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When ESPN named legendary sports journalist Robert Lipsyte its ombudsman in April 2013, the decision was cheered by Deadspin, the Worldwide Leaders chief antagonist. Calling on Lipsyte was a surprising decision for ESPN, whose broadcasting entanglements with sports leagues mean that turning athletes into heroes is sort of the companys business model. The former New York Times columnist, by contrast, made his name by straying from the pack of sportswriters he charged with godding up sports stars.
On Monday, to mark the end of his ombudsman tenure, Lipsyte did an exit interview with Slates Hang Up and Listen podcast about his role with the network. When asked if ESPNs journalismwhich Lipsyte says is the only aspect of ESPNs operations he felt qualified to criticizemet his standards, he said, No, absolutely not. I think that ESPN could be better. But he also acknowledges the difficulty of walking the line between the networks two jobs as a presenter of live sports entertainment and as a media organization that digs into things that sports leagues might not want us to know.
ESPNs primary job has always been, as Lipsyte describes it, putting up those pretty pictures, buying rights, promoting games
selling the spectacular. ESPN is relatively young and has grown quickly without any kind of traditional journalism heritage, Lipsyte says. It has used its considerable piles of money to buy some really good journalists, but the network, he believes, is still trying to figure out how to use them properly. He calls ESPN a vast empire, and points to the SEC Network as the most mind-blowing part of that empire. Extensive investigative reporting into the exploitation of college athletes, and the legal battles around that, would seem to conflict with ESPNs business model, he writes in his final ombudsman column. How do you turn over the rocks in the Southeastern Conference, for instance, while owning the SEC Network?
ESPN is the best in the business, Lipsyte says, at transactional reporting: breaking the news that helps us watch the games it will broadcast later, telling us who is going to be traded, whos hurt, whos going to actually start on Sunday. But Lipsyte believes that where they have to go is the transgressions: the evil that the leagues do.
The tension here isnt just between ESPN and its business partners in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Its between ESPN and its viewers, who mostly dont seem to care whether the leagues are doing evil.
Lipsyte says he received close to 20,000 emails during his time as ombudsman. Lots of viewers complained about specific on-air issueswhy is this person still on the air, or why does ESPN hate my favorite sport, particularly if that favorite sport is hockey. But what really bothered ESPNs core audience, Lipsyte says, was the intrusion of what they called societal issues into what was, in a way, kind of a sacred place. People so often come to sports as this sanctuary from the real world, where they can sit in their living room with their family and not be assailed by anything that will upset them. For some, that upsetting thing was the sight of football player Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend to celebrate being drafted.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/12/robert_lipsyte_an_exit_interview_with_the_espn_ombudsman.html
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)Auggie
(31,194 posts)For some it's the only resource in which societal issues are aired, reported or discussed. Don't like Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend? Tough shit. Welcome to the real world.