BLOGS ARE DESTROYING ESPN

by Eric Horowitz, ShakedownSports

Le Anne Schreiber is the latest integrity filled journalist to take a crack at being ESPN’s ombudsman. She has done an admirable job so far, even earning some accolades for her tight grip on the balls of Colin Cowherd.

But last week in an interview with Gordon White of The Pilot she expressed some interesting thoughts about sports blogs. It seems as if Schreiber is blaming blogs for ESPN’s inaccurate reporting.

“Since undertaking this job I have become familiar with the world of the sports blog. Ninety percent of them have no compunction about putting out any kind of rumor. Doesn’t matter the source or how reliable it is. They just toss it out there because they are not journalists. They are not responsible and don’t claim to be. They are just tossing out what might be of interest to the water cooler group.”

“People will return to ESPN dot com to see what they have to say about those rumors,” she said. “That is what pressures ESPN to make sometimes premature claims. The idea that you do not trade in rumors has virtually gone by the wayside in this form of journalism.

So basically Schreiber is saying that the reason ESPN makes reporting mistakes is because it’s forced to address some of the millions of fallacious rumors that emerge from the blogosphere every single day.

I’m trying not to sound like an angry sports blogger here (and it really doesn’t matter to me what she thinks), but Schreiber is completely wrong. The most distressing thing about her comments is that they demonstrate a complete lack of understanding regarding the new sports media landscape. Nowadays, 99% of all blog posts that claim to report a true story or rumor have a link to a more “credible” news source. There’s absolutely no basis for her view that blogs are tossing out hordes of unsubstantiated rumors every single day. If Schreiber can’t differentiate between a Cubs blog post proposing some deadline deals and a blog post that actually purports to have a real trade rumor, then both she and ESPN have a problem.

Even if blogs were mass producing false rumors it’s absolutely insane for Schreiber to blame them for ESPN’s reporting problems. The way she describes it, ESPN has bunch of employees who sit around reading blogs and deciding which rumors ESPN.com must discuss in order to appease its knowledge-hungry readers. That’s ridiculous. There is no way ESPN is pressured to address dubious rumors because people will want to see what ESPN.com has to say about them. ESPN calls itself the “world wide leader in sports.” That means it should have the resources to verify a rumor before being “forced” to report it.

Here’s my advice to you Ms. Schreiber. If ESPN is doing a bad job reporting, you might want to take a look at whether it’s ESPN’s fault. After all, I don’t think blogs were responsible for Chris Mortensen reporting that Eli Manning would miss a month.

(Originally published 10/2)