How ESPN crapped the bed on the Nevin Shapiro story

Even if it was on the record, was Naqi going to be able to spend the hundreds and hundreds of hours that C-Rob did combing through documents? Does she have the luxury from her employer? That kind of patience? I don't know a lot about her work, so I'm certainly not going to say she's not capable. But I will say, from my own viewpoint, that I don't think a lot of reporters (myself included) have the patience, the organizational skills, and the relentless lust for the truth to come out, to pull together this kind of story.

It's a lot easier to say: Screw it, Roll Tide. As we've seen from the many discussions on this board, there is a huge percentage of journalists (writers, editors, etc.) who don't care about how fucked the system is, the just don't want anything to disrupt their Saturday football enjoyment. It's a bit like government in Washington. We all know how completely screwed up it is, with everyone washing each other's backs. But the institutional momentum makes reform almost impossible. Obviously Naqi doesn't think that way, or she wouldn't be in the position she's in, and never would have met with Shapiro in the first place, but that attitude is prevalent throughout our business.

It takes an obsessive personality to put together a story like this. Some of the best writers/reporters we have are obsessives.

 

Wocka Wocka

 

It's funny because I know Robinson a little bit and he doesn't strike me as being obsessive at all. He's a thorough reporter and a great writer. For someone with that kind of high-pressure job, he's always struck me as being pretty mellow.

I don't mean to pick on Naqi, but with the staff ESPN has, there should be someone there who can log the kind of time that Robinson did on a story like this... Unless, perhaps, maybe someone at ESPN doesn't want them to.

 

People used to get fired over getting beat like this.

Not beat, smoked.

 

If I'm at SI or ESPN, I'm pretty embarrassed at the level of this ass-kicking... I'm a little more sympathetic to the Miami beat writers, because they never would have had the resources or the time to work on something like this.

 

I know this comment doesn't really belong here, but I'm saying it anyway. It really bugs me that if you go to news.yahoo.com and search for Charles Robinson's original story, it doesn't come up in the results. None of Yahoo Sports' stories come back when you search for them on Yahoo News' site.

 

I'll bet you can find it if you google him.

 

That might be true of Charles Robinson. mild-mannered reporter for Yahoo! Sports.

But it doesn't apply to . . .

 

It's true, once he puts on his ninja mask and super hero pajamas, all bets are off.

 

One of the best tweets at #SECApplicationQuestions:

Has Charles Robinson visited your campus within the last 6 months?

 

Speaking of Journalistic Super Heroes, guess who is not a fan of the Yahoo story?

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/Jason-Whitlock-Yahoo-Nevin-Shapiro-Miami-Hurricanes-scandal-082811