ESPN Ombudsman's latest--still sees opinion over fact

ESPN will probably never get another ombudsman as good as their current one. Her latest report, 5/15/08, details positives before relating everything else. She again references ESPN's preference for opinion as opposed to objectivity. Most people in sports info-circles who aren't already employed there in some way will be so eventually (as Ms. Schreiber said in an earlier report, 4/5/07). Or certainly hope to be if they're interested in money. Sports has one voice. Why not?

• (ESPN ombudsman Schreiber, 5/15/08): "...I sometimes entertain the giddy hope it heralds the beginning of the end of opinion's dominance at ESPN. In my headier moments, I even imagine a cable universe that realizes the blogosphere provides all the outlets anyone could want for the venting of both informed and uninformed opinion, and that

what news organizations can best do is provide information that cannot be found elsewhere, instead of opinion that can be found everywhere."

• From Le Anne Schreiber's ESPN report on 5/15/08, "The Ups and Downs of Coloring Outside the Lines"

From Ms. Schreiber's report on 10/10/07, updated 10/11/07: "FED FAST FOOD OF OPINION, ESPN AUDIENCE STARVES FOR REPORTED FACT."

• "There are a lot of prices to pay for opinion-driven sports journalism --

• capriciously tarnished reputations and careers,

close-mouthed athletes and coaches protecting themselves by letting only the occasional bland cliché slip past their lips, fan rage at the media and, last but not least, the diversion of resources and reward from news reporting, which gradually undermines the very practice of journalism at its best.

• ...All I can say for sure is that factuality has been devalued in 24/7 sports media. If you look at the proportion of airtime and cyberspace devoted to reporting fact versus delivering opinion on ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio, it is clear that the main function of sports news is to serve as the molehill on which mountains of opinion are built. We don't have news cycles anymore. We have opinion cycles."

On 4/16/07, CJR notes Ms. Schreiber's second column and reaction to it, about which I posted here.

• via Neil Best's Watchdog blog.

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