| So a famous NFL quarterback is involved in a civil suit in which he's accused of rape. The world's biggest sports news network orders its people not to mention the lawsuit.
The world looks on, incredulously.
ESPN, almost two days later, finally reports the news.
What was ESPN's reasoning? Well, from ESPN:
"Based on the sensitive nature of the story and other factors we mentioned, we initially exercised caution and did not report it," the statement reads.
"Since then, we've been observing how the story has progressed, monitoring other news outlets, and doing our own reporting. We decided to report the story tonight."
Or was it because of ESPN's investment into the NFL?
Anyway. You hear a lot about the decline of traditional media because of the proliferation of free content online, the competition from blogs, etc and co, but this story reminds me of the real challenge to a viable and healthy media: money. That is, too many "media" companies are entangled in too many deals - ESPN of course allows itself not to report on a story that threatens one of its prime investments...but that's because the network doesn't really see itself as media, but as entertainment.
And ESPN isn't hurting financially.
Who's going to stop watching football games on ESPN for trying to bury the Big Ben story? That is, it doesn't really pay to have objective standards for journalism, does it? |
