I really don't see why it's a story. It seemed like something from The Wire this season where the Baltimore Sun is reporting on a report it did and how it caused change. The actual story itself isn't that compelling but the fact that the Balt. Sun, or ESPN in this case, can pat itself on the back for it makes it worthwhile.

 

earth to Boobie: it's compelling when a former MVP could lose his green card because he lied about his age. it's compelling when the lie about his age suggests that he might not hesitate to lie about steroids, too.

not sure what your standard for 'compelling' is - must be real high - like predicting the order of the NFL draft.

 

Why does it matter? What's the difference if he's 31 or 33? He's already established himself in the league.

Would he be in jeopardy of losing his green card if not for this report? I'm honestly asking. It seemed like ESPN took it upon itself to expose this. I just don't see who is to gain from him being deported. Tons of guys have lied about their age, are we going to start hunting them all down?

As for the part about lying about age = lying about steroids I don't see why that's so compelling. A-Rod cheats on his wife, does that mean he's more likely to cheat in baseball? I don't know, but I don't think they're that related. I watched the story. It didn't grab me. I didn't care that he lied about something 15 (13?) years ago because he was trying to get a break, a break he could only get if he put in some arbitrary date on a form that was attractive to MLB organizations.