Sunday, May 23, 2010

A Note on ESPN, Journalism, and Business

Good blog post here by a former co-worker of mine, Dan Sheldon, on ESPN's disintegrating ethics and failure to give credit to "The Dan Patrick Show" for breaking news.

Citing sources is one of the first commandments of journalism. But when business takes priority over ethics, we all lose. Unfortunately for sports fans, ESPN jumped the shark years ago and instead of covering what people want to see, it now tries to dictate what fans want to see. Be prepared for a LOT of soccer shoved down your throat this summer.

And it's not like ESPN's ethics have never been questioned before...the Mike Leach/Craig James story drew harsh criticism...accusations of "protecting" Ben Roethlisberger swirled when ESPN didn't report on his various troubles at first...and a public apology followed a gaffe in covering Gilbert Arenas' troubles.

ESPN sure has come a long way over the years...but maybe not all in good ways.

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