ESPN is the big bad wolf of sports, frequently vilified by virtually every corner of sports — its colleagues in the media, the fans, even some athletes. Some criticism is fair, and some goes overboard.
Take, for example, the wild, frantic furor over the network’s decision to air LeBron James‘ The Decision — a no-brainer that many outlets slamming the network would have made in a heartbeat. The articles tearing ESPN to shreds by and large make the argument that this is a new low for the network, one that either wipes away all of its previous accomplishments or reinforces that its previous glory is long gone.
All ESPN did was get the LeBron James news straight from the horse’s mouth and attract its third-largest non-NFL audience of the past twenty years in the process. Apparently, the correct decision would have been to let some other outlet get the James news first and have about seven million fewer people watch a previously-scheduled World Cup Special instead.
Did ESPN destroy its credibility by airing the James special? That depends on whether one believes the credibility of a decades-old television network/news organization can be shattered by a pretty harmless one-hour special. Great journalism it wasn’t, but ESPN didn’t exactly blow up a truck, here. And is credibility really that fragile? Did airing The Decision suddenly render irrelevant John Barr‘s recent report on human trafficking in South Africa?
Some may say that the very act of allowing James to ‘hijack’ ESPN’s airwaves for his own personal gain destroyed its credibility. But James did not ‘hijack’ anything. ESPN did not air this special to benefit (or kowtow to) LeBron James, they aired it because the subject of arguably the biggest story in sports was willing to end years of speculation on their airwaves. James was less hijacker than invited guest — and ESPN was not alone in welcoming him into their home, as nearly 10 million viewers watched the show.
ESPN may not have had control over the initial interview with James, conducted by former employee Jim Gray, but that took up less than half of the one-hour show. After the Gray portion was over, the network had its own Michael Wilbon ask James questions that would not have otherwise been asked if, say, ‘The Decision’ had been announced in some sort of press release — for example, when Wilbon asked James about fans in Cleveland burning his jerseys.
The fact is, ESPN got the story before anyone else, and they attracted a massive (for cable) audience. They did so by allowing LeBron James one hour of airtime, most of which was no different from a typical ESPN studio show.
Fanhouse.com media writer Milton Kent said this about The Decision: “You cannot hand over an hour of time to someone that you cover. You cannot let that person dictate where the proceeds from that hour will go, and you cannot let that person make the call on who will interview him.”
Perhaps this is the most important, although highly unpopular question: why not? How exactly has ESPN changed by giving James airtime, allowing him to give the proceeds to charity and letting Jim Gray interview him? Has this somehow destroyed the ability of the network to do good journalism? Did it drain Bob Ley and others of their abilities?
Does it set a precedent? Not really. If Carmelo Anthony wants to do a similar special next year, odds are that ESPN would say no — even if it hadn’t been criticized for the James special. Far fewer people would care about Anthony’s decision.
So how did airing The Decision affect ESPN? Are viewers offended? If they were, they would not have tuned in to begin with — after all, the arrangements for the special were well-publicized beforehand. Sure, it hurt the perception of the network among sports media critics, but they never really held the network in such high esteem to begin with.
The truth is, credibility is fragile, since it exists in the eye of the beholder — for some, Fox News is the single most trustworthy news organization, for others its MSNBC. CNN apparently believes Eliot Spitzer is credible enough to host a one-hour talk show, others might disagree. And for every individual who believes The Decision to be the death-knell of ESPN as a respectable news outlet, there are those who believe it is far from a big deal.
The decision to air The Decision was not a tragedy, a defining moment or even a mistake. It was far from the greatest moment in the history of sports journalism, but it was also far from the worst.
