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As anyone who has ever met me, read my Twitter feed or lived within three houses of me knows, I am a rabid, lifelong Jets fan. I went to every home game from 1974 to 1985 and still watch just about every game with my equally rabid father. I also must confess that I have not yet learned to deal with the existential crisis that comes from having a guy with my last name beat my team consistently for 15 seasons.
As a result of these psychological limitations, I did tweet some snarky things about the Patriots and Deflategate before I took on the role of ESPN’s public editor. That was pure fandom speaking; I am not a student of ideal gas law.
That said, I will still root against the Patriots each and every week next season, probably mostly unsuccessfully. Because I was born in Queens, not Framingham. Don’t take it personally. I don’t."
This reply from Ben Elkin is one of the best comments: it states the issues better than I ever could:
As a former NPR journalist I read this as a whitewashing and a continuation of Espn not taking real responsibility for what happened. Its really narrowly tailored to address a few "honest mistake oopsies" in the news dept. and ignores the blatantly pro-nfl biased and flat out wrong wrong legal commentary by Lester Munson and roger Cossack not to mention the general pro-nfl/anti-patriots commentary from Jon Clayton, Bill polian, crying Marc Brunnell, etc. that was in stark contrast to what most other outlets who don't have a cozy relationship with the nfl were saying. why didn't Espn do more to question and verify the lies the nfl was spewing? Especially in light of all other outlets (si.com, yahoo, Washington post, New York Times, etc) did to question and criticize all that judge Berman laid bare. The nfl and goodell were so far out of line they were totally repudiated. Every other major news outlet commented on this EXCEPT Espn. That there's no mention of this in the piece and that it just focuses on the news room blunders just furthers the appearance that ESPN journalism and accountability is completely hamstrung by their relationship with the nfl and after this and the league of denial events and many others the company has ZERO credibility in journalism. Zero.
Brilliant commentaryThis reply from Ben Elkin is one of the best comments: it states the issues better than I ever could:
As a former NPR journalist I read this as a whitewashing and a continuation of Espn not taking real responsibility for what happened. Its really narrowly tailored to address a few "honest mistake oopsies" in the news dept. and ignores the blatantly pro-nfl biased and flat out wrong wrong legal commentary by Lester Munson and roger Cossack not to mention the general pro-nfl/anti-patriots commentary from Jon Clayton, Bill polian, crying Marc Brunnell, etc. that was in stark contrast to what most other outlets who don't have a cozy relationship with the nfl were saying. why didn't Espn do more to question and verify the lies the nfl was spewing? Especially in light of all other outlets (si.com, yahoo, Washington post, New York Times, etc) did to question and criticize all that judge Berman laid bare. The nfl and goodell were so far out of line they were totally repudiated. Every other major news outlet commented on this EXCEPT Espn. That there's no mention of this in the piece and that it just focuses on the news room blunders just furthers the appearance that ESPN journalism and accountability is completely hamstrung by their relationship with the nfl and after this and the league of denial events and many others the company has ZERO credibility in journalism. Zero.
That was pure fandom speaking; I am not a student of ideal gas law.
Takeaways from ESPN’s piece explaining Deflategate coverageSo there you have it. ESPN might have colluded with people inside the NFL to spread lies about the Patriots. It may have let Chris Mortensen leave his grossly inaccurate tweet sit there for months and still to this day have his original article on their site uncorrected. Sure, they let Kelly Naqi go on the air to spread a total lie and then make no mention of what happened to her afterward. OK, so they twice reported the fiction about the non-existent Rams walk-hrough tape and only after Patriots fans blew their stacks apologized in the middle of the night when no one was watching. Fine, so someone from the league handed Stephen A. Smith the story about Tom Brady “destroying” his phone. Of course they employ the only two legal analysts on TV who predict Brady will lose every time he goes to court. And of course they signed off on that hatchet piece about all the other cheating allegations against the Patriots within hours of Brady getting exonerated by a federal judge.
But that’s not a concerted effort to make the Patriots out to be cheating, conniving, lying frauds. It’s a “lack of transparency and accountability. Gotcha.