Re: ESPN Ombudsman to investigate ESPN's coverage of Spygate
While it was mildly refreshing to see her take ESPN to task for their ridiculously over-the-top coverage of the Matt Walsh story, it was ultimately disappointing that she let the network off the hook for it's terribly biased coverage. She could have/should have come down much harder on Wingo, Carter and Schlereth for their shameful performances on the day of the Matt Walsh meeting. And somehow that scumbag Mike Fish get's off with barely a mention by one of his supervisors on how things "didn't pan out".
It is obvious that the Patriot's brand has taken a major PR blow and most of it can be traced back to this lousy network and it's roster of buffoons. Just look at the thread from earlier today about the Pat's question on "JEOPARDY".
The revolting innuendo that ESPN has been forcing down the throats of the public has been accepted as fact.
What he said.
The running theme, summarized by the title itself, was ultimately placing blame the network for continuing to force those poor commentators to beat a dead horse for 2 hours, while they awaited GODell's pc. While I agree with her assessment about the network and the buck always stopping at the top, she also managed to portray those 3 as some kind of "victims", which is total bs. Poor Trey valiantly attempting to gain control over Schlerer and Carter... Puh-lease.
Wingo didn't make any attempt to rein anything in until at least an hour or so into the show, which is when he finally began reminding viewers that it was, after all, OPINION.
There's no excuse for how they handled it, and for her to tuck it all under the umbrella of poor network judgement is ludicrous. She must have missed the first hour of the show; those 3 were absolutely drooling, and Wingo himself tried to argue with John Clayton who, oddly enough, was the only voice of reason in the group.
The network loved it, the Pats-hating viewers (who probably outnumber Pats-loving viewers right about now) ate it up,and in the end that show became instrumental in fueling the unbelievable backlash that's resulted since Goodell announced that Spygate was essentially over. Not exactly the reaction that should have resulted.
This is the second time ESPN's fanned the fires, and nobody will convince me it wasn't contrived. They're well aware of their influence, and I'll never believe they had NO idea Specter would be chiming in soon. Little s* stirrers
I can't swear to it but weren't Wingo and Co's closing words something to the effect of Goodell letting them off easy, or using the tapes during the game? I forget exactly-all I know is that crew never let up until the final credits rolled.
She does mention that PTI immediately followed, and cited Korn and Wilbon's brief remarks. To her credit, she also notes the imbalance of time alloted to PTI's stance vs the all day affair that belonged to The 3 Stooges.
The irony is, she devotes paragraph after paragraph to ESPN et al's explanations, but gives only brief mention to Pats fans' statements.
I don't mean to be negative because I'm happy to see her report and to see it get some press from us and PFT. She probably did a good job within her scope of practice and I totally agree with her presentation on the Joey Porter interview too, but I can't say I'm satisfied, that's for sure.
