ESPN ombudsman Robert Lipsyte in his most recent column discussed the network's suspension of Bill Simmons, noting his mailbag "throbbed with outrage at the punishment and at my defense of it." Lipsyte noted he "supported the company’s official grounds" that Simmons had not met "journalistic obligations" by calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a "'liar' in his response to the Ray Rice domestic abuse case." Lipsyte added, "What continues to trouble me is the disconnect between those 'journalistic obligations' ESPN claims to be straining to maintain and what the audience expects from the company, or at least from that celebrated corner of ESPN under Simmons’ banner." That "includes freewheeling podcasts." The "mailbag consensus is that Simmons is not a journalist and thus can express his opinion as freely on ESPN as he might in salon or saloon, just one of the boys, only smarter and funnier." This is "immediately tricky because Simmons sometimes acts like a journalist, or at least seems to want to be taken seriously." Lipsyte: "If you call a subject a liar on ESPN, you better have definitive proof. It's that simple to me. But not to Simmons' audience." Calling Goodell a liar "without definitive proof is no antidote; it's just more of what we don’t need." That Goodell "represents an important ESPN business partner might complicate the issue (gray, conflict of interest), but it doesn’t make a wrong right."
BLAME GAME: The audience "loves Simmons just the way he seems to be -- unfettered and willing to speak his version of truth to power." But Simmons is "speaking from a somewhat protected place." It is a "little like being at home and shouting out the window." There is "blame to share here: Simmons, of course, for continuing to straddle the line between taking a stronger editorial grip on himself and playing leader of the pack with little to lose." But ESPN "is certainly culpable, too." Lipsyte: "We’ve recently been over ESPN’s inconsistent approach to discipline, which helps to create an uncertain atmosphere; just how far can a contributor go before hitting that invisible electric dog fence?" The third "target for blame is Simmons’ fan base, which is younger, more male and less conservative than ESPN’s overall audience." It is an audience that "puts pressure on Simmons to fulfill its fantasy of him as an older brother role model, a rebel in the benign father-knows-best world of ESPN." Lipsyte: "I think it’s time everyone involved -- Simmons, ESPN and the audience -- evolves." Simmons can "start by using his resources, smarts and connections to find some smoking video bearing the commissioner’s fingerprints." The audience "needs to understand that, although refusing to kowtow to authority and rejecting lies is brave and praiseworthy, it’s just as important to demand accountability from anyone claiming to tell you the truth" (
ESPN.com, 11/4).
