Yahoo levels Miami

Too bad none of them kicked someone in the head, otherwise they might get to play.

 

It's amazing to me that Yahoo! continues to just pound ESPN on stuff like this. I understand that most of the WWL's people are probably too wrapped up in the daily stuff (blog posts, and radio and TV hits) to take a look at this, but I'm surprised I haven't heard of a Bristol pow wow to get their people on the stick.
Do they have staff dedicated to stories like this? They have feature writers, opinionistas left and right, "information" guys who can give chapter and verse on how Joe Pitcher's rehab is going and who is starting the next pre-season game at quarterback....
People might start thinking their business relationships are starting to affect the network's reporting.

 

Outside The Lines nominally includes ESPN's enterprise unit, and they've done some good work in certain forums. They have done some fine work on social injustice in various countries and the connections to sports in those injustices. Here is an example from John Barr on human trafficking.

Barr seems to be their lead investigative reporter, and he's done some college work (here on Jim Donnan and Ponzi schemes) but nothing of the substance that Robinson has handled. Tom Farrey, who came to ESPN with a big reputation, has been a key part of their investigative unit on college stories but, to my knowledge, never broken a big case like this Miami one. I believe they also have T.J. Quinn and Shaun Assael handling steroid coverage, which ESPN does an acceptable job on overall. Then there's Peter Keating, who does the statistical analysis that they occasionally package as investigative work.

The only reason I know even that much is because I dug a little for it while in debate with a coworker about ESPN's investigative history. The Donnan scandal seems to have been one of the biggest college scandals ESPN has really beat everyone on, and that had nothing to do with football. Let's just say ESPN's investigative work has not been highly visible.

OTL does primarily feature stories led by Wright Thompson, Elizabeth Merrill, Amy K. Nelson, Wayne Drehs and the rest. That's where ESPN has chosen to put the bulk of its "quality journalism" money (Grantland, if you can get past whether the mission was accomplished or not, is another example of that), and I understand that decision. They don't want to ruffle feathers. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

 

So, the Allabouttheu.com blogger had it right, eh? He studied Yahoo's stuff and decided it was sensationized on flimsy evidence, even said it could touch maybe 13 players, not the 72.
Why ESPN failed to get the story? Same reason as everybody else. It didn't try. Good God, Shapiro ADVERTISED the story A YEAR AGO in the Herald. Then he handed it to the first people who seemed interested.

 

The 72 figure included a ton of past players. I don't think Yahoo claimed to have more than 12 current players.

 

Not directed at Dan, but how can anyone be amazed that espn doesn't go after this stuff? You can't investigate/expose/unearth/pummel your business partners. Espn's entire carefully-crafted image is 'hang with us, we roll with the stars.' There is no objectivity, nor is there any pretense of having any.

 

Right, my sloppy writing there, NCAA couldn't penalize players already gone. My point was, the blogger said the other 60 involved couldn't really be substantiated even by Yahoo's own reporting.

 

Then your point is incorrect. The players can't be penalized. To those of us in the real world, there is plenty of substantiation.

With willful blindness like this, it isn't hard to see how Shapiro ruined the program.

 

If your "real world"' substantiation is a world-class con man's say-so supported by a list of text-message phone numbers and no-comment/couldn't-be-reached's from the people smeared, your real world is different from mine.

 

Oh, I'm well aware we live in different worlds. Based on this thread, though, I would not call yours "real."