Simmons, Schreiber Talk ESPN And Balancing News, Sponsorships

Schreiber Discusses Tenure As ESPN Ombudsman

ESPN’s Bill Simmons sat down with former ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber for a two-part interview to discuss her time in the position, as well as several areas where the net could improve. Schreiber said of her tenure as ombudsman, "One of my great reservations in undertaking this when it was broached was because an ombudsman is supposed to be the representative. There could be nobody demographically farther away from the young male demographic than me. It’s like ombuds-granny. I thought I would be very far removed not only in years but in sensibility." Simmons: "There’s that old, tired joke about how bloggers are just dudes living in their mom’s basement. You are kind of mom. You were the mom and they were in the basement so maybe it was a natural connection or something." Simmons discussed poor announcers on ESPN and said the net "fails to understand" that viewers "don't have a choice" when it comes to announcers. Simmons: "If they are watching a NBA or a NFL game and we are giving them these three announcers, they don’t have any other announcers to listen to and those announcers become part of their experience for better or worse." Schreiber noted ESPN is the "intermediary between the fan and sports. You literally can’t watch it or be informed about it except through the agency of ESPN." Schreiber: "Announcers have an extraordinary impact on how you experience the game, and ESPN is the only way you can experience the game. The announcers have a tremendous impact on that, so I think they care a lot about who the announcers are and how they are operating."

FINDING A BALANCE: Simmons recently had a discussion with ESPN Senior VP & Exec Editor John Walsh about his concern on the growing amount of sponsored elements on the net's programming and publications. Schreiber said it is important for ESPN to find a balance between making money and breaking news. Schreiber: "The argument would be made that when you have a sponsored segment, what you do on that segment better be something that is justifiable in and of itself as news." Schreiber added sponsored segments "shouldn’t be in there at all ... from a traditional news standpoint." Schreiber: "The gold-standard for advertisers, and I think this is magnified by DVRing, ... is that I think they are trying to embed the advertising more seamlessly and surreptitiously into the editorial content so that you can’t just whiz by them. It’s a slippery slope." Simmons said of sponsorships appearing in news shows, "If I’m supposed to be watching a show that I’m getting news information from an allegedly objective source, it just seems like I’m not sure the sponsorship should be in there." Schreiber said ESPN "needs to be very, very careful with ‘SportsCenter’ because it is the heart of their news credibility. They have to be asking themselves continuously very hard questions about the issues of sponsored segments and about the issues of self and cross promotion" ("The BS Report," ESPN, 3/30).

REAX: AWFUL ANNOUNCING's Brian Powell wrote, "Nothing sums up everyone's feelings on the network better than the last exchange between Simmons and Schreiber. " Powell: "I am in the group of people that think ESPN ... certainly has improved, but for every step they take forward ... they take a giant leap back" (AWFULANNOUNCING.com, 3/31).