If ESPN is your sole source for sports information, then this story may seem like a shock, although it has been reported on some other media outlets over the past week. Andrea McNulty, a Harrah's employee at Lake Tahoe, alleges that Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her in July of 2008. However, no criminal charges have been filed, only a civil suit was filed over the weekend. The details of the compliant filed by McNulty are pretty disturbing, if you want to read them (and to have a better understanding of my post), visit this post on profootballtalk.com. My post is not going to be about whether you believe McNulty, or whether you believe Roethlisberger is guilty. This post is about ESPN's decision to try to, for lack of a better word, cover this up.
Word that a civil suit was filed broke on Monday, and as I am writing this (Wednesday 9:30pm), not a single mention of this story on NFL Live, Sportscenter, Around the Horn, PTI, or anything. ESPN has buried this story from any of their television program. But, this story is out there, and news networks like Fox News, MSNBC have been reporting it. The Associated Press, Yahoo, and CBS sports have had updates on this story. This story is so big that TMZ has been involved in some of the updating of this story. But nothing from ESPN, not even a mention.
Wednesday's Philadelphia Inquirer had an article by John Gonzalez about ESPN's lack of involvement with this story. In that article, an ESPN spokesperson said, "At this point, we are not reporting the allegations against Ben Roethlisberger because no criminal complaint has been filed. As far as we know, this is a civil lawsuit that Roethlisberger has yet to address publicly."
However, John Gonzalez correctly points out that since when has an athlete's silence, or lack of cooperation stopped ESPN from covering a story? And as for Roethlisberger not addressing this issue publicly, his lawyer said (on Ben's behalf) that "Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone; especially Andrea McNulty,". Also, Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett acknowledged the situation to a TV station on Monday by saying, "We are aware of the allegations but cannot comment on the specifics of the case." This sounds like addressing this civil suit publicly.
Pro Football Talk correctly reminded its viewers that ESPN once swayed from its supposed policy of no reporting on civil cases without a criminal complaint in the case of the shooting that allegedly involved former Colts receiver Marvin Harrison. ESPN was all over this story from the start, with Sal Palantonio reporting. Why isn't the Roethlisberger story being treated like the Harrison story? There might be internal debate as to "why" at ESPN.
According to John Gonzalez's article, an ESPN source told him, "People were going insane. Fox News was doing the story. The AP had it. And they wouldn't even let us mention it. You can't ignore the story. It needs to be on SportsCenter. It makes us look bad. It's not a topic for discussion, but you have to acknowledge that it's being reported, that the story exists."
I 100% agree with the statement. You may not have to debate this on ATH, or PTI, but as "The Worldwide Leader in Sports", you have a responsibility to your audience to report the facts of the case. It makes it seem like ESPN has an agenda beyond giving sports fans the latest news and information in sports. There are some reasons why ESPN may not want Ben Roethlisberger to take a PR hit. First of all, last weekend ESPN ran an exclusive interview with Ben Roethlisberger. Maybe they didn't want to damage the credibility of that. Also, ABC (also owned by Disney, which owns ESPN) will air a reality show that features Shaq taking on athletes at their own sport. One of the episodes includes Shaq taking on Big Ben in a passing competition.
I do not know what ESPN is trying to accomplish by burying this issue. They seem to be the only sports and news media outlet ignoring this issue. Plenty of people on ESPN chastised Nike for covering up the video of Lebron James getting dunked on. Now, it looks like ESPN is guilty of something similar, except no one really seems to know why.
Update: ESPN.com has posted a news blurb about the Ben Roethlisberger on their NFL page headlined "No criminal look at Roethlisberger allegations". Also, ESPN TV has an item on the bottom line mentioning the same thing. Still, I haven't heard anything from the ESPN reporters.
Update #2: On Thursday morning, ESPN has acknowledged the story, and are carrying the Ben Roethlisberger press conference. Also, they have mentioned this story on their shows like OTL and Sportsnation.
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You raise a good point, a simple sentence with "We'll bring you more information when it becomes available" would have been suffice for me. At least they would have acknowledged that an issue exists.
ReplyDeleteAs for the interview and ABC thing, I agree. ESPN wouldn't want to bury their own ratings. Maybe it's a coincidence, but that seems unlikely.