ESPN and the Sandusky sex case

Boy, does this hit home. I've spent the better part of my morning discussing this, the reaction to this, our columnists' involvement in this and the rest.

First, I'm no lover of ESPN, a direct and formidable competitor, but I'm far less believing of conspiracy on this than others.

The headline "Paterno to testify ..." was the latest news at that moment, and we had a similar headline. No desk editor here was involved in any conspiracy. That was the AP lead, Paterno testifying seemed important, it was advancing the story, and that's what we went with for a while. That was the head until "PSU bars Sandusky ..."

ESPN might have different motives for not weighing in on all fronts, but in our case, we haven't had numerous columns yet because there was a lot of information flying around, some of it was false, and this isn't exactly "Penn State said to have given car to recruit's mom". This is a serious, sickening story. We have stepped cautiously into writing "Boy, was Penn State negligent" because who the hell knows. These are indictments, not convictions, and who knows if something that seems true today will be true two weeks from now. That's what we're after, right? The truth?

I'm comfortable with treading lightly on this one, and if people feel we're dragging our feet, well, if we draw one ethical, react-with-care line in the sand this year, and this is it, so be it.

Finally, I'm sorry that the limitations of a 41- or 42- or 44-character limit in a headline list offend the sensibilities of some, but they exist, and you have to write in those parameters, and they can't run long or off the page any more than a 6-84-1 could be 16 words in the old days. There are display parameters, and you have to hit them, and it's not always easy. In fact, when the initial story broke, we talked about whether "Sandusky" (given his place in the pantheon of valued assistants) had to be in the headline, or whether "Ex-Penn State assistant" was better...we wound up with both, but not much more room in that headline.

 

I thought the "Paterno to testify" headline was the best I saw, for all the reasons you enumerate. ESPN's headline included neither Sandusky nor Paterno nor any mention of football, coaches, sex, children or abuse.

That's my problem.

 

Ah, I get it.

Well, the perjury charges were, for a time, the biggest new news yesterday. Because as bad as the crimes would be, school officials covering up for them by lying would be pretty much as bad. But if you don't know the whole thing that's going on, that's a pretty tough head, I'll admit.

But I really don't feel like there was somebody sitting there saying "Lay off Penn State" -- or some aspect of it -- but I also have no knowledge of that, either.

 

ESPNU SportsCenter anchor this morning said something along the lines of, "We stress there are no charges against Joe Paterno" while reading the story.

 

Well, that's important ... isn't it?

 

Don't challenge this board to meet specs on a hed. You'll get embarrassed, and I'm guessing people here didn't need much time to trump the headline ESPN had out there for hours.

 

Well, good point, but the parameters DO exist, and you know what? Maybe the person who wrote the headline didn't come up with as good a headline as you would have.

I must admit a certain weariness with everything being a conspiracy, or even a product of bad corporate policy. In this business, people make decisions and do things, and sometimes, it's because they were simply busy or distracted or couldn't think of anything better or didn't pull out the biggest news as they read it. And you know what else? Sometimes the copy in the linked story is updated, but the headline at the home page level isn't changed to match right away.

There are lots of explanations for things, and not every one is, "Corporate laying off bad news in something they cover."

 

I don't think any of us know if there is some big conspiracy at ESPN to not shed light or devote resources to this story because of its business relationships.

But don't you think, on some level at least, ESPN has earned that skepticism from its viewers/consumers based on its past news judgment decisions?

 

As opposed to similar judgments made by CBS? Or NBC? Or any other broadcast "partner" in the history of sports? C'mon.

 

Why is CBS and NBC relevant in a thread about ESPN and its coverage of this story?

 

See above posts. NBC Nightly News had this as its LEAD.