Ombud: Conflicts of interest at ESPN unavoidable

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=schreiber_leanne&id=2866241

I kind of agree, regrettably :-\

 

If it really is unavoidable within the framework of SportsCenter, then don't try to call that journalism. They clearly are giving NASCAR more weight this year now that it has the Busch Series contract. I understand her point with the "shoulder" programming such as Baseball Tonight. But otherwise, good journalism would demand news judgments made based on news value and not a corporate relationship. ESPN does show good journalism lots of times, but not when business clouds its news decisions.

 

Sounds like a plea for hockey to return to ESPN to me. That alone would quiet the hockey fans like me.

 

Good column. I still think fewer and fewer people care about the NHL, and it has nothing to do with ESPN. I just don't hear anybody talking about it.

The hockey fans keep whining. Their league cancels a season, then signs a dumbass TV deal with something called "Versus," and they want to blame ESPN.

 

This was a well-written examination of the issue, as good as you might see in, yes, the NYT itself.

And not, blissfully, undercut with a BOOYAH! at the end ...

 

I just want to mention that Ms. Schreiber is doing excellent work. The piece is balanced, well-written and has a lot of reporting in it. She's only written a couple of these, but she already seems to have a better sense of what she's doing - and how to do it - than Mr. Solomon did.

 

Amen, sir.

With all due respect to Mr. Solomon, his column read like a listing of readers complaints with surfacy analysis and little, if any, reporting at all. We joked here often that it carried no weight within the company and that's not surprising because it there was very little investment in it intellectually by the writer. I was definitely impressed with the number of people Schreiber solicited comment/clarification from.

 

Let me put it in SAT terms:

The Ms. Schreiber Ombudsman is to the George Solomon Ombudsman like the 1986 Sportscenter is to the 2007 Sportscenter.

It's hard to believe these two have the same title, she does such a better job than Solomon. She will analyze an issue, ask questions, then ask follow-up questions. And she is a better writer to boot. WTG, Schreiber.


One small quibble: I would like to see the 2007 hockey highlights compared to some other year besides 2004 (ESPN's last year). My guess is that the sport was already out the door in the network's eye and that reflected on minutes given.

 

More from Romenesko:

Smoooooooth, Mr. Content Veep.

 

I agree that she's much better than Solomon. I know it's the Web and you've got all the space you want, but my one beef with her is that she needs to edit her column so that it's not quite as long.

 

Maybe she has the same editor as the one who wrote the Dave Collins gamer.

 

You know what upset me about ESPn, the darn NIT selection show.

Because suddenly it was ESPN's gig, I had to here about the NIT ad naseum and also had a fake selection show like anyone cared. Then they analyzed the brackets. Where was this coverage last year when the NCAA didn't own the tournament? Did ESPN promise for business decisions, to pump up the NIT on its news broadcasts. And let's not even start on NASCAR, Arena Football League and Poker.