Braun, ESPN, and sports "journalism"

[Samurai Bucky]

I couldn't decide which thread would be best for this post. So, I thought I should just start a new one.

 

Harold Reynolds seemed to toe the line yesterday on MLB network. I think he really wanted to call out the people at ESPN that ran the story. He did say that the people who leaked the information from this "private" process should be punished. We know that isn't going to happen. We also know that ESPN will not be called out. They have their "anonymous sources" which seems to be quite convenient.

 

As I read other articles on ESPN's site and listen to them on TV, it seems like they are in typical damage control. If they are going to find pieces of information on both sides of the fence, they are most likely going to go with the information that is going to best cover their back sides. Who do many of the sportswriters in the world turn to for their "insider information?" Well, ESPN of course.

 

This was supposed to all be kept behind closed doors -- private if you will. Regardless of whether or not Braun did one thing or the other, the system is broken. ESPN cannot wash their hands of this. I'm sure the "journalist" that reported this got a nice big, fat paycheck for breaking the story. What he really should have gotten was a swift kick in the pants instead.

 

Thanks for letting me rant.

[JohnBriggs12]

Just thinking of the treatment Braun's gotten from ESPN gets my blood boiling. This morning on Mike and Mike they read some Aaron Rodgers tweets, and said he "went crazy", only they were the most accurate things said on their entire show.

 

Speaking of Aaron Rodgers, what a stand up guy! If you judge people by the friends they have, I have no doubt in Braun's innocence.

[1992casey]

If this topic sticks to the issue of sports writers and the issues that Samurai Bucky brings up, we'll keep it available as a separate topic. If it becomes a duplicate of the Braun thread, a moderator will likely need to merge.

[fondybrewfan]

There have been a huge amount of articles in the last 12 hours from a variety of news sources that are blasting both Braun and the MLB testing policy for allowing this case to be settled on a technicality. I guess I don't understand how journalists can write such damning articles within hours of first learning the news and perhaps without knowing all the facts yet. What happens to all these opinion pieces if the facts of the case change? It is just frustrating; Braun really was in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. The sense I am getting is this will put Braun in the same category as many other suspected and/or confirmed users which would make it that much harder for him to win any future awards/HOF/etc.

[brwrsfan]

Yeah, it's pretty sad when after hours of hearing basically tidbits of information, people are already jumping the gun and saying he is guilty but got lucky. At least wait until Braun speaks today, until you can get more info and until leaks of the official written decision come out (we know it will).

 

I'm also tired of people acting like a chain of custody isn't meaningful. There is no way to know what happened in those 2 days. None. The guy could have messed with it, the guy could have put his own pee in it, something else could have happened if the sample was too hot, too cold, etc. And virtually NOBODY in the media is even bothering to report or suggest that. To call it a technicality is vastly unfair to Braun, not to mention bad to make judgements on and whatnot. Most of these people have very little idea about what they're talking about - they are sports writers afterall - and are really doing a poor job in my opinion.

 

Let's say more facts come out and things change, are they all going to backtrack and change their stances or apologize for jumping the gun and making wild accusations? I doubt it.

[Nottso]

Sadly, it's just a reflection of society as a whole. Integrity means nothing anymore. There are many people defending ESPN on the premise that "Braun failed the test and ESPN reported it so ESPN is technically right." I would venture to guess that many of these are the same people that, if given too much change at the grocery store, keep the money.

[djoctagone]

because braun will be speaking before journalists today, and because it will be captured on video, i think it'd be really cool for the entire brewers organization to walk in with ryan braun, as a sign of support, and then send him off to the table or podium.

 

they don't need to each speak with him (because that would take too long)--but it would speak volumes about the support we all know that they've given him throughout his entire career.

[rwa12]

I don't even believe it's technically about "integrity". People want a story NOW. Not when facts are hashed out, not when everything can be ultimately verified. These guys are for the most part bloggers. They aren't reporters anymore. They are paid for their immediate opinions and reactions. Someone will eventually write a detailed story about what happened, but that will take too long. This will have passed in interest. He is a baseball player from Milwaukee, ESPN will forget he exists as soon as Lin has another big game.

[monty57]

Mike Greenberg (on Mike & Mike) actually seemed to put a lot of thought into it and had a decent segment. He compared Braun to Clemens. Clemens went everywhere shouting he was innocent, while Braun went back to the MLB office and said he wanted to submit a DNA sample which would prove the sample wasn't his - the MLB office told him no - and then he submitted another sample.

 

He said he couldn't decide what to think of Braun's innocence/guilt, but that Braun seemed to take actions an innocent person would take. He also said a trusted independent arbitor had enough information to side with Braun after disseminating the information, and that should bear some weight.

 

It's funny that I haven't seen any of the sports shows actually bring in someone who knows something about the testing process. Listening to reporters and former athletes blather on (whether they're "pro" or "anti" Braun) gets tiresome after I've read through pebadger and others' posts so I have some insight into the process. Eric Byrnes kept saying that his biggest fear in his last few years was that he would get a "false positive," so he stopped taking any supplements. If the supplements increased the "T", it would be a real positive, not a false positive. A false positive means you don't have elevated "T" but the test says you did. Reynolds kept saying "Just drink water and lift weights, don't take supplements." Again, that may be good advice, but it's not pertinant to this case, as Braun seemed to argue that the sample either wasn't his or that it was tampered with.

 

Some type of editing / fact checking would be nice on national programs.

[jjfanec]

Will Carroll did an interview this morning and what is interesting with Carroll is he had some facts yesterday but took time to write his article (which is supposed to be out today). He is an expert on this stuff and obviously did a fair amount of leg work yesterday. He spells things out pretty well

 

http://audio.weei.com/a/52238582/will-carroll-si-com-on-ryan-braun-s-50-game-suspension-being-overturned.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[crewcrazy]

I have absolutely no issue with ESPN (more specifically, T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada) breaking the news and publishing the initial report. They had information, and they reported it. The fault isn't theirs -- they were doing their jobs. The fault is on the guy in the MLB office who wasn't doing his/hers and leaked information in what was supposed to be a confidential process. It's certainly an interesting journalism ethics debate, but there isn't a news outlet out there (whether it's ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, Yahoo) that would've sat on the news of a reigning MVP's test coming up positive. And let's not forget that when the news came out, it was confirmed by multiple news outlets. It wasn't just ESPN pushing this story.

 

Now if we're talking about how they handled the follow-up coverage, I'll agree that it was extremely sloppy and borderline reckless. It's important, though, to distinguish between the individuals voicing dumb/incorrect opinions and their employer. Buster Olney saying Braun should consider giving back the MVP as a PR move to foster good will does not translate into "ESPN THINKS BRAUN NEEDS TO FORFEIT THE AWARD." Saying stuff like "ESPN still thinks Ryan Braun is guilty" implies that there's some sort of corporate edict that everyone with a voice needs to use the same talking points. With stuff like this, it just doesn't work that way. Are there individuals out there still saying this? Sure. But every company has its idiot employees with misinformed opinions, and it's especially easy for folks on the TV side to slip and misspeak or just talk without being informed of all the facts.

 

With stuff like this, there's no such thing as "protecting the story." If ESPN had the opportunity to break the news of Braun winning the appeal, they would've done it. It would've meant a massive amount of page hits and attention. News of Braun winning his appeal doesn't invalidate the original report. It's just the latest development in a constantly developing story.

[jjfanec]

My only question with espn in the early part of this is that they have held stories in the past (ie the Syracuse one) so why did they run with this one? ESPN since they ran the stories has been filled with speculation

[RockCoCougars]

Personally, I'm going to withhold judgement until Rick Reilly checks in...

 

BTW: Tim Kurkjian is the John Clayton of baseball.

[xisxisxis]

I don't even believe it's technically about "integrity". People want a story NOW. Not when facts are hashed out, not when everything can be ultimately verified. These guys are for the most part bloggers. They aren't reporters anymore. They are paid for their immediate opinions and reactions. Someone will eventually write a detailed story about what happened, but that will take too long. This will have passed in interest. He is a baseball player from Milwaukee, ESPN will forget he exists as soon as Lin has another big game.

 

Bingo. Nicely said. Truth and fact are often the first victims of blogger "journalism". The whole story will come out at some point, but everyone will have moved on to the next big market 5 minute flash in the pan.

[Baldkin]

Braun's press conference being shown live at mlb.com

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?topic_id=6261176

[TURBO]

also live on ESPN

[Samurai Bucky]

ESPN does more than just report the story. For example, they are going with the information received that they received from other "sources" that he got off only on a technicality. After that, they are giving their opinions as experts in the game. These opinions are taken as gospel and are not only used by ordinary fans like you and me, but are also used by other media outlets ("ESPN reports that...").

 

If ESPN wants to do some real journalism, why don't they talk to biochemists to figure out how, chemically, a urine test could have as much testosterone as it did? 3x the previously detected amount? That means that it was 3x higher than players that were suspended!!!!!!! Seriously? I have heard them say that testosterone was found in the sample, so he is guilty. If I took a urine test, I would hope they would find some testosterone in my sample (FYI: I am a male... ).

 

As suggested above, ESPN is more interested in increasing the hits on their web site (equivalent to "selling papers") than it is in finding the truth -- in my opinion.

[TooLiveBrew]

It still never ceases to amaze me that people are surprised when ESPN plays the part of sensationalist/yellow 'journalism'. It's what they do, simply said. Aside from the broadcasts of actual games, I haven't watched ESPN in years. It's not hard to do, and you don't have to listen to insufferable nonsense.

[Dragonbait]

Skip Byless.....

 

need I say more?

[Funketown]

Skip Bayless' brother makes a delicious goat barbacoa torta. That's about the best thing I can say about Bayless.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

Last night on MLB Network Eric Byrnes suggested Braun leaked the positive test result for the PR...."I don't have "facts" or anything just gut feelings"

[logan82]

I can completely understand watching ESPN years and years ago but with all the information out there on the net I don't see how anybody would even bother with ESPN anymore. Maybe the magazine for toilet reading but nothing else.

[brettac1]

ESPN basically has Wal-Martized sports "journalism". They control the entire process. They make the "news", then deliver it through their machine of TV, .com, and radio. There are debate shows, headline shows, etc. and the whole thing is pretty much a work. Skip Bayless would be the biggest example. He plays a character on a TV show that does worked debates - same goes for the morons on their NFL, MLB, and NBA shows, and worst of all the radio hosts. My favorite is when they discuss whether such and such a thing should be a story... the discussion of which MAKES it a story. These same discussions then are carried out through every platform that they work on.

 

They are a business, not some beacon of journalism.

[RockCoCougars]

ESPN died when the Three Stooges (Berman, Patrick, Olbermann) started thinking they were comedians bigger than the game. It was buried when Disney bought the network, and they started to represent themselves as some sort of paragon of virtue.

[brwrsfan]

I'm not sure that SI is really any better to be honest. The writers might be better, but they have many writers (this means you Peter King) that think they are as big or bigger than the game. The only thing SI does is at least verify stories before reporting them. But they aren't above basically riding the wave of ESPN, hence how Jeremy Lin is on the cover TWO weeks in a row. For those of you that get SI, can you think of any other time when during the regular season of a sport, the same player or even team hit the cover two weeks in a row? I know it's a slow sports time, but still.