Despite ESPN’s burgeoning fleet of television stations, they always find ways to fill the air they create. But more and more, SMW has noticed Bristol using cheap devices to fill time, or artificially to create news items that their talking heads can then prolong indefinitely.
Example #1: yesterday’s “special” 90-minute NFL Primetime, extended only because of the absence of Sunday Night Football, which found its extra thirty minutes by using feature segments stolen right from SportsCenter.
Example #2: SportsCenter’s “must-see” footage of Keyshawn Johnson and Mike Irvin head-to-head, stolen right from NFL Countdown.
The original Irvin/Johnson interview was produced as part of
Sunday morning’s NFL Countdown, meant in
some small way as a follow-up to Irvin’s repeated announcement that Johnson was
not a #1 receiver. And granted, the interview is great TV: Keyshawn makes all
sorts of pompous (and possibly delusional) claims, accuses Irvin of messing
with “his money,” and suggests that Mike could not have played for Bill
Parcells, while Mike looks on with an appropriate degree of skepticism. On SportsCenter,
however, the interview is not treated as journalism – it’s treated as news in
and of itself. Instead of just admitting that they’re replaying the interview
from earlier in the day, the footage is re-edited into a feature about the interview, as if to suggest that ESPN’s own
journalism has made this newsworthy event that merits separate coverage.
Please. SMW has no problem with recycling material, and has been known to watch
the same SportsCenter several
times in a row. But don’t pretend that it’s something that it’s not, and don’t
pretend that in-house promos are actually news events. Speaking of ads masquerading as news, NFL Countdown perennial Daily Show-esque segment “The Mayne Event,” this week
targeted the NFL’s most sensational rookie, The Burger King. You’ve seen the
ads. And while SMW can’t argue with the comedy, isn’t it unnecessary to devote
five minutes of Countdown to
making the corporate sponsors happy? Why the free advertising? The actual stars of
yesterday’s NFL action seem to have been the Steelers and Eli Manning’s Giants.
Unsurprisingly, Hall of
Fame Steelers Quarterback Terry Bradshaw, in his esteemed role as Fox
sportswriter, says that Steeltown
showed dominance by swatting away the upstart Bengals yesterday afternoon,
and, over at CNNSI, Don
Banks agrees. Given Green Bay’s collapse yesterday, SMW imagines Peter King
had to throw something together not about Brett Favre, and stumbled onto
some nice thoughts about Jerome Bettis that make absolutely absurd claims
about his legacy. There was no such equivocation about Eli Manning, and SMW
suspects that this week may go down as his coming-out party (if indeed follows
the path to stardom that the mediascape paved for him this morning). King
appoints himself President of the Eli Manning fan club, even though the editors
at CBS Sportsline may have beaten him to it: for much of today, Sportsline’s home page was flanked by two
large photos of Manning and prominently advertised video of his interview with
Phil Simms from yesterday’s pregame show. Never turning down a party
invitation, ESPN joins the fun: Pasquerelli says that Manning
is emerging as a full inheritor of his family legacy, and the ever-ridiculous
Skip
Bayless starts the Montana comparisons, you know, just because we don’t
play this game enough. The big news, though, is still baseball. Ken Rosenthal says
the White Sox are getting some help from above, while
admitting that they certainly know how to capitalize. George Vecsey says that
intervention might be the
ghost of Shoeless Joe wreaking havoc with our postseason. In Boston,
Shaughnessey gets the best-headline award for “Destiny
Changes Her Socks,” wherein he notes that he’s heard all this fate &
history talk before. And while King Kauffman agrees that the White Sox are
getting a lot of help, he says there’s nothing supernatural about it: it’s
just bad umpiring, and it means we need to talk about replay. There is no shortage of attention to Podsednik’s homerun.
Keeping in talk about the supernatural, Jayson Stark says it’s one of those
postseason moments that defies
explanation. In Chicago, the exuberant Jay Mariotti says it’s just par for
the course in such a crazy, offbeat postseason. After all, Podsednik’s
not exactly known for his power (nor Mariotti for his objectivity), and
he’s the latest and least likely member of an illustrious list. Flip to the B-side. Nobody wants to be Brad Lidge today. Not Scott Miller at
Sportsline. Not Murray
Chass, who joins a chorus of noticing that Bobby Jenks fared no better, but
just got lucky. Even hometown writer Richard Justice laments for
Lidge, who has now given up walk-off
postseason home runs in his last two appearances. Oh, and: nobody watched, talked about, wrote about, or
generally gave any attention to Jordan on 60 Minutes, except for Cold Pizza, which indulged in a preposterous conversation about
whether MJ could still play in today’s NBA instead of actually engaging the meat of the
interview. Is it not actually news? Or do we only care about 60
Minutes features before their airdate? Talk
about promotion! Tomorrow: ATL v. NYJ, SMW v. TMQ, MLB v. ADA, and any other
acronyms that may become important.
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Daily Digest 
