The assault on truth in America began with the introduction of the Euro step in the NBA.
A fairly mild opinion, right? The musings of an out-of-touch observer who winces when refs ignore an obvious traveling call, correct?
But what if the NBA were a part-owner of the Chicago Sun-Times? Would the league tell editors to tell me to stop criticizing the product? What if something much more serious came along, like a scandalous matter involving a player, an owner or the commissioner of the league? Would there be a chilling effect on what the newspaper might write?
As a reader, you’d have every right to ask those questions. You’d have every right to be suspicious.
Scary? Something much more nefarious might be in the works. The NFL reportedly is in talks to become an equity partner in ESPN, according to the New York Post and other outlets. Under the proposed plan, ESPN would take over NFL Media, which includes NFL Network. If the deal goes through, everything subsequently written and said by ESPN – and everything not written and not said – will be scrutinized for NFL bias and strong-arming. Finding it won’t be hard.
It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the network caving into the NFL when something reflects poorly on the product. Say what you want about newspapers (and you will), but their allegiance is to news. ESPN’s allegiance is to its brand.
No sports league is as protective of its image as the NFL is. Protecting the shield — the league’s logo — has been its mantra and goal for years. Think of the shield as the Holy Grail and the league’s executives as the Knights Templar. Now you’re starting to get the idea. And now you understand what an NFL equity stake might mean to ESPN’s coverage.
ESPN is the biggest sports news operation in the country. It breaks many NFL and NBA stories, thanks to tenacious reporters and hungry agents looking to boost their own profiles. But journalists in a business relationship with the people they cover is never a good idea. Even if that’s not on the minds of reporters trying to do their jobs, it will be on the minds of readers and viewers who’ll wonder if what they’re being served has been compromised. They already do with ESPN televising NFL games.
There’s conflict of interest and there’s the perception of conflict of interest. In this case, both will be at play.
When Tribune Co. owned the Cubs, reporters and columnists at the newspaper had to listen to criticism that they were doing their corporate bosses’ bidding. When I worked at the Tribune, I never had an editor admonish me for being critical of the team. It didn’t matter. Some Cubs fans were sure there was meddling from above. I couldn’t convince them otherwise, but I understood their skepticism.
Everything ESPN does is with entertainment in mind. That shouldn’t be a secret to anyone. It’s the first word in the abbreviation for the cable giant: Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. In this view, then, a Duke-North Carolina basketball game, witty repartee between “SportsCenter” hosts and an Adrian Wojnarowski report about a blockbuster NBA trade are all the same thing. If for some reason you’re under the impression that ESPN regards the news-gathering enterprise as sacrosanct compared to a “30 for 30” documentary on Michael Jordan’s minor-league baseball career, you’re wrong. It’s one, big money-making show.
This is what Adam Schefter and the rest of ESPN’s NFL reporters will be up against, times 100, if the two entities become equity partners. Where Tribune execs were hands off with reporters when it came to the Cubs, I don’t believe ESPN bosses will be. The Tribune was a news operation first. ESPN is an entertainment operation first. And maybe second and third.
Here’s your serving of irony for the day: The NFL is bad-news proof. Nothing seems to hurt its popularity. Not Ray Rice’s pummeling of his then-fiancee in an elevator. Not the Deflategate scandal. Not the sexual-assault accusations against Deshaun Watson. TV ratings for NFL games are always sky-high.
So the league has no need to try to influence news coverage. But it does anyway, whether that be via spin from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or via an angry call from a league PR person to a reporter about the tone of a story.
If the NFL becomes an equity partner with ESPN, two things are possible:
– The spin and the angry calls will increase.
– The spin and the calls will stop because ESPN will practice self-suppression.
As far as I can tell, ESPN.com has not reported on the proposed business deal with the NFL. Seems like an important news story, no?
