The ESPN ombudsman is pitching a perfect game

Actually, I kind of agree with fishwrapper on this one. It's easy and cynical to say she's peeing into a hurricane, or using her fist to stop a train, but there is a part of me that thinks there are still people within ESPN who truly do care about journalism and will at least listen to some of her concerns. The network isn't going to change from being opinion-based entertainment, but she did essentially force Cowherd to apologize for netbombing The Big Lead. Within this piece, there is discussion about internal memos of reports on injuries. Even if all she does it force the editors and news directors to explain their decisions, at the very least, she's making them evaluate their decisions after the fact.

With Solomon's toothless nonsense, it could just be ignored. It was just an infrequent summary of reader's thoughts with little or no critical examination of ESPN choices. What I would like to know is: Does ESPN send her column out to all its employees? Is there some kind of internal email distributed (like a lot of papers do) or do they just expect employees to go find her column on the net?

I don't think it's going to make an ounce of difference for people like Sean Salisberry, or some of their other talking clowns with no journalistic background who are barely literate anyway, but if you're Buster Olney or Rachel Nichols or Mortensen, I think you'll absolutely read what she says and at least consider whether you're part of the nonsense.

 

I don't like being on the opposite side of fishwrapper...I like much less disagreeing with DD.

But again, the question isn't whether some people agree with her. You'd have to be an idiot not to agree with most of what she says -- though again, her dismissal of Easterbrook was over the top.

Unfortunately, that's sort of the point: The idiots are in charge, at least at ESPN. And so far, their idiotic central argument -- that people LOVE watching talking heads yell at each other on TV over and over again -- is winning. ESPN's ratings are up, its profits are steady and its style is influencing media across the country, in and out of sports.

And as for the idea that Buster Olney or Rachel Nichols or Chris Mortensen or anybody else needs Le Anne Schreiber to tell them they're servants of an idiotic noise machine...really? Buster Olney doesn't know that "Fact or Fiction" is a dumb idea that reduces everything in sports to a black/white argument?

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it IS what people watch.
Not you. Not me. Not LeAnne Schreiber. But, a generation of combatives that care less of the result and care more of the reaction. Making the game or win or statistic secondary to the issue and debates.

 

Exactly. Sad as it is, the idiots just might be right...though I think you could argue that sports fans would watch -- and enjoy -- any sports-related fare ESPN put forth, including a new emphasis on highlights and less half-assed "analysis" and arguing.

 

Nobody writes better about ESPN than Schreiber. She makes every other sports TV hack out there look like crap. She sees the forest from the trees and I think her efforts have had an impact at ESPN. They are starting a 60 Minutes style sports journalism show in a couple weeks because they were tired of reporting on interviews by McNabb and Young given to Real Sports and 60 Minutes. Didn't ESPN used to have something called "Sunday Conversation?"
I think a problem with ESPN is you have several classes of talent. The hosts, the ex-jock/coach, the blowhards, the daily reporters and the sports journalists. They all approach stories differently.
Host will give a summary of the situation.
The ex-jock will say something about a similar situation that occurred when he played.
The blowhard will yell about how outrageous the situation is.
The the daily reporter will explain the situation and what happens next.
The sports journalist will assess what the situation says about the role of sport in society.

and I don't have a problem with a gamecast going into discussion mode during a blowout on a Friday night. In a lot of ways, I welcome it as a preview for the weekend. I also enjoy Todd Blackledge's visits to local establishments during their game coverage.

The thinking that people "already know" the scores etc makes me think someone should start a website called www.Elsewhere.com for all the stuff the media thinks you already know.

 

Sad, this reminded me that one of my favorite columnists from, say, 10 years ago, who started as a beat writer (and a very good one) was Skip Bayless.

I think that's why Joe Fan is tuning in to the PTI- and Around the Horn-type shows, it reminds him of sitting around the bar on a Friday night, mouthing off to his buddies about the week in sports. In a sense, these shows hold the exact same appeal as reality television.

If I watch anything that begins with the four-letter prefix we love to hate like a profanity, it's ESPN News. Highlights, mostly facts, opinionated moments last no more than 30 seconds and even those come from writers who spend all day collecting facts (Kurkjian, Olney, Bucher, etc.). I don't even watch ESPN anymore, unless they're televising a big game. Seriously.

Somewhere in all this lies a chicken-and-egg debate; the fact always comes before the opinion. You can't have an opinion without a fact. The talking heads who specialize in giving opinions, and not collecting facts, are a dime a dozen to me. Opinion shows on ESPN will have nothing to talk about without actual journalists going out and getting the facts. But if that's what ESPN wants to be, I honestly don't mind as long as they keep ESPN News on the air; I know which one I'm watching.

 

There's no reason why they should listen to her. Autonomy cuts both ways. She can be neither the controlled nor the controller, because in either case it would remove her objectivity. If the criticisms she makes became decrees, she'd soon find herself defending policies she created. And then she'd no longer be the impartial party writing on the readers' behalf.

No ombud where I've worked had any power. Their comments were often shrugged off, or not even read, even on newspapers where newsroom management for the most part meant well. They exist to show readers that we don't consider ourselves above scrutiny, not to effect change.

Even if some of the ESPN honchos agreed with what she wrote, they are not accountable to the ombud, they are accountable, ultimately, to the ratings. And the ombud isn't.

I can say that I don't find most of ESPN's content especially interesting, provocative or informative. That doesn't mean I think it would be a good business decision to design their programming around people like me. In fact, I have no idea if it would or wouldn't since I've never spent a day working in TV.

 

And, I think that's a realizations an ombudsman makes.
An ombud isn't a vice president. A general manager. An editor. A producer.
In this capacity, it's an observational post.

 

Which, I would think, makes an ombudsman a failed model. Quite sadly.

Observation without the power to affect change equals observation.

 

I think that the only change any ombud can bring about is in the hands of the viewer/reader.

It's the ombud's job to collect their peeves and crotchets and grudges, concentrate them into some sort of argument, and present them to the institution while revealing them to the greater population of readers and viewers. If the public then takes up the cudgels in sufficient numbers and says "Yes, others feel as I do, the institution must change in this way...", then the change may occur.

 

Yes, but if you haven't, read the last section of her column again. Clearly, it's more important to the executive that the faulty journalism in question draws viewers.

 

Exactly. It's unimaginable when the model is popular and lucrative.