The ESPN Critic: How we Bungled the Leach Story

wow, that was a loooooooooong story. Well written, to the point, a different perspective than we've seen from ESPN yet.

What disturbed me was the fact that the folks at ESPN actually thought that they were handeling the story fairly... How stupid are they :bug:

Translation: We really screwed the pooch by showing our bias on this one, usually we're a little more subtle, even though you can still tell it's there.

I'm really glad this finally came out. I think a big part of the problem with this story (and probably a lot of other stories) is that a lot of the local sports stations/newspapers around the country look to ESPN for a lot of their info. Thus, when ESPN decides it's a one-sided story, in favor of the James', sports reporters across the country reinforce their bias by continuing to repeat just the one side.

That's the downside of the internet. The newspapers are losing money so they get rid of their writers and depend on feeds from the internet. there are no more independent thinkers or investigative reporters.

I think ESPN sees it is about to be wearing a large amount of egg on its face over this one, and took a preemptive to measure to try to appear as if they addressed their mistake. Fact is, Leach, in part, lost his job over how the media portrayed this. Had ESPN call james kid out as being spoiled, entitled, a brat and that what leach did was not medically harmful, just old school coaching techniques, Leach is till at Tech because Tech then loses that appearance of some moral high ground it needed to can Leach. Reporting does matter, it does sway opinion, or at least sway appearance on opinion. We see it with DC politics every day. ESPN screwed up on this one big time. They let their own employee framr the issue too much, to their own detriment.

Just remember that this is the ombudsman talking---it's his job to investigate complaints against ESPN and to give the ESPN big-wigs suggestions on how to do things better. Unfortunately, his opinion doesn't represent that of ESPN as a whole, a ESPN isn't obligated to accomodate his suggestions.



If nothing else, it's nice to see a fair interpretation of things one a page hosted by espn.com

Is there any recourse for Leach to bring a lawsuit against ESPN after he gets done with Tech? I mean, they are obviously part of the reason he got canned and they obviously placated their own "anyalyst" who was neck-deep in the very story.



I think in addition to some malpractice reform there ought to be some mal-journalism reform. If you report something based on less than substantial evidence from both sides of a story, you deserve to get sued or need to pay some kind of a penalty. These kinds of false reports are doing greater and greater damage due to their accessibility and helping people to form their initial opinions on a subject.