A tornado of accusations, pending trials, videos, pictures and massive media targeting has left a dizzying and harmful impact on the NFL's image this season. Even worse, NFL leaders across the league seem hellbent on a downplay to miraculous catharsis (funnelled by public outrage) ending with unclear, impartial and vague official responses as a gameplan. Fans, reporters and outside onlookers might be fooled into believing that they are watching a terrible horror movie on the SciFi channel. Even on this week's South Park, Roger Goodell was referenced as being a broken machine spitting out useless words in the midst of a crisis. It seems the best way to get the changes echoed throughout public interests is to threaten deep pockets via public outrage (Sponsorships and Partner Companies/ Corporations; E.G. Radisson Hotel Chain dropping the Vikings). Despite the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil theme employed by the NFL's containment crew, this theme has also been a gameplan for ESPN who faced an integrity crisis just one year ago while covering the NFL's concussion ordeal.
Even the Ombudsman of ESPN, Robert Lipsyte (Longstanding New York Times Reporter, former correspondent of CBS Sunday Morning and NBC Nightly News) is torn between heralding media coverage to shed light and public awareness of NFL domestic violence recurrences and that of last year's scandal involving ESPN journalism backing out due to pressure from the NFL for aiding in the PBS Documentary "League of Denial". ESPN president John Skipper removed his organization from a 15 month relationship with PBS in fear of losing a mutli billion dollar NFL deal. Skipper would eventually call the documentary 'sensationalism' with experts whom he believed mispresented facts. Skipper's decision placed ESPN under negative press as Jay McMillian, reporter for the Goose Creek, South Carolina area, likened ESPN journalistic integrity to TMZ or Mad Magazine. ESPN's Skipper states that there was no pressure from NFL Commissioner Goodell; the statement was much to the contrast of a New York Times report implicating Skipper and ESPN's appeasement to the pro football juggernaut.
This next part is going to sound familar and a paradigm to the struggles facing the NFL in leu of violent misconduct and behavior. ESPN removed their brand from PBS along with Skipper statements that tried to downplay the ESPN-PBS joint documentary project. The problem was however, ESPN's Skipper and PBS's President Paula Kerger were jointly at the helm of an Aspens Ideas Festival panel just a couple years back where John Skipper personally stated "We're not the public trust that PBS is, but we do a certain amount of programming that is a bit of the public trust." While on the documentary's promotional tour ESPN Journalist Dwayne Bray proudly commented that “the NFL is just going to have to understand" with regards to ESPN-PBS's "FrontLine" relationship. As the ESPN network pulled away only a few short weeks before the airing of "League of Denial", they made use of promoting two ESPN reporter's books regarding the documentary along with an article in ESPN magazine both contradictory to Skipper's previous appallment with the documentary but clearly under Skipper's approval. Many claimed that such a move was to save journalistic face but many more contend that it was another baneful example of the calculus of marketing/ profitability.
While ESPN has previously been appeasing to their largest network provider, the NFL, they are slowly regaining their journalistic integrity it appears. Indeed, the tables have seemed to turn as ESPN journalists break more stories on NFL related violences this season. A new article by Robert Lipsyte this week shows the bad and the ugly paradigm of ESPN journalism referencing his earlier posts about ESPN's journalistic integrity and direction while stating the good done via the exposure of the Ray Rice scandal. Though one has to wonder if such a resurgeance in protecting the integrity of the game via ESPN journalism is just an opportunistic way to cash in on the unexpected growing stock of holistic integrity this fall. That may seem harsh, nevertheless, it is a strategy which was used by ESPN just one year ago to advantageously play both sides of the fence.
References:
http://espn.go.com/blog/ombudsman/post/_/id/96/was-espn-sloppy-naive-or-compromised
http://espn.go.com/blog/ombudsman/post/_/id/176/winning-ugly-espn-journalism-prevails
http://espn.go.com/blog/ombudsman/post/_/id/453/espn-flexes-journalistic-muscle-on-rice
Photography/ Image Courtesy:
Roger Goodell Today Show Concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury Research: The U.S. Army
Frontline 'League of Denial' Peabody Award: Peabody Awards
Visualization of NFL Head Injuries: Jer Thorp
Terrifying Sight: John Martinez Pavliga
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