The breaking news story surrounding former NFL star Junior Seau was an hour old before ESPN mentioned the news on Wednesday.
ESPN waited until the very last minute of the 2 PM ET hour of SportsCenter to report that there has been a shooting at Seau’s home. The network credited The Associated Press.
ESPN also acknowledged “unconfirmed reports” that Seau had died. By that point, the North County Times (CA), the Los Angeles Times, and the gossip website TMZ.com had each independently confirmed Seau’s death.
It was not until the San Diego Chargers confirmed that Seau had indeed passed that ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ and ‘SportsCenter’ began reporting his death.
Obviously, considering the recent debacle in which CBSSports.com falsely reported the death of Joe Paterno, ESPN has made a very wise decision to wait until the story was officially confirmed.
While some have argued that the media should be quick to report in the ‘Twitter’ age, such a mindset tends to lend itself to carelessness.
NFL Network also waited to report on the Seau story until after 3 PM ET.
(Seau reports from North County Times, Los Angeles Times, TMZ.com)
