Lack of transparency on Deflategate made journalism tougher to judge

[dannydyn]

Great read

Lack of transparency on Deflategate made journalism tougher to judge

 

[Ivan]

Nothing ESPN does will get me to tune them back in.

 

[rsd]

I'm going to call BS on his whole premise. He's still ultimately defending ESPN just saying they communicated poorly/didn't provide transparency.

The whole apology things at 12am, Mark Brunnel, the clear axe to grind with the Patriots and being a mouthpiece for the NFL (Steven A's "the phone was destroyed!"), shows ESPN and the NFL for their true colors.

It's a nice attempt to look neutral and/or criticize ESPN but it's a facade.

 

[fair catch fryar]

Great read

Lack of transparency on Deflategate made journalism tougher to judge

You need to let posters know that this is an ESPN article before they click on it. I did and immediately deleted it. I will not read or visit anything there until they retract and fully apologize for their outright lies and handling of deflategate.

 

[Ivan]

ESPN was perfectly happy with giving Patriot fans the finger until they finally became concerned about the number of people cordcutting and the serious decline in viewers. Now the are starting to realize they can't be flipping off millions of viewers and are trying to justify their behavior when in truth there is no justification for it. F.ck them, I'm done with them for good.

 

[everlong]

Hi we're losing ad dollars and Disney is F*CKING PISSED!!!! Please forgive us!

 

[RobertWeathers]

Frauds. I don't buy a word of it. They kept it pinned up there to draw viewers and site traffic and drive NFL ratings.

I was born at night but not last night.

 

[Dr Pain]

What he has left out is that the folks at ESPN felt they were given a weak MNF slate because of criticism of Goodell and that they were playing Goodell's lapdog out of fear of punishment. Is the NFL punishing ESPN with a bad 'MNF' schedule?

 

[Ross12]

I found this section at the end funny:

"DISCLOSURE

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."

 

[GrogansArmy]

Gah! Let us know beforehand its an espn link!

 

[BradyFTW!]

This is basically ESPN's way of saying "mistakes were made", and then blaming someone else for making them. No accepting of fault, let alone an apology. **** ESPN.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Yeah, and note the opening. Starting with an example of something that is clearly nutty so that what comes after will seem less outrageous.

 

[Buchanty]

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.

 

[Clonamery]

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.

Exactly.

 

[borg]

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 commentary

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

If Disney wants to continue to be a**holes and replace their employees with lower paid foreigners, they can start with their employees in Bristol, CT...

Disney Workers Forced to Train Their Foreign Replacements | Fox Business

 

[sb1]

Agreed with everyone above. It's better than nothing but it doesn't go nearly far enough and disingenuously so.

I also love how that correction was not only aired at 12:30am but also buried on the ESPN.com corrections page instead of where anyone can find it easily.

 

[archstanton543]

That was pure fandom speaking; I am not a student of ideal gas law.

I'm not a student of gravity but I understand the basic tenents of its Law.

 

[Mack Herron]

So 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.

Takeaways from ESPN’s piece explaining Deflategate coverage

 

[Kontradiction]

Didn't read LOL. Glad I clicked the thread and saw it was from ESPN first.