Thanks to life issues, I've been unable to get in on this until know. Time correctly pegged the explanation behind this, though they (in classic old media style) didn't link to the Deadspin link: http://deadspin.com/5386749/espn-the-worldwide-leader-in-sexual-depravity .
To understand this even further, you have to go back to the Erin Andrews video story over the summer. AJ Daulerio (the editor of Deadspin) reported that the a page that had the video had been taken down after a nastygram from ESPN Legal. But Daulerio didn't realize that, thanks to the magic of Google Cache, the video could been recovered, which caused the video story to explode. Everyone pointed to Deadspin as the blame, when they simply pointed out the story. All the while, ESPN's response was stone-faced silence, both on-air and from their PR departments. This struck Daulerio as a hypocritical stance: to not report on what is clearly a legit news story was absurd. Fast forward to early September. Daulerio reached out to ESPN for comment on a rumor along these lines and was given such a strong straight-out denial that he didn't publish it. Having now been burned, at this point he wouldn't trust ESPN PR to tell him the sun rises in the east. Daulerio decided to open up the flood gates, outing two individuals who they had received repeated rumors about within ESPN: a radio personality and the VP of Marketing. At which point panties were put in a bunch and noses were removed from joints.Seemingly dropped off the radar: the VP of Marketing admitted (in the New York Post, no less: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/espn_execs_playing_around_84bgyFzxPgSFRxD54UI98H) she was in a relationship with the VP of Programming who appears to have been married at the time of their relationship started. Kevin, shouldn't these two people have been shown the door, too? Going back to Michael Freeman's "ESPN: An Uncensored History" in 2000, there have always been very serious allegations about the atmosphere within ESPN. In effect, ESPN wants to have it both ways: they want to have the glass house with very tinted windows. For my money: Daulerio is effectively doing what I've long wished old media would do: out sources who deceive. As Nick Denton notes in the Times article: "When an unnamed source misleads, as far as we’re concerned, they lose the right to remain in the shadows." PGage: I don't think there is unanimity in the idea that Daulerio and Deadspin crossed a line here, even within the two old media articles. The late George Carlin once said in an interview (and it might have been in "The Aristocrats") that his job is to get people to cross lines they didn't think were crossable. Instead, there seems to be a lot of conversation that this raised: * Double-standards of the bounds of sexual harrassment within a company * Worthlessness of company rules regarding relationships with a company * The relationship between a news organization that also pays money to the groups they cover. * People who will do anything for a job within a dream field and those who use their power to exploit that. These are all great leaping-off points. Instead, old media will go get the back of their own, circle their wagons, and take the pot shots at new media. Lukeoneil47 at Deadspin reminded me of this: If you go back to that Time article, after the third article is a link to "The five most overrated blogs" from 11 months ago. When Time listed their original first five most overrated blogs two years ago, they mentioned Ars Technica, and added this line: "And lose the fruity name." The slur remains: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725323_1727645_1727653,00.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
