Sometimes I just have to say, ???what the fuck???? “awesome” and the royal we doesn???t work as well. These are my thoughts???raronauer
I find a lot objectionable about the business of America media today. There???s no money for serious journalism, and there???s no interest in it either. While reporting from the Middle East continues to be flawed and inaccurate, sports journalism is still taking itself seriously. And ESPN is leading the way.
In the past two months, the channel has seemingly launched an initiative to become the best source of sports news in the country. The network shouldn???t have a problem, considering the state of Sports Illustrated lately.
They???ve spent big money on big names, acquiring Rick Reilly, Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn. While Fox and CBS use ex-players to broadcast their football games, ESPN should be commended for putting money into real journalistic talent, not in washed up athletes.
While every news outlet in the world seems to be losing money, ESPN has found the winning formula. Their cable business brought in $5.28 billion, just less than ABC, which made $5.88 billion in 2007. And they???re making money by improving the quality of their product.
ESPN International is growing, too. Instead of stuffing American sports down the throats of Europeans, the network is expanding their coverage and buying up websites covering rugby, cricket and soccer.
With the exception of the Knicks, sports coverage is pretty straightforward. The drama, human interest and story arcs are built in. And ESPN has loads more liquid assets than idealist D.C.-based magazines. But the network still deserves credit for trying to be the best and believing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that quality is a good investment.
No. 1
Sheryl says:
So how then did they botch the “Miles To Michigan” story and the “Michael Vick Will NOT Be Indicted” story?
Posted: Dec 4, 2007 at 8:10 pm
No. 2
ESPN Is a Joke says:
To further add on to Sheryl: if you knew anything about the sports journalism business, calling ESPN any sort of altruistic entity–even a decent entity–is a joke. ESPN has a shitload of money to throw at people and use to shut down competitors. They will will then bury those people and turn them into retarded talking heads that represent the antithesis of sports journalism. They will also get terrifically big stories wrong (e.g. Mike Vick, recently Les Miles). However, they have a lot of money and a TV station. SI and other papers are about writing and journalism. To say that ESPN is the paradigm in that regard is a joke. There’s a reason Selena Roberts chose SI (and it wasn’t the money).
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 12:43 am