The latest from ESPN's ombudsman

[ondeadline]

<a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=schreiber_leanne&id=3148853">
The talks about coverage of the Bonds indictment, the Sean Taylor death and the Miles-to-Michigan story.</a>

The nutgraph explaining Herbstreit's reporting:

But early that Saturday, on ESPN and ESPNEWS and later ESPN.com, the word was out: "Sources have told ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Michigan will announce early next week it has reached an agreement with LSU coach Les Miles to be its next head football coach." As Herbstreit's later remarks would make clear, that information came not from "sources," but from a single, anonymous, uncorroborated source. Miles called a short news conference two hours before the game to angrily label the report "misinformation."

 

[henryhenry]

i love when ex-jocks **** up the reporting. poetic justice.


she's a terrific writer. reasoned and eloquent.

 

[GBNF]

She is so damn good at what she does. Sure, she reminds me of my third-grade teacher, but damn if she doesn't work ESPN over when she needs to...

 

[DanOregon]

Cowherd gets another lump of coal and Doria sounds like he is defending bad practices.

 

[Pulitzer Wannabe]

Desmond Howard, right?

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Best thing they've got going . . . until she gets tired of leaning into the 70 MPH headwind.

 

[Baltimoreguy]

With the notable exception of ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd, ESPN's commentators did better than many in the mainstream media at reining in the impulse to speculate, pontificate and prematurely assign responsibility for Taylor's death. Cowherd, however, trusted his "gut feeling" to guide him to "the truth." His gut told him that Taylor's "history of really, really bad judgment, really really bad judgment" had caught up with him, and even if the emerging reports that Taylor had "cleaned up his act" were true, "Well, yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn't mean you got everything out. Sometimes you've got stains, stuff so deep it never ever leaves."

Most other ESPN commentators seemed to understand that when it comes to race, crime and sports, the last source to be trusted is one's gut, which tends to be lined with bilious stereotypes and prejudices.

very nice

 

[Some Guy]

That Herbie stuff still cracks me up. And not in a good way.

 

[Sxysprtswrtr]

Excellent writing, as is the norm for Ms. Schreiber.

However, is there a reason why she's compacting such a high volume of content into one column?

Maybe it's my short attention span when it comes to reading online work, but it sure seems as though the Sean Taylor piece could stand alone, and same goes for the following notes on Bonds and Miles.

Why not break up those pieces and publish more often? I'd like to think you could garner more impact with a higher frequency column than just one that is laden with several different topics, ones that are worthy of their own audience.

 

[hondo]

Love her one graph:

"To my mind, Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback and not an experienced reporter, was less to blame for this ill-founded scoop than the senior College GameDay producers who should have advised him against going on air with such shaky information instead of convincing him it was his journalistic obligation to share with viewers what "a source" had told him."

Boo-yah! Except she can spank them all she wants, they're ultimately not going to care, and will continue to let loose cannons like Herbie pretend to be serious reporters -- and be wrong.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

She's very, very good.

I will say this - I have no problem with Doria's defense on the Bonds coverage. They're not expecting anyone to watch the whole thing, and the day two special was likely more interesting than a day old "Sportscenter" and a best of Mike and Mike. (I would have been inclined to dump out of it in time for the football pre-game show, though.) It's not simply a question of the news value of Bonds -- at some point in TV, you have to decide if it's better than the programming it's replacing, and if it is you'll be more likely to let the "breaking news" run long.

Beyond that, I think she's dead-on, and Doria's defense of Herbstreit is absurd. To suggest that not running an uncorroborated one-anonymous-source report would somehow be "withholding information" is a joke.

Always good to see Cowherd reamed. At some point he clearly decided that it would be a good career move to act like a know-it-all asshole. He wasn't always like that. It isn't an improvement, and he has gone from mediocre to unlistenable.

 

[OnTheRiver]

I haven't listened to Cowherd for about a year. Something in his demeanor took a nasty left turn a while back, and I just don't care to tune in to his show now.

 

[ondeadline]

On the air, Cowherd didn't apologize but did admit he was wrong.

 

[Appgrad05]

I would agree about the change in Cowherd. He's gone from witty straight-shooter to a-hole, which really has coincided apparently with the breaking down of his personal life.

I like how she publishes infrequently, but takes hits at several parts of ESPN in one swoop. It's equivalent to a boxer hitting at the stomach for eight rounds, then moving in with hard jabs.

 

[Damaramu]

I never even knew about these columns.
I've always had a trouble with the way ESPN conducts business. This is just great to read.

 

[broadway joe]

Love her one graph:

"To my mind, Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback and not an experienced reporter, was less to blame for this ill-founded scoop than the senior College GameDay producers who should have advised him against going on air with such shaky information instead of convincing him it was his journalistic obligation to share with viewers what "a source" had told him."

Boo-yah! Except she can spank them all she wants, they're ultimately not going to care, and will continue to let loose cannons like Herbie pretend to be serious reporters -- and be wrong.

But give Herbie some credit. He admitted his mistake and said he's not going to try to break stories anymore. At least he acknowledges that he's not a journalist.

 

[HejiraHenry]

But if Miles ultimately winds up in Ann Arbor, then was Herbstreit wrong?

 

[dooley_womack1]

Well, if your aunt had balls, then your assumption about her being your uncle would be right.

Anyhoo, no, you don't go on only one source if you don't have the chops to know the reliability.

 

[Ike Broflovski]

Thought this was the most interesting passage in her excellent column:

All we know for sure is that ESPN's reputation as a reliable source of "scoops" has taken another blow. When viewers respond to the phrase "a source has told ESPN" with a "we'll see" attitude, as many who write me say they now do, it undermines the efforts of ESPN's entire staff of producers, editors and reporters.

It sounds as if the problem is much bigger than I thought.

 

[OnTheRiver]

I would agree about the change in Cowherd. He's gone from witty straight-shooter to a-hole, which really has coincided apparently with the breaking down of his personal life.

I like how she publishes infrequently, but takes hits at several parts of ESPN in one swoop. It's equivalent to a boxer hitting at the stomach for eight rounds, then moving in with hard jabs.

I think my turn-off point began when he used his audience to crash that guy's Web site.

No offense, but **** him for doing that. ****'s uncalled for.