The first "major contribution" for NFL Network's Andrea Kremer in her new role as chief correspondent covering health and safety issues comes this week, when the net "opens health-and-safety coverage with an over-arching four-part series,” according to Peter King of SI.com. The series begins tonight on NFL Network's “Total Access,” with the “remaining three segments on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.” Kremer said, "The goal is to deal with these issues that, for whatever reason, you fill in the blank, the NFL Network has overlooked in the past." She said NFL Network VP/Programming & Production Mark Quenzel used the word "substantive." Kremer: "He said: 'We want more substantive stories on health and safety.' It's the biggest issue not just in football, but in all of sports. People are talking about how 'bigger, stronger, faster' will lead to more health problems. There are so many stories. So many. Where do you begin?” Kremer added, "I have no indication whatever that we will be censored in any way. The mandate we have been given is: Just be fair. Be balanced. We're going to get calls from the league office. Just let us know what you're doing. But that doesn't bother me. Look, I had a built-in skepticism from day one. What I told them was, I didn't spend 30 years building my reputation, my brand, so to speak, to start doing propaganda.” She said so far she is "cautiously optimistic.” King wrote it will be “fascinating to see what happens when the rubber meets the road here -- when Kremer, for instance, has one of the 3,000-plus plaintiffs in the concussion case on camera obliterating the NFL.” That will be "the big test to see if the Goodell Network is fair and balanced, and all-inclusive” (SI.com, 11/12).
BACK IN ACTION: SI.com’s Richard Deitsch profiled NFL Network’s Melissa Stark, co-host of the net's 7:00am ET Sunday pregame show "First On The Field.” The show “features the quartet" of Stark, former NFLers Sterling Sharpe and LaDainian Tomlinson, and analyst Michael Lombardi. If one can “endure the cacophonous Sharpe … it's a watchable show.” NFL Net Exec Producer Eric Weinberger said that he “did not consider it any risk” to bring Stark back to TV after a hiatus from '08-11. Deitsch noted Stark is signed with the NFL Net through '14, and her contract states that she "can't do sports for another network.” But her options are “open for news or entertainment and Stark has interest in morning television and news or perhaps hosting a syndicated show” (SI.com, 11/12).
