All Blog Posts from Public Eye

File this under “Why stop there?”

The esteemed and established 150 year-old Atlantic Monthly magazine is no longer.

Nonono, it’s not going anywhere. It’s just changing its name. You know, like Cat Stevens. Or Jack Napier. Or Cher.

According to the New York Post, the magazine – since it comes out ten times a year – is dropping the word ‘Monthly’ from its title. Very literal people there:

THE Atlantic Monthly already had cut back to a publishing frequency of 10 times a year, but only now is the magazine getting around to dropping the word "monthly" from its corporate identity and officially changing its name to The Atlantic.

Which got me thinking, why shouldn’t other news outlets follow suit?

Read full post…

ESPN’s traditional catchphrase has always been “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.” But nowadays – as it seems to happen every year in June and July, when they seem content to fill “SportsCenter” time pointlessly – its motto seems to become “What Else Are You Going To Watch?”

Bashing on ESPN in the summertime is so easy that it’s not even, er, sporting. Although given the fact that the network aired the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” championship over this past weekend, maybe “ESPN Bashing” could be the next big thing in action-packed summer programming.

This week’s Newsweek, though, gives me cover with Devon Gordon’s piece: ESPN: The Worldwide Cheerleader.” Gordon makes the point that the most recent annual ESPN Awards Show (called the ESPY’s – get it?) was all that is wrong with the four-letter network:

In a way, the Espys have become an apt metaphor for ESPN. It's a party the network throws for itself and its closest friends. Everyone sits together, news anchors rubbing elbows with All-Stars. It's more business as usual—two crowds that should probably keep their distance, getting a little too cozy instead.

Now the issue of coziness and bias and how ESPN gives air-time to partners like Arena Football and not to the National Hockey League are serious ones, no doubt. (Been there. Done that.) But my main problem is that ESPN – and it’s one touched upon in Newsweek as well – just doesn’t seem to try when it comes to filling air-time during the summer months. Two summers ago, in an effort to pad their hour-long “SportsCenter” broadcast, they did a special “50 States in 50 Days” segment, based on two assumptions: A) That us viewers didn’t know about the sports history of New Mexico, and B) That we wanted to remedy that?

This summer’s time-filler makes “50/50” look like Kahn's “The Boys of Summer,” as far as sports journalism is concerned. It’s a make-believe (there’s no other way to put it) tournament of athletes pitted against each other in brackets (a la the NCAA basketball tournament) to find out … Drumroll Please … “Who’s Now?”

What does that mean? As far as I can tell, “Who’s Now” stands for one or both of the following:

Who’s Now … Just Mailing It In?

Who’s Now ... Taking America’s Sports Fans Hostage?

Obviously, ESPN takes that competition in a rout.

Read full post…

The Worldwide Leader … Locked Out

In news that will overjoy America’s throngs of Jeanne Zelasko fans – what, it’s just me? -- tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be free of those pesky ESPN sportscasters. Apparently, ESPN did not adhere to the embargo rules and divulged the all-star game fan voting results a couple minutes too soon – incurring the wrath of Fox Sports. According to the Hollywood Reporter:

Major League Baseball has limited ESPN's access to Tuesday night's All-Star Game after the network broke an embargo and broadcast news of the players' selections a few minutes after an exclusive, rain-delayed telecast on TBS.

Baseball executives told ESPN that it must pare its broadcast efforts from AT&T Park in San Francisco, where the All-Star Game is being held. So, most coverage will be done out of ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Conn., rather than having "Baseball Tonight" and a portion of "SportsCenter" originate from California as planned.

Bad news for sports fans, yes. But at least it gives America’s sports talk radio hosts a topic to discuss on the dullest sports day of the year – well, that and Dan Patrick.

Read full post…

It’s hard out here for an ombudsman. Even at ESPN, where new-ish reader/viewer/downloader representative Le Ann Schreiber takes a look this week at the issue of ESPN’s conflicts of interest in a piece troublingly titled “At ESPN, Conflict of Interest is Business As Usual.” She starts out on the defensive, with a “woe is us” sort of tone:

Imagine The New York Times owning half of the Broadway theaters whose plays it reviews. Or imagine CNN paying billions of dollars for exclusive multiyear rights to cover the War in Iraq. Imagine the temptation to recoup investment by piquing advance interest and prolonging the runs of plays and wars.

Why the comparison? Because ESPN watchers are starting to see curious dips in hockey coverage now that ESPN doesn’t have a contract with the NHL, and rises in coverage of their new broadcast partners NASCAR and the Arena Football League (AFL). Not quite Broadway and Iraq, but you get the idea.

Read full post…

Just in case those who work in the “news” segments of journalism think complaints about story coverage are somehow reserved just for them, here’s a reminder that consumers of our products have gripes on just about everything (tip of the hat to Romenesko). The fact that the ESPN sports network has its own ombudsman says enough by itself. And this week, he addressed concerns from viewers over the network’s coverage of the Terrell Owens story. Here’s what ESPN ombudsman George Solomon had to say about complaints he’s received:

“I thought ESPN did a solid job of reporting the story, but went over the edge in volume, with the number of stories on ‘SportsCenter’ and ESPNEWS, as well as allowing too much commentary on the subject. I know Owens is a lightning rod and everyone has an opinion, but between Sean Salisbury's calling the man ‘garbage,’ Tom Jackson's saying the Eagles should have done this last August and Mike Ditka's throwing him to the wolves, the suddenly shy [Michael] Irvin's silence on the matter was welcomed.”

What’s most instructional about this is how similar it sounds to many of the coverage questions we hear on the news side of the business about attention paid to sensational stories. And the response from Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news sounds familiar too:

“The ratings are a indication of what interests our viewers, and they are an accurate barometer, as opposed to some e-mailers who may or may not have an agenda. The ratings strongly affirm that our viewers have a great interest in the story."

Whether you’re talking about newspapers, network or cable news, sports or entertainment, the goal is the same – attracting, holding and pleasing an audience.

Read full post…