Why Study When You Can Watch TV?
by Mia Zuckerkandel on November 19, 2008 in Why Study When You Can Watch TV?
This week’s reason to put down your books: ESPN, cable channel 49. (Even if you don’t have cable, you can find television sets at many bars and restaurants tuned to the channel.)
You probably weren’t watching ESPN on election night. But if you happened to tune in the next day, you might have noticed the sports cable channel devoted a sizeable chunk of time to Barack Obama’s win.
There was LeBron James sporting an Obama t-shirt; there was Kobe Bryant talking about why an Obama victory means so much to African Americans; and there was Brandon Marshall, a wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, explaining why his teammate stopped him from paying tribute to Obama after Marshall had scored a touchdown. And there was the president-elect himself taking on a most controversial topic in an interview taped on the eve of the election:
Risking the wrath of the NCAA, some college presidents, coaches, and boosters, Barack Obama declared he was in favor of a playoff-system to determine the best team in college football.
All of this coverage appeared on SportsCenter, the network’s flagship, super-sized newscast. SportsCenter airs several times a day and usually devotes its time to analyses of games just played, updates on the conditions of players, speculation about upcoming games, and, of course, highlights.
Barack Obama says he loves to watch highlights on ESPN. And he’s not alone. A lot of athletes talk openly about hoping to make a play that gets on SportsCenter. The “web gems,” “the plays of the day” – those are the segments sports fans want to see night after night. And they are well-produced: ESPN almost always uses the best sound, the best pictures, and the most appropriate special effects. Watching the highlights, you get a real feel for what happened in the game, regardless of whether you saw it “live.”
But increasingly ESPN is providing its viewers with more hard news coverage of some of the more difficult issues in sports – criminal investigations involving athletes, steroid scandals, cheating, sexual harassment, college recruiting violations, and mental illness. (Some of that coverage will first appear on its investigative news show, “Outside the Lines.”) In the past few years, the network has hired some top investigative journalists to add to its team of reporters and producers. And they report breaking news: for example, some of the first reports linking Michael Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, to an illegal dog fighting ring came from ESPN.
The network has also taken the unusual step of hiring an ombudsman to critique its coverage and act as “the public’s representative to ESPN,” according to its web site. It’s unusual because few news organizations are willing to pay someone to look over their shoulders.
Such oversight is necessary because sports journalism, especially on television, is rife with potential conflicts of interest. Can you be critical of an athlete you want as a guest on your show? How much editorial independence do you have if sponsors’ logos are all over the screen? Can you really ask the tough questions of a player in the Budweiser Hot Seat? And because ESPN is the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports television, it needs to be prepared to answer these questions.
ESPN is often criticized for spending too much time on some sports – e.g., football – and ignoring other sports altogether – i.e., any game played by a woman. And those are valid criticisms. But the biggest challenge facing the network is in its relationship to the games and to the athletes themselves.
ESPN loves sports and players. Its reporters, its producers, its anchors – everyone is a fan. Even its very funny, award-winning campaign, “This Is SportsCenter,” is a paean to the biggest names in sports. But good sports coverage is a lot more than highlights and post-game interviews. It’s about money and race and sometimes politics, too. It remains to be seen if ESPN’s love of the game and its financial arrangements with sports leagues will limit its ability to be the worldwide leader in sports journalism.
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