An interesting development took place while I was at work Tuesday night — although not all that surprising.
A story broke on ESPN regarding NBA superstar LeBron James’ next move, which has been the big summer sports story outside of the World Cup. He plans to make his decision Thursday night. But, being LeBron, he wants to do it with the cameras on him and everybody watching a one-hour special starting at 9 p.m. on — you guessed it — ESPN. All the network had planned that Thursday night was “World Cup Premiere.”
Before I get into the ethical bag of snakes ESPN jumped into with this story, it’s important to note just how big of a circus this NBA free agency period has become. This annual routine is dominating the airwaves and television screens this year. Every day, we’re hearing about and watching what James and other free agents such as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are up to, whether they’re participating in kids camps or meeting with other players. Normally, these acts wouldn’t warrant publicity. But we invade their daily lives because everyone wants to know: Where are these guys going to play basketball? Journalists huddle up and ask these questions at these camps and other places like they’re going to get the answers they’d like to hear. (They won’t. These athletes will do it their way.)
Is all this hoopla for good reason? Sure — people want to hear about it. But this LeBron “special” goes to show how sensationalized (some) sports journalism has become. And ESPN is to blame for a lot of it.
Look — on one hand, I like ESPN. I do watch it on occasion, particularly SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight and Pardon the Interruption. The coverage is good, although the analysis goes overboard a lot (no, Joe Theismann, you don’t know what the players and coaches on the football field are thinking right now). Its reporters work constantly and have deep connections, usually breaking stories before local competitors. It has its own pointless awards ceremony. The Web presentation is top-notch, too — there are videos galore, aggregated stories and a deep, organized database of statistics and standings. You know, things many newspapers sports sections should be doing online, but aren’t.
But then there’s the other hand. ESPN dominates the sports journalism world, partially by partaking in shady journalistic tactics. It breaks the big story first by constantly allowing sources to be anonymous, a practice scorned upon in most cases (and for good reason) at many newspapers. Remember college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit’s report on LSU coach Les Miles heading to Michigan in 2007? His top-secret and supposedly reliable “sources” were wrong. Most news outlets would take a hit in credibility but, with how large of a brand ESPN was and still is, there was little risk involved.
Even if a story breaks in the Kansas City Star dealing with the Chiefs, you can bet ESPN will report it. And even if they attribute credit (which they sometimes do), they get the clicks. They get the attention, or at least most of it. They have the trusted “experts” that analyze the story and the big picture. And every story they report or speculate on builds their brand a little bit more with the millions that follow the network. As of late, ESPN is spreading its coverage by city, reaching five thus far: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Boston. This local approach is targeting newspapers such as the Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune directly — and probably winning.
I have always thought ESPN’s goal of a sports coverage monopoly has overall deteriorated the quality of said coverage. There’s no transparency. There’s little accountability. It needs competition to stay on its toes. But not only has ESPN stomped the competition in reporting sports news (partially by guaranteeing anonymity to those who give the scoop), they also have locked-in deals with NBA, NFL and MLB to air their games. That makes its reporting even more ethically dubious. For example, wouldn’t it be in ESPN’s best interest to report a story that could ramp up the anticipation for the next Monday Night Football game and drive in higher ratings? Wouldn’t it be great to fish for bulletin-board material from a player prior to an NBA Finals game, then sensationalize it just to add to the excitement?
(For the record, I’m not accusing any specific ESPN reporters of doing any of this. But there is an obvious conflict of interest that can’t be ignored. This may not be as sensitive as government reporting, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold sports writing to the same journalistic standard.)
This brings me back to Thursday’s LeBron “special.” Apparently, LeBron’s camp wants to sell the sponsorship for the big event, with proceeds going toward the Boys and Girls Club of America. So that makes the announcement a little less sleazy. But think about this glaring issue: What if an ESPN reporter finds out, from a very reliable source, where LeBron is going prior to 9 p.m. Thursday night? Wouldn’t it be in their best interest to censor that scoop to ramp up ratings for Thursday night — or report it in fear of having it broken by another news source and rendering the special useless?
Not only is ESPN feeding the beast that is LeBron’s ego (and, yet again, catering to big-name athletes), it is putting itself in what could potentially be a disastrous situation that, in my opinion, breaks the journalistic code of ethics. All for television ratings, branding and advertising. But you know what? ESPN will get away with that. The line between quality sports journalism and entertainment has blurred for this company — and, in my view, we’re all paying for it.
UPDATE: JULY 12, 2010
Just a quick take on Thursday’s program, which I was able to watch at the Press:
“The Decision” was just about what I expected it to be. I didn’t expect LeBron’s actual decision to come within the first 10-15 minutes like ESPN said it would (It actually took roughly 27). I didn’t expect Jim Gray to ask any tough questions prior to the big one (”Are you still a nailbiter?” was a favorite cupcake of mine). I fully expected to feel like I just wasted 60 minutes of my life watching something that makes reality television look valuable (I was at work, it was on TV and, let’s face it, it was still the sports news of the night). Like Mitch Albom, I found it particularly interesting that there were children on hand to watch, as if this one-hour special was going to be something for them to remember for a long time.
Maybe I’m just somebody whose BS detector is fine-tuned after five years of journalism school, but I definitely heard ringing. From LeBron and from ESPN. Or, as Buzz Bissinger call it, “BSPN.”
Hopefully I’m not coming off as too much of a pessimist. There was some good that came out of this whole ordeal. I particularly loved the reporting of the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Brian Windhorst. While analysts around the county spouted off with speculation on what LeBron was thinking, Windhorst was doing the legwork. He caught the scoop from the teams’ visits, kept up on the latest using Twitter and — my favorite part — pieced the saga together following LeBron’s departure. Journalism at its finest always answers “Why?” Windhorst did that. And it’s not over yet.
Here are other reads related to ESPN’s “Decision” special:
- Richard Deitsch (Sports Illustrated) said he “gained a new respect for TV’s Amish in the City and Temptation Island” after watching the special.
- An advertising campaign that starts this week for ESPN has nothing to do with the Decision, The New York Times reports.
- LeBron’s big decision was “must-flee TV,” Arizona Republic’s Paola Boivin says.
- Something interesting to point out: ESPN’s Ombudsman, Don Ohlmeyer, has not yet written about The Decision, although that could change this week. We’ll see.
Posted by Brian Manzullo at July 7, 2010
Journalism, Sports