Read Bleacher Fan’s argument that ESPN dedicated local coverage is good for sports and fans and Loyal Homer’s argument that it is not.
The code of the journalist is to report the story, not become the story. Someone forgot to tell ESPN. It’s important that ESPN learn, too, because they’re hype-machine and in depth coverage is coming to a local market near you.
Last week was a tough week for the World Wide Leader in sports. First, sideline reporter Erin Andrews is illegally taped in a secret recording through a drill hole in a hotel room wall (a despicable act against Andrews, who is a very talented reporter). While that hoopla was just beginning to spiral out of control, ESPN issued a quiet “do not report” alert on the story that Ben Roethlisberger – two time Super Bowl champion quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers – is being sued in civil court and being accused of rape. These are very, very serious allegations involving the most recent Super Bowl winning QB, how can ESPN simply refuse to report the story? Well, they delayed reporting it under the guise that no criminal complaints were filed (uh, is that supposed to be an excuse?).
I mention these other stories to add some context to today’s debate topic. ESPN, for better or worse, is setting the bar on sports reporting in the United States, and there’s no one else even close. For over 25 years ESPN has been the go to authority on all national sports. Now they are expanding their national sports reporting dominance to specific markets. First it was Chicago, where ESPN launched a website specially dedicated to all Chicago sports. They recently announced an expansion of the project that will now include New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
You may be thinking that even though ESPN WANTS to be relevant in a local marketing like Chicago, they simply do not have the ability to draw the eyeballs that advertisers covet. Wrong. Current local Chicago sports coverage is unwise to dismiss ESPN as a casual threat, especially when considering in June of this year ESPN’s Chicago sports site became the number one more visited sports site in Chicago with 590,000 unique site visits versus The Chicago Tribune’s dedicated Chicago sports site which attracted only 455,000 unique site visits.
Interestingly, because ESPN does not have highly developed reporter assets on the pavement in these local markets, they are, like their hard news counterpart CNN, relying in part on locals to furnish the stories. George W. Bodenheimer, co-chairman of Disney Media Networks and President of ESPN and ABC sports told The New York Times that costs are “minimal” and “the initiative is perfect for exploring [locals covering the news].”
It may seem from the writing of this debate intro that my mind is already made up. However, it’s not. ESPN has found a way to absolve themselves from some of the major (rather questionable) reporting decisions it makes on a day to day basis on the national level and inform its reporting with new technologies like social networks and Twitter. It’s low cost and, like a wild blackberry bush, will provide content that is impossible to control. Since ESPN’s new ombudsman has yet to begin work, the trusty writers at The Sports Debates will tackle the topic.
Today’s debate topic is: Will ESPN’s local market reporting be a viable source for local sports reporting?
Bleacher Fan will argue that ESPN will provides excellent local market coverage and fans stand a lot to gain while Loyal Homer will argue that ESPN will not provide good local coverage and the fans will lose.
Dust off your reporting shoes, writers – what happens when the World Wide Leaders invades your town?
ESPN is a joke.. You mention CNN and ESPN in the same breath. CNN is a bigger joke. They all are state run media. Give me a break.
They are each national news outlets, I think it’s hard to brand them as “state run media” — which is something completely different.
What they have in common is a great deal of “mind-share” (Read: eyeballs) paying attention to them, and people trusting them to filter their news. Discussion on how they use their filter and what their filter means for news is an entirely different debate.