Wednesday, August 02, 2006

George Solomon Supports Corporate Censorship

George Solomon, the ESPN ombudsman, has another column out. I generally enjoy reading his column because he provides a critical opinion of ESPN that I think the network has lacked. However, this time he has irked me a bit because he says sports fans just don't get the business side of ESPN. I beg to differ and I told him so. Here is the email I sent him in response. (I'll admit the Blazers comment is a bit homerish of me but I stand by it.)

Dear Mr. Solomon,

Thanks for explaining to a simpleton such as myself that I don't understand corporate policies and am only capable of understanding sports and sports strategies. I suppose my college degree, law degree and job experience prevents me from understanding such wildly complex things like corporate policy.

The problem with your explanation of the Harold Reynolds situation is that you gloss over the fact that ESPN the corporation is censoring the news it provides. I am sure that any reporter worth his or her salt at ESPN could probably find out what happened in that situation since they are on the inside and could report it on Sportscenter. However, the corporate ESPN determined that it would be better off censoring the news it provides although its viewers wanted to know why one of the more respected baseball commentators on your network was fired.

I for one do not support corporate censorship of the news and shame on you for being the apologist who defends this practice. It is antithetical to the goal of the ESPN news reporters and news division.

In other news, I agree with your assessments of Stephen A. Smith and Scoop Jackson. However, I would go further and say both are horrendous parts of the ESPN family. They should be disowned. Neither provide any substantive comments or information to the company. Smith constantly yells to make his point stick although it is absolutely worthless. Take for example his tirade against the Blazers in the draft when afterwards almost everyone disagreed with Smith and said Portland
had an excellent draft day. And Jackson only furthers the black stereotypes and his race baiting columns have become trite, stale, and old. Whenever I see one of these two on the channel I either mute it or change the channel. I know many others who feel the same. Please, do something about this.

Sincerely,

The Fan's Attic

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Fan,

Stop. Whining.

Signed,
George's Conscience

Anonymous said...

I agree with your take on Solomon. He's usually pretty decent, but his last column was worthless. BTW, has anyone else noticed that his column appears on the ESPN front page for MAYBE a single day, while Scoop's same old worthless crap stays on there for weeks at a time?

Anonymous said...

FIRE ALAN GRANT!!!!!

Bruce Ciskie said...

ESPN is under no obligation to provide us with the exact reason(s) why Harold Reynolds got canned.

For that matter, I'd challenge you to find one instance of a news organization reporting on the specifics of the firing or suspension of one of their on-air employees.

It just doesn't happen.

frank said...

you really can't take espn seriously as "news" organization, can you?

Anonymous said...

Here, here as far as Stephen A. goes. Scoop, however, may not be the most tactful or eloquent sportswriter out there, he does tackle tough issues with honesty.

Joe said...

RE: Bruce Ciskie

While this isn't a news organization on the level of an ESPN or other nationa/international level, I distinctly remember a time when the San Antonio, TX ABC affiliate led their 10 p.m. newscast with the story that their anchor (who should have been on that newscast and was on earlier in the day) was arrested for possession of child pornography.

Do a search on Gerry Grant (used to be on Entertainment Tonight as well as local TV), and KSAT-TV. You should find it.

Nyssa23 said...

I've actually never read one of Solomn's columns before. I wholeheartedly agree with him on the crappy promotional tie-in thing. Calling Dan LeBatard "talented" might have been a bit of a stretch, though. (Kidding, kidding! I'll take a room full of Dan over one Skip Bayless any day of the week.)

But personally, I'm kind of wondering whether his "That was special" comment in regards to the autistic kid was sarcastic or not. Hmm.

And Joe--Gerry Grant, a pedophile? Holy crap, when did that happen?? I remember seeing him on the KSAT news when I was a kid. Yikes.

...Come to think of it, maybe that's why my folks started watching the KENS news instead.