"I'm devastated and sad my [Pulitzer] dream has been stolen."

ESPN essentially puts out a magazine to basically promote events that they are involved in.

 

Time Warner has no business relationships that would compromise it ethically?

 

Which I have no particular moral qualm about, but it is too close of a relationship for comfort when it comes to honoring the journalism alongside independently produced journalism.

 

Examples, please.

I remember when ESPN The Mag did a story promoting the LSU-Alabama game this year they were broadcasting.

Oops, wait, that game was on CBS.

 

It's only the second-largest cable provider in the US.

 

I imagine that Dodgers coverage and Tom Verducci stories would be ineligible, at the very least. And, in particular, Dodgers coverage provided by Tom Verducci.

 

I think the distinction in the two cases is arbitrary.

Saying that ESPN won't report bad NFL news because it's a broadcast stakeholder is like saying the NYT won't report on sweatshops because Macy's buys $50 million in advertising each year.

It's demonstrably not true.

www.nytimes.com/1996/12/07/nyregion/union-says-big-stores-are-using-sweatshops.html

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/concussion-watch/frontline-espns-outside-the-lines-team-up-to-examine-nfl-concussions/

espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8706409/nfl-concussion-program-marked-inconsistencies-making-difficult-assess-whether-league-making-progress-issue

 

It's not arbitrary and it's not the same.

ESPN paid the NFL $15.2 billion deal to broadcast its games. It's not paid advertising, marked as such. Again, it is the content of ESPN.

ESPN's journalism is compromised by its business relationships. I know this from experience. And that's fine. I get it. I accepted it. It is what it is. But it's too compromised to win Pulitzers.

 

X games issue, World Cup,NASCAR NHL when they had vested issue in promoting to name a few.

 

That settles that.

Who's going to tell the Fainaru brothers? Or Don van Natta?

 

Again: It's fine. I read and enjoy ESPN. I get a lot of information from ESPN. I think ESPN does a very good job.

But the journalism is compromised too much by its primary purpose, to broadcast live sporting events, to be eligible for the Pulitzer Prize. In many ways, ESPN.com and the Magazine are advertising flyers for the real product: Live sports broadcasts.

 

You make fair points, but I think you're holding the Pulitzers much too highly in the pristine air. You want the "Pulitzers" to be a paragon of virtue, therefor they are in your head. The Pulitzers are political in their own ways, compromised ethically by thousands of tiny biases.

The Huffington Post won a Putlizer last year, btw. Just one example of how odd and arbitrary the eligibility standards are.