I know ESPN and the politics have been discussed at length recently. I thought I would pass along this article by Jason Whitlock
By
Jason Whitlock
May 7, 2017 4:07 p.m. ET
94 COMMENTS
ESPN has recently faced public scrutiny beyond its control, an experience that has humbled the cable giant. Late last month the company cut ties with 100 employees, many of them front-facing television talent. The layoffs sparked a deluge of media coverage examining ESPN’s decline and future. The consensus opinion blamed the network’s woes on overly expensive live-sports contracts and subscriber losses attributed to cable “cord-cutting.”
That’s accurate but incomplete. What has truly impeded ESPN from overcoming its financial mistakes and inability to adapt to technological advances? The decadelong culture war ESPN lost to Deadspin, a snarky, politically progressive sports blog launched by Gawker’s Nick Denton in 2005.
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While the mainstream media has failed to document the extent of Deadspin’s rout of ESPN, I haven’t. I worked at ESPN twice, BD and AD. Before Deadspin (2001-06) and After Deadspin (2013-15).
The Mark Shapiro era defined my initial stint at the network. Mr. Shapiro—a youthful, abrasive, risk-taking senior vice president in charge of programming and production—conceived much of the programming that defines the network to this day. He invented “Pardon the Interruption” and “Around the Horn.” He also paired Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, televised “Mike and Mike” and “The World Series of Poker,” hired Colin Cowherd, and landed ESPN’s NBA package.
“Mark built a culture at ESPN,” said former ESPN executive Jim Cohen in an interview. “It’s always easy to do the predictable. If the predictable doesn’t work, no one is going to question you, because it’s what you were supposed to do. A lot of people in that newsroom laughed out loud when we started ‘PTI.’ They said it had no chance at succeeding.”
Mr. Cohen added that since Mr. Shapiro left the network, no one has had the guts to take similar risks. But was it a lack of guts or a lack of opportunity?
Deadspin significantly elevated the price of implementing change at ESPN. The often-caustic blog mastered search-engine optimization and Twitter ’s ability to gin up faux outrage. Its writers trolled ESPN talent and executives, getting plenty of attention along the way. The site particularly delighted in exposing alleged sexual malfeasance among ESPN employees.
In 2007 Deadspin editor Will Leitch posted a story suggesting popular anchor Stuart Scott attempted to arrange an assignation with a woman at a Super Bowl party. Scott, who died in 2015, was married at the time, and the story was based solely on a Deadspin correspondent looking over Scott’s shoulder and seeing a text that read: “Lemme know.”
In 2009 Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio—angered that ESPN PR misled him about “Baseball Tonight” analyst Steve Phillips’s dismissal over an affair with an intern—published a string of unconfirmed rumors about sexual misconduct among ESPN employees. A 2011 Deadspin post alleging lewd conduct by a top ESPN executive while seated next to sideline reporter Erin Andrews justifiably spread fear throughout the channel’s leadership.
On the plus side, Deadspin’s exposure helped end ESPN’s sexually charged frat-house atmosphere. But it also extinguished the network’s risk-taking culture and infused it with strict obedience to progressive political correctness.
During ESPN’s presentation to advertisers last year, Deadspin’s Kevin Draper wrote a post that all but declared the blog’s victory over the media giant. In the piece, “ESPN’s Vision of Its Future Is Good for Sports Fans, for Now” the writer celebrated the network’s firing of Curt Schilling and the “targeting” of nonwhite and female viewers.
“The old-school viewers were put in a corner and not appreciated with all these other changes,” veteran ESPN anchor Linda Cohn said during an April radio interview when asked if ESPN’s liberal bent hurt the network. “If anyone wants to ignore that fact, then they’re blind.”
Rather than sue Mr. Denton’s bullying internet pirates into submission the way tech billionaire Peter Thiel did, ESPN chose to acquiesce and adopt progressive ideology and diversity as groundbreaking business innovations. ESPN is the exact network Deadspin desired. It’s diverse on its surface, progressive in its point of view, and more concerned with spinning media narratives than with the quality of its product.
The channel has become too handcuffed by politics to protect its most experienced and loyal employees. It’s a massive symbol of everything that fueled Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.
ESPN NFL reporter Ed Werder, one of the most prominent faces among the layoffs last month, said in a podcast that he heard quality of work would not be a consideration when employees were let go. He lamented that “it seemed to me that quality work should be the only consideration.” Not in this America, the one ruled by social-media perception and dismissive of the real world.
Mr. Whitlock is a co-host of “Speak for Yourself” on Fox Sports 1.
By
Jason Whitlock
May 7, 2017 4:07 p.m. ET
94 COMMENTS
ESPN has recently faced public scrutiny beyond its control, an experience that has humbled the cable giant. Late last month the company cut ties with 100 employees, many of them front-facing television talent. The layoffs sparked a deluge of media coverage examining ESPN’s decline and future. The consensus opinion blamed the network’s woes on overly expensive live-sports contracts and subscriber losses attributed to cable “cord-cutting.”
That’s accurate but incomplete. What has truly impeded ESPN from overcoming its financial mistakes and inability to adapt to technological advances? The decadelong culture war ESPN lost to Deadspin, a snarky, politically progressive sports blog launched by Gawker’s Nick Denton in 2005.
ADVERTISING
While the mainstream media has failed to document the extent of Deadspin’s rout of ESPN, I haven’t. I worked at ESPN twice, BD and AD. Before Deadspin (2001-06) and After Deadspin (2013-15).
The Mark Shapiro era defined my initial stint at the network. Mr. Shapiro—a youthful, abrasive, risk-taking senior vice president in charge of programming and production—conceived much of the programming that defines the network to this day. He invented “Pardon the Interruption” and “Around the Horn.” He also paired Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, televised “Mike and Mike” and “The World Series of Poker,” hired Colin Cowherd, and landed ESPN’s NBA package.
“Mark built a culture at ESPN,” said former ESPN executive Jim Cohen in an interview. “It’s always easy to do the predictable. If the predictable doesn’t work, no one is going to question you, because it’s what you were supposed to do. A lot of people in that newsroom laughed out loud when we started ‘PTI.’ They said it had no chance at succeeding.”
Mr. Cohen added that since Mr. Shapiro left the network, no one has had the guts to take similar risks. But was it a lack of guts or a lack of opportunity?
Deadspin significantly elevated the price of implementing change at ESPN. The often-caustic blog mastered search-engine optimization and Twitter ’s ability to gin up faux outrage. Its writers trolled ESPN talent and executives, getting plenty of attention along the way. The site particularly delighted in exposing alleged sexual malfeasance among ESPN employees.
In 2007 Deadspin editor Will Leitch posted a story suggesting popular anchor Stuart Scott attempted to arrange an assignation with a woman at a Super Bowl party. Scott, who died in 2015, was married at the time, and the story was based solely on a Deadspin correspondent looking over Scott’s shoulder and seeing a text that read: “Lemme know.”
In 2009 Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio—angered that ESPN PR misled him about “Baseball Tonight” analyst Steve Phillips’s dismissal over an affair with an intern—published a string of unconfirmed rumors about sexual misconduct among ESPN employees. A 2011 Deadspin post alleging lewd conduct by a top ESPN executive while seated next to sideline reporter Erin Andrews justifiably spread fear throughout the channel’s leadership.
On the plus side, Deadspin’s exposure helped end ESPN’s sexually charged frat-house atmosphere. But it also extinguished the network’s risk-taking culture and infused it with strict obedience to progressive political correctness.
During ESPN’s presentation to advertisers last year, Deadspin’s Kevin Draper wrote a post that all but declared the blog’s victory over the media giant. In the piece, “ESPN’s Vision of Its Future Is Good for Sports Fans, for Now” the writer celebrated the network’s firing of Curt Schilling and the “targeting” of nonwhite and female viewers.
“The old-school viewers were put in a corner and not appreciated with all these other changes,” veteran ESPN anchor Linda Cohn said during an April radio interview when asked if ESPN’s liberal bent hurt the network. “If anyone wants to ignore that fact, then they’re blind.”
Rather than sue Mr. Denton’s bullying internet pirates into submission the way tech billionaire Peter Thiel did, ESPN chose to acquiesce and adopt progressive ideology and diversity as groundbreaking business innovations. ESPN is the exact network Deadspin desired. It’s diverse on its surface, progressive in its point of view, and more concerned with spinning media narratives than with the quality of its product.
The channel has become too handcuffed by politics to protect its most experienced and loyal employees. It’s a massive symbol of everything that fueled Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.
ESPN NFL reporter Ed Werder, one of the most prominent faces among the layoffs last month, said in a podcast that he heard quality of work would not be a consideration when employees were let go. He lamented that “it seemed to me that quality work should be the only consideration.” Not in this America, the one ruled by social-media perception and dismissive of the real world.
Mr. Whitlock is a co-host of “Speak for Yourself” on Fox Sports 1.
