ESPN Public Editor Jim Brady in his latest filing examined the net's coverage of Deflategate, writing Patriots fans still have a "lack of faith" in ESPN a year after the controversy. While this is largely because of Chris Mortensen's "now-infamous" report on the Patriots' allegedly underinflated balls, it is "far from the only beef" Patriots fans have with the net. The lack of trust "emanates from what has been a mismanaged affair by ESPN." There have been "other Deflategate actions taken by ESPN that have looked odd from outside, largely because they were not adequately publicly explained by the network." Inside ESPN, these "missteps are viewed as isolated incidents coming out of different departments on different platforms -- which, for the most part, is structurally accurate." Outside ESPN, these "missteps are viewed by many as part of a concerted effort to assist the NFL in impugning the Patriots." The difference between the two positions is that while the network’s critics have "been consistently loud and persistent, ESPN has been largely silent." Brady: "This strategy, in my view, has served the network poorly." Six months after Mortensen's report, ESPN "added a formal clarification" to the original story. ESPN VP/Global Digital Content Patrick Stiegman said, "This story has been a continued source of conversation, and given ongoing interest in Deflategate, we decided to issue a clarification in our digital archives. ... We want to ensure that anyone encountering that file in our archives is clear on that point." He added, "Typically, we wouldn’t revise a story more than 6 months old in our archives, but after Mort clarified his reporting and removed the tweet, for transparency reasons, we should have updated our online version" (ESPN.com, 3/2).
