ESPN's double standard

Sean Salisbury.

 

For one thing - and I think this is key - you're assuming that roasts, at all, are a good idea.

Secondly, this was "on air." Maybe not over a TV, but, hey: They sold tickets to this thing - advertised it on the radio - so it was far from an in-house party.

 

overserved speaker? she was guzzling vodka through a bartender's funnel.

Remember when Larry Eustachy did this? Turned out real well for him.

 

He was a college employee at a frat party with college students following a game. Not analogous. Not close.

 

And it was on a visiting campus. Which might not technically make it worse. But it kind of does.

 

It's not? Why not? We got extra special standards for college employees? Sports journalists going around saying "fuck Notre Dame" in front of the Notre Dame football coach just pales in comparison?

I dunno. I'd say the credibility's pretty damn shot both ways.

 

Iowa State University is a Land Grant research school, the mission of which is to serve as a place for the best and brightest minds to reach their full potential. It has produced folks like George Washington Carver.

The Entertainment Sports Programming Network is a TV broadcasting outlet, the mission of which is to, well you can make that shit up as you wish, but it ain't tryin' to educate nobody. It has produced a tubby guy who makes bad puns out of athletes' names and other various shit like "Playmakers" and "Tilt" and also owns a chain of sports bars.

Do we really need to discuss who has the right to demand higher standards?

 

Last time I checked, a media magazine didn't come out with a bottle of vodka on its cover the week after Jacobsen made her unfortunate comments.

The GolfWeek cover contributed far more to the Tighlman controversy than her comments did. In fact most people noted that it was pretty much done and going away when the magazine dredged it back up again, leading to more hand-wringing.

 

I guess so. This is kind of like that "it's a roast, what do you expect" comment.

I know this: ESPN is a much bigger part of people's lives than Iowa State. So I think, yeah, standards are good.

 

Oh sure they will. The snarky, sniggering atmosphere of a roast fits in perfectly with the proudly-asinine-snarky-sniggering-fratboy philosophy which saturates the whole network.

 

ESPN pays a guy to make "Karate Kid" jokes and has released not one, but four, CDs of "Jock Jams." Yes, they are a bigger part of people's lives than a state university in the midwest, but so is The Enquirer and the comedy of Dane Cook. ESPN lost all integrity so long ago that it can hardly hope to recapture it through a host of a morning show drunk on the open bar they provided.

 

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, except you're suggesting low standards for The Enquirer, Dane Cook or ESPN are OK because they're The Enquirer, Dane Cook or ESPN.