ESPN Sets Poor Journalistic Standard for the Rest of Us
How can bloggers be expected to follow basic rules of giving proper credit to a source of information when ESPN overtly... refuses to.
It's petty. It's childish. It's an improper way to do business at a newspaper, radio, television, or internet outlet. Yet the great sports gatekeeper in the sky refuses to act in a way any first year journalism student knows how to.
In reporting the story of Mark Cuban and Steve Kerr receiving fines from the NBA for separate comments made about LeBron James and his impending free agency, ESPN.com fully credits the source of Cuban's comments as having come from a CNNMoney.com interview.
While the ESPN story goes on to fully quote what Kerr said, the source itself is only named as "a radio show." It is no coincidence that the "radio show" not given real credit for the quotes that ESPN freely uses is "The Dan Patrick Radio Show." The same Dan Patrick who is a former employee at ESPN who decided to take his brand to greener pastures a couple of years ago.
Perhaps some readers wouldn't view this as a substantial issue but it strikes at the heart of journalistic integrity. That an ESPN employee would be compelled to withhold a source of information because of the company's personal bias against an individual is damning. ESPN is explicitly not supposed to be in the business of expressing personal biases in its news coverage unless it's interested in fully abandoning any premise of a proper news gathering entity existing on its Bristol campus.
The greater idea being that if ESPN is willing to do something like this on a story of little consequence, in the grander scheme how can a consumer ever be sure when the company isn't compromising its ethics.
And for what? Because the billion dollar multi-platform behemoth feels threatened by a 3 hour radio show?
I doubt the story's author, Jeff Caplan, came to this conclusion on his own but he should be embarrassed that his name is on an article his employers have used to forward a personal agenda.
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