ESPN Ombudsman Robert Lipsyte in his final column in the role discussed the company's journalistic merit and wrote, "I think that improvement is most needed in ESPN’s inconsistent execution of journalism, which does not appear to be the highest of company priorities." That is "understandable from an economic perspective." Seeing as college football and basketball, "for example, are important revenue producers for the company," extensive investigative reporting into the exploitation of college athletes, and the legal battles around that, "would seem to conflict with ESPN’s business model." Lipsyte: "Why should ESPN bother? Its dominance in sports broadcasting is apparent, its bottom line is rising and, at the risk of shield-polishing, I think its live event coverage and studio production ... is as good as or better than any of its competitors." However, Lipsyte wrote ESPN "should bother" with investigative journalism, "because no other media company has the resources, the talent pool, the access, the leadership and the institutional intelligence to cover sports as well. It feels like a responsibility." ESPN "should bother because American sports needs to be seriously examined in a turbulent time."
LEADERSHIP NEEDED: The "biggest journalistic game-changer of our time has been the rise of social media and the overgrowth of faux news sources -- league- and team-sponsored blogs, player tweets, fanboy sites, rumor mills -- churning bits of information and speculation into a clattering fog storm." Lipsyte asked, "Who will cut through the drivel and whim-wham to tell us what’s really going on?" For ESPN to "become universally respected for legitimate and timely sports news would require time, money and a shift in sensibilities from the frequent Jock Culture first response of 'How will this affect the team’s next game?' whenever a star is caught in an off-field transgression." That response "needs to be replaced by thorough coverage of what actually happened and then a deeper analysis." A "starting point" would be to "cut through ESPN’s variety of voices offering various kinds of information and speculation." To do so, ESPN "needs to create a central news desk with its own dedicated staff of writers, reporters, producers and on-air talent." It would "be costly and difficult to keep a staff both ready when needed and otherwise productive between assignments." But such a setup "would mean that when a Penn State/Sandusky story breaks, a team is on its way." A dedication to journalism at the net does not mean that every story about Florida State QB Jameis Winston "needs to dredge up the ... litany of misdeeds, along with a primer on campus sexual assault and the seemingly lenient treatment athletes receive from their universities and local police." However, it "does seem like a journalistic dereliction when that part of the story fades for long stretches" (
ESPN.com, 12/3).
