Re: ESPN in Roethlisberger's/Pittsburgh's pocket:reports on Marvin Harrison civil law
The only thing I would say in defense of bspn in this case is that the decision to not carry the Roethlisberger story was probably not theirs; more likely that order came from their parent company, Disney.
Roethlisberger was just about to start promoting a show for another division of Disney: abc networks. My guess is that somebody further up the corporate ladder made an ill-fated decision to act like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand; they felt that by being the biggest supplier of sports news that if they did not report anything on it then people would be unaware, the story would go away, and they could continue with their promotional plans for their reality television show that would center around Shaquille O'Neal and feature Roethlisberger. Obviously their ability to shape the news is not quite as profound as they thought it was despite being "the world wide leader".