Deadspin: How ESPN Ditched Journalism And Followed Skip Bayless To The Bottom

[SaltwaterServr]

In October, Doug Gottlieb, a radio host and basketball analyst who'd decamped for CBS the previous month after nine years with ESPN, went on The Dan Patrick Show and dropped something of a truth bomb about his time in Bristol:
I was told specifically, "You can't talk enough Tebow." I would jokingly throw it into a segment. "I gotta find 15 seconds here to talk about Tebow, all right let's move on and talk about Major League Baseball."

Later, he said:

Is it ridiculous how much you have to talk about Tebow? Yeah! But for whatever reason people can't get enough of that story, and they kind of stoke the fire—that's kind of what ESPN does.

Read the rest below. Summary, ESPN has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. The end.

http://deadspin.com/5929361/how-espn...im-tebow-story

[Bluestang]

This is news?

[SaltwaterServr]

Originally Posted by Bluestang

This is news?

Errrr. Not really, but no one's ever bothered to put it all together with word type things on the interwebz before.

[Bluestang]

Originally Posted by SaltwaterServr

Errrr. Not really, but no one's ever bothered to put it all together with word type things on the interwebz before.

That's why I find it amusing when people start a thread and the first thing they say is that they listened to ESPN or ESPN Radio.

[Idgit]

That litany of gaffes is pretty damning.

[Kangaroo]

This is why I quit watching ESPN long ago or reading the espn site.

I only go to ESPN to watch an actual game and basketball score they have the best Basketball Box score breakdowns. otherwise I ignore espn

[Yakuza Rich]

Originally Posted by Bluestang

That's why I find it amusing when people start a thread and the first thing they say is that they listened to ESPN or ESPN Radio.

What kills me is how many people still staunchly defend ESPN.

But, this is more than ESPN. ESPN is a large part of the sports media and generally dictate what the sports media is doing, but we've seen this regression of the sports media for years. I think a big indictment of this is Mike Florio's rise to fame in the world of NFL 'journalism.' He's got a prominent position at NBC which if you know how he got started, is really a joke. Sadly, he had offers from both ESPN and NBC, but NBC outbid ESPN for his services.

It's not that this stuff has been going on for a while. We were always going to find those reporters that would lack any integrity to move ahead. It's just that it started to become more popular and then blatantly encouraged by ESPN. And from my experience, once there is more leeway given for integrity and accuracy, eventually people will just start making stories up.








YR

[SaltwaterServr]

Originally Posted by Bluestang

That's why I find it amusing when people start a thread and the first thing they say is that they listened to ESPN or ESPN Radio.

True that.

I always say that if you get your "new" from a source, at least the source should have "news" somewhere in its original nomenclature.

[WPBCowboysFan]

Originally Posted by Yakuza Rich

What kills me is how many people still staunchly defend ESPN.

But, this is more than ESPN. ESPN is a large part of the sports media and generally dictate what the sports media is doing, but we've seen this regression of the sports media for years. I think a big indictment of this is Mike Florio's rise to fame in the world of NFL 'journalism.' He's got a prominent position at NBC which if you know how he got started, is really a joke. Sadly, he had offers from both ESPN and NBC, but NBC outbid ESPN for his services.

It's not that this stuff has been going on for a while. We were always going to find those reporters that would lack any integrity to move ahead. It's just that it started to become more popular and then blatantly encouraged by ESPN. And from my experience, once there is more leeway given for integrity and accuracy, eventually people will just start making stories up.







[View Full Quote]
YR

Its not just sports media/journalism. Its in all of journalism. Its all about creating interest and ratings as well as agenda promoting.

[Risen Star]

Well I'm convinced.

[ethiostar]

Very good read. However, unfortunately this phenomenon is not limited to sports media.

[Blackspider214]

Originally Posted by Kangaroo

This is why I quit watching ESPN long ago or reading the espn site.

I only go to ESPN to watch an actual game and basketball score they have the best Basketball Box score breakdowns. otherwise I ignore espn

Exactly. Sportscenter and Sunday Countdown used to be a must for me when I was growing up (I'm 28 now). Now it is a circus and a joke. You have First Take, which is a staged argument show like Crossfire does with politics. Same as PTI. Now everyone tries to make as many jokes as possible when giving you the highlights.

[erod]

This is hardly limited to ESPN. It's the media in general.

Benghazi, and the multiple controversies surrounding it, far outweighs the events and implications that Watergate had, but it's getting minimal coverage at best by the mainstream media. Journalism died many years ago. The Bieber-Selena breakup is ruled much more important than four people dying in Benghazi at the hands of the adminstration.

Likewise, ESPN is no longer about covering sports. It's about manufacturing sports drama.

More specifically, it's about manufacturing NORTHEAST sports drama. Anything south or west of Philadelphia might as well be soccer. The Lakers, Cowboys, and Peyton Manning are the lone exception, unless Brett Farve unretires.

If they could do Red Sox/Yankees/Giants/Patriots/Jets/Celtic/Knicks coverage 23 hours a day, they would.

And the media has morphed into a self-aggrandizing fraud as a whole. The media is more fixated on creating celebrities out of themselves than reporting news.

Look at Walter Cronkite. He was a devout liberal, but no one knew it back in the day. He put his job first. You don't see that anymore.

[arglebargle]

Originally Posted by Blackspider214

Exactly. Sportscenter and Sunday Countdown used to be a must for me when I was growing up (I'm 28 now). Now it is a circus and a joke. You have First Take, which is a staged argument show like Crossfire does with politics. Same as PTI. Now everyone tries to make as many jokes as possible when giving you the highlights.

Said thing is, their jokes are usually better than their sports reporting....

[arglebargle]

Benghazi's a stalking horse: But that argument is not for here....