Filed under: Cavaliers, Heat, NBA Media Watch, Sports Business and Media
For nearly a month, the underpinnings of ESPN's journalistic foundations have been rocked to the core by the fallout from the company's decision to air LeBron James' one-hour special when he announced that he would sign a free-agent contract with the Miami Heat.The Worldwide Leader took a further hit last week when news got out that its website spiked a story that detailed a night on the town in Las Vegas with James and some of his friends, which left the clear impression that the King ordered the story to be squelched.
All in all, criticism of the pair of events -- technically separate, but linked by the involvement of James in both -- continues to flow and likely will until someone at ESPN fesses up about the nature of "The Decision" and The Spiking, and what led to both.
On his Fox Sports Radio talk show Monday, ESPN expatriate Dan Patrick offered up what might be a reasonable way for ESPN to put the twin LeBron fiascoes of the last month to rest, namely an "Outside the Lines" investigation hosted by anchor Bob Ley.
Patrick, who is hardly in a position to provide journalism ethics lectures given his work in beer and restaurant commercials while he was anchoring "SportsCenter", has stumbled on to a solid solution. Ley, one of two remaining on-air personalities from the time when ESPN first went on the air nearly 31 years ago, is a revered figure at ESPN.
An hour special led by Ley that walks the viewers through what happened with the James special and the website story, then brings the decision-makers on camera to answer questions from Ley certainly won't draw the audience of 10 million that the original "Decision" did. However, it will show the public that ESPN is as concerned about its reputation as it is about profit.
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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/08/02/time-for-espn-to-come-clean-about-all-things-lebron/
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