TO EFFECT REAL CHANGE, ESPN NEEDS A REAL-TIME OMBUDSMAN

In a thorough and eye-opening and much-needed critique of the ever-burgeoning Bristol empire that is finding its personalities, intentionally or otherwise, becoming part of the news that the network covers, ombudsperson Lee Ann Schreiber skewers in her latest montly article the “it’s about us” culture that has evolved at ESPN. From Chris Mortensen’s sorely (and admittedly) misguided suggestion that the ability of a subject to respond to a story is a “privilege” to Cris Carter’s ESPN Radio shtick regarding the placement of a bullet into the body of Terrell Owens to the Ed Werder/T.O./Stephen A. Smith frolic and detour, Schreiber makes a series of excellent points. Regarding the Mortensen situation, in which the network’s senior NFL information man said that he didn’t call the Raiders for comment on the potential sale of the team because the franchise had forfeited that privilege, ESPN senior V.P. and director of news Vince Doria said, “A call should have been made to the Raiders.” As it turns out, a call was made to the Raiders. Mortensen told Schreiber that he called CEO Amy Trask and apologized. With respect to Carter, Schreiber chides the NFL analyst for trying to explain the comment that if he were the coach of the Cowboys he’d shoot Owens (made twice in one day on ESPN’s national radio network) as merely “not the right choice of words,” instead of simply admitting that it was a stupid thing to say: “When an apology is issued for a gross overstatement (i.e., put a bullet in him), the apology should not be worded as a gross understatement (i.e. not the right choice of words),” Schreiber writes. Regarding the Werder/Owens/Smith fiasco, Schreiber acknowledges the obvious -- that Smith is a shill for guys like T.O., willing to cast aside his integrity in order to score the interview, and to be viewed as the only guy at the network who understands troubled athletes. “Smith’s sympathy for T.O., the quality that gained him the interview, was put to use in a circumstance that undermined his credibility as a journalist,” Schreiber writes. She also notes that Smith’s failure to engage in meaningful follow-up allowed Owens to get away with calling Werder a liar while at the same time suggesting that Werder was telling the truth, and that his sources had lied to him. (The distinction wasn’t lost on Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.) After reading Schreiber’s column and reading it again and visiting her achives, we’ve begun to wonder whether ESPN heeds her words, or whether ESPN simply tolerates them in order to create some rough but thoroughly incomplete sense that the network cares about what she has to say. If ESPN genuinely is interested in accepting the input of a person who provides the voice of the collective viewership, a monthly column touching on a handful of topics doesn’t cut it, especially in an age where things that occurred a week ago might as well have happened a decade ago. Information is flowing instantaneously and continuously, and ESPN should have an ombudsman who has the ability, in real time, to call out the blunders promptly after they occur, so that those responsible can be held accountable for their errors before the incident inevitably and immediately fades into memory, replaced by other stories and opinions and overall content aimed at keeping the audience constantly informed and entertained. As it now stands, those guilty of committing gaffes need to suffer through only a minor cringe-inducing moment that comes well after the relevant chapter in the responsible employee’s life has ended. But if folks face the prospects of being quickly and clearly taken to task for saying things that shouldn’t be said and doing things that shouldn’t be done, real lessons might be learned and real changes might be made. Ideally, the full-time, real-time ombudsman eventually would have nothing to do. As it now stands, guys like Mort and Carter and Werder/Smith filled up so much of her monthly space that she couldn’t even get to what was in our view the most disturbing ESPN-related development of the month: the profane and condescending treatment that an ESPN producer directed to a consumer of ESPN products.