Time for ESPN ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer — or someone at the World Wide Leader — to better address Steve Phillips questions?
Eric Deggans |
Oct. 27, 2009 8:01 a.m.
What is it about sex scandals that can make modern media so quickly lose their minds?
Exhibit A in the sports world this week is former New York Mets general manager and ex-ESPN analyst Steve Phillips, whose firing from the sports media behemoth was announced Sunday after news broke last week he slept with a twentysomething production assistant at the company.
But what made Phillips’ scandal big media news wasn’t really the sordid details of his indiscretions (which included the young paramour calling his wife and emailing one of his teenage sons, according to a police report).
It wasn’t even the way ESPN announced his firing; by Twitter post just after the start of Sunday’s American League championship game between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels.
It was the frenzied, breathless way some media outlets responded to the sensational, sordid story.
The biggest bazooka blast came from the sports media blog Deadspin, where the site’s editor went ballistic over the fact that an ESPN flack didn’t confirm Phillips’ dalliance in September when asked about rumors. In return, editor A.J. Daulerio released details about two other alleged trysts he called “sordid rumors,” one of which was confirmed by the ESPN executive involved.
But even as Deadspin drowned in well-earned criticism for its decision, many sports blogs which slammed the site for attaching names to the rumors republished the names themselves, extending the possible damage.
Meanwhile, the New York Post, which broke the Phillips’ scandal story last week, tore into the reporting with a disturbing relish, producing pieces calling the production assistant a “loony lover,” alleging she hired another woman to call Phillips’ wife and leave disturbing messages. Other stories called her a “superfreak” and “tubby temptress.”
Of course, few expect a tabloid newspaper to hold back on a hot, local scandal. But the coverage even inspired some to suggest Phillips’ problems – which had gotten him suspended by the network and echoed infidelity problems he had 10 years ago working for the Mets – weren’t such big news at all. (“I’m still trying to understand the point of Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock’s admittedly joking piece saying “a moderately famous man earning between $250K and $500K a year should be allowed a mistress he can see weekly.”)
And there’s ESPN itself. As both news outlet and newsmaker, the channel is bound to come up short, offering stories with few details and declining to deliver detailed comments to its own reporters.
Another former analyst, Harold Reynolds, was fired in 2006 with no explanation, reportedly over sexual harassment allegations (he later sued ESPN, leading to a settlement). Had this happened anywhere else, ESPN reporters or columnists might be asking if there was a double standard at the outlet between how Reynolds and Phillips were treated.
Not this time. Instead, the channel used a weekend evening tweet to reveal Phillips’ discharge, confirming via a terse statement on Monday that the production assistant involved, 22-year-old Brooke Hundley, was also let go.
The explanation provided for Phillips’ firing was that “his ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged.” But deeper questions about what that really means – was he fired for the affair, for seeing it become a public scandal, for the way it became a police matter? – seem left to the sports blogs and New York Posts of the media world.
But hang on. ESPN has an ombudsman.
His name is Don Ohlmeyer, and he is a sports broadcasting legend. In the game since 1967, he has produced the Wide World of Sports, executive produced NBC’s Super Bowl telecasts and worked as head of all entertainment-related programming for the entire Peacock Network.
As ombudsman, he’s charged with providing independent critiques and evaluations of ESPN. And this explosive story is the kind of corporately embarrassing, conflict-laden minefield ombudsmen were created to excavate.
He’s already written his monthly column for October – a long meditation on everything from the common mistakes announcers make in the broadcast booth to a recent error which resulted in a college football analyst talking over the National Anthem. (seems kind of odd to give an ombudsman a monthly column anyway; shouldn’t fans have a more consistent voice?).
Still, Ohlmeyer is uniquely positioned to ask some important questions: Are ESPN executives concerned about so many allegations of improper relationships? Was it a mistake to hire someone who already had a history in that area? Is the company taking action to keep such an incendiary issue from exploding publicly again?
Most importantly, could ESPN have reported on its own problems better, instead of letting the New York Post and Deadspin fill the news vaccum?
Much as some might argue these subjects have little to do with the process of actually reporting sports, ESPN itself has acknowledged that such scandals can corrode an analyst’s credibility to the point where they are no longer employable.
And it’s tough to report aggressively on such issues in other organizations when you may not have handled your own instances optimally.
So here’s hoping Ohlmeyer or someone with his leeway is given the chance to produce an independent report for ESPN which brings a little sanity and quality to the journalism on this sad display.
Maybe it’s time for the Worldwide Leader in Sports to show a little leadership now, when sports media could use it the most.
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
Exhibit A in the sports world this week is former New York Mets general manager and ex-ESPN analyst Steve Phillips, whose firing from the sports media behemoth was announced Sunday after news broke last week he slept with a twentysomething production assistant at the company.
But what made Phillips’ scandal big media news wasn’t really the sordid details of his indiscretions (which included the young paramour calling his wife and emailing one of his teenage sons, according to a police report).
It wasn’t even the way ESPN announced his firing; by Twitter post just after the start of Sunday’s American League championship game between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels.
It was the frenzied, breathless way some media outlets responded to the sensational, sordid story.
The biggest bazooka blast came from the sports media blog Deadspin, where the site’s editor went ballistic over the fact that an ESPN flack didn’t confirm Phillips’ dalliance in September when asked about rumors. In return, editor A.J. Daulerio released details about two other alleged trysts he called “sordid rumors,” one of which was confirmed by the ESPN executive involved.
But even as Deadspin drowned in well-earned criticism for its decision, many sports blogs which slammed the site for attaching names to the rumors republished the names themselves, extending the possible damage.
Meanwhile, the New York Post, which broke the Phillips’ scandal story last week, tore into the reporting with a disturbing relish, producing pieces calling the production assistant a “loony lover,” alleging she hired another woman to call Phillips’ wife and leave disturbing messages. Other stories called her a “superfreak” and “tubby temptress.”
Of course, few expect a tabloid newspaper to hold back on a hot, local scandal. But the coverage even inspired some to suggest Phillips’ problems – which had gotten him suspended by the network and echoed infidelity problems he had 10 years ago working for the Mets – weren’t such big news at all. (“I’m still trying to understand the point of Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock’s admittedly joking piece saying “a moderately famous man earning between $250K and $500K a year should be allowed a mistress he can see weekly.”)
And there’s ESPN itself. As both news outlet and newsmaker, the channel is bound to come up short, offering stories with few details and declining to deliver detailed comments to its own reporters.
Another former analyst, Harold Reynolds, was fired in 2006 with no explanation, reportedly over sexual harassment allegations (he later sued ESPN, leading to a settlement). Had this happened anywhere else, ESPN reporters or columnists might be asking if there was a double standard at the outlet between how Reynolds and Phillips were treated.
Not this time. Instead, the channel used a weekend evening tweet to reveal Phillips’ discharge, confirming via a terse statement on Monday that the production assistant involved, 22-year-old Brooke Hundley, was also let go.
The explanation provided for Phillips’ firing was that “his ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged.” But deeper questions about what that really means – was he fired for the affair, for seeing it become a public scandal, for the way it became a police matter? – seem left to the sports blogs and New York Posts of the media world.
But hang on. ESPN has an ombudsman.
His name is Don Ohlmeyer, and he is a sports broadcasting legend. In the game since 1967, he has produced the Wide World of Sports, executive produced NBC’s Super Bowl telecasts and worked as head of all entertainment-related programming for the entire Peacock Network.
As ombudsman, he’s charged with providing independent critiques and evaluations of ESPN. And this explosive story is the kind of corporately embarrassing, conflict-laden minefield ombudsmen were created to excavate.
He’s already written his monthly column for October – a long meditation on everything from the common mistakes announcers make in the broadcast booth to a recent error which resulted in a college football analyst talking over the National Anthem. (seems kind of odd to give an ombudsman a monthly column anyway; shouldn’t fans have a more consistent voice?).
Still, Ohlmeyer is uniquely positioned to ask some important questions: Are ESPN executives concerned about so many allegations of improper relationships? Was it a mistake to hire someone who already had a history in that area? Is the company taking action to keep such an incendiary issue from exploding publicly again?
Most importantly, could ESPN have reported on its own problems better, instead of letting the New York Post and Deadspin fill the news vaccum?
Much as some might argue these subjects have little to do with the process of actually reporting sports, ESPN itself has acknowledged that such scandals can corrode an analyst’s credibility to the point where they are no longer employable.
And it’s tough to report aggressively on such issues in other organizations when you may not have handled your own instances optimally.
So here’s hoping Ohlmeyer or someone with his leeway is given the chance to produce an independent report for ESPN which brings a little sanity and quality to the journalism on this sad display.
Maybe it’s time for the Worldwide Leader in Sports to show a little leadership now, when sports media could use it the most.
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Ombudsmen at ESPN and the NY Times, to name two prominent but not unique examples, simply don’t publish enough to do their jobs. At the Times Hoyt covers very few topics, and half of the ones he does address answer questions nobody’s asking or are more suitable for a fifth-grade class touring the newsroom; like his predecessor, he is mostly running out the clock and seldom asks the truly uncomfortable questions.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
If an adultary-free past were required of all network baseball analysts, Tommy John would be the only guy who could get a job.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Why is Don Ohlmeyer – a man who famously stood by buddy O.J. Simpson during the double murder trial, a man who, as an NBC executive, called for a “four games and out” World Series between the Florida Marlins and the Cleveland Indians in 1997 because he was afraid the series would hurt his network’s ratings – even an ombudsman for ESPN?
October 28th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
“California” Angels?
November 12th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
For some reason it makes an issue for them maybe because for them it’s really big…..
BallGames