Yakuza Rich;2578519 said:
Well, we're assuming that BSP...err, I mean ESPN would report anything negative on Favre first.
In all seriousness, this is the way you handle a situation like this. Olbermann being very serious, no sensationalizing of the story, no Favre apologists, just reporting the facts in a serious, professional tone. People hate Olbermann for his political beliefs, but back in this time he was fabulous at BSP...err, I mean ESPN.
I think the real problem with BSP...err, I mean ESPN is the success of Chris Berman. He became popular and their ratings went up because of it. So then you had more anchors who wanted to be like Berman so they could gain his type of fame and the producers were all for because they felt it could boost ratings.
And then a lot of the things Berman does/did weren't helping matters either. I remember watching him announce some Hall of Famers and instead of just announcing the HOF'ers and their accomplishments, he went into his played out and old 'nickname' spiel. Not to put over the HOF'ers, but to interject himself into the ceremony and put HIMSELF over.
And over the years the rest of BSP...err, I mean ESPN show hosts and 'reporters' have done the same thing and ESPN has enabled them to do so at the expense of professionalism, ethics and quality journalism.
YAKUZA
You make an interesting point about Berman, but I think the problem with Sportscenter, which was ESPN's signature program, had more to do with the departure of a few popular anchors in the late 90's (namely Olbermann and Charlie Steiner) and the anchors/writers as a whole getting really lazy and not putting the wit into the dialog that made the program so successful. They rested on their laurels, saw the ratings decline, and then panicked, not sure of why it happened.
Instead of focusing on getting back to dancing with what brought them there, they (and the rest of ESPN) opted to look around them at reality TV and the WWE....deciding that was the direction they needed to take. New Sportscenter was born.
ESPN then added Around the Horn and Pardon The Interruption to their daily lineup, saw that they drew good ratings, and created 3-4 more shows just like them--same ****, different pile...in different wrapping paper. Cold Pizz..err, First and 10, Mike & Mike...hey, now they can bring Jim Rome back to the network to let him put you to sleep with forced rants.
What is most amazing about the transformation is the morphing of perfectly solid, credible, professional, news-first reporters to grade A *******s. John Clayton? He's an ******* now. He had to be to survive. Same with Chris Mortenson. Same with Chris Berman, who, while different in the way you stated, still made a point of staying out of interjecting with his opinion on matters 24/7.
Same with Tom Jackson. Even Dan Patrick let everything go to his head and got his own radio show, where he proceeded to act like a pompous piece of ****.
Only one has resisted--Bob Ley. I think that's because he has more power than any other television personality there--he's been there pretty much since the network's beginning, and he refuses to sink to that level. He knows Dick Schaap is turning in his grave over what the network has become.
