Among the top eight management positions at ESPN
Magazine "there are no minorities," according to John
Smallwood of the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS. In addition, of
11 senior and associate editors, only one is African-
American. Smallwood writes that the magazine's "lack of
minorities is probably no worse than most" national
publications, "but that doesn't make it OK." More
Smallwood: "ESPN Magazine might take a new-age approach to
sports coverage, but it still adheres to the same plantation
mentality that has been the backbone of all sports-related
industry: It's OK for minorities to make news, but when it
comes to disseminating that information, it's back to the
old-boys network" (PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 3/18).
GENERATION NEXT? With nine hours of "SportsCenter,"
ESPN's "most notable identity," shown daily, the show is
"nearly impossible to avoid," according to Charles Pierce of
ESQUIRE. "SportsCenter" will air its 20,000th original
broadcast in May, and Pierce writes that with the departure
of personalities like Keith Olbermann, and the arrival of
younger anchors such as Kenny Mayne and Stuart Scott, for
the first time, ESPN is "hiring people who grew up on the
network." The challenge now is to "maintain [its] position
in the field without sacrificing the renegade charm that
made [it] popular in the first place." Pierce notes that
Scott is the first "SportsCenter" anchor "to use a
distinctly African-American idiom," and as a result has been
the target of "some criticism ... both within ESPN and
without." Scott, on his use of African-American slang: "I'm
doing it purposefully to prove that you can be diverse and
do this job." Pierce: "If SportsCenter is to survive its
own success, it cannot ossify itself the way the networks
did. It must survive its own children, and that means the
sensibilities of Dave Letterman and of P-Funk must coexist"
(Charles Pierce, ESQUIRE, 4/98 issue).
