Hello,
Making my way to 1,500 blogs, this is themusicaddict blog # 1492.
This morning I had one of my most frustrating exercise experiences ever and it had nothing to do with the workout. Most mornings I ride an exercise bike while I listen to my iPod and watch ESPN. I watch ESPN in the morning for many reasons. First of all they talk about sports and usually show highlights from the night before. Second of all sometimes Hannah Storm is on, an amazingly beautiful woman. Third, there isn't much else on in the morning that I want to watch.
The great thing about SportsCenter is they deal with a lot of stories in a short amount of time. However that was not to be this morning. Instead we got every brutal detail of the Rutgers/ Mike Rice abusing his players story. Every. Damn. Detail. They interviewed multiple guests, including Falcons player Tony Gonzalez. What does he have to do with that boring non-story? ESPN also showed the "Outside The Lines" tape at least 12 times in the about a hour of TV that I watched. (Listening to my iPod, the Rush song which features the line "shatters the illusion of integrity, yeah" came on. I thought that was wholly appropriate for ESPN's over exposure of this story.)
Speaking of "Outside The Lines", I finally figured out the reason why ESPN is going so hard on this story. It was that ESPN show that broke the news, I think ESPN is trying to show how relevant of a news organization they are. I suspect they are also trying to send a point. The point is they can be a king maker, but they also can be a king breaker.
Here's just a quick rundown of time spent on this "story". All times are EST. ESPN ended it's 9:30 SportsCenter focusing on the Rutgers story. The news was breaking that Rutgers AD Mike Pernetti had resigned. Then from 10:00 to 10:17, with only one commercial break, the only topic was Rutgers. (Remember this is a show that usually has multiple sports stories in several minutes, usually dealing with sports events from the previous night.)
Then from 10:17 to 10:23 ESPN focused on another non-story, the whole Ed Rush/ Pac 12 Referee who gives a damn debacle. ESPN actually then spent 3 minutes on "real" sports stories, including the story of DeMarcus Ware saying Tony Romo needs to "put up or shut up". DeMarcus it's been that time for Romo for at least the last 3 years. And okay this really wasn't a real sports story either. ESPN also focuses too much on the Lakers and the Cowboys. Obviously the Lakers and Cowboys drive the ratings. (Sidenote: I wish ESPN would stop focusing so much on the Cowboys, it's all that coverage that probably feeds Jerry Jones egomania.)
About 10:26 ESPN showed the Rutgers/ "Outside The Lines" video again, which was followed by commercials. Next up was the not very interesting Sports Science feature with Kenny Vacarro. Despite ESPN already spending about 18 minutes on the Rutgers non-story by 10:35, they then spent 12 more minutes on it. So thirty of forty-seven minutes was spent/wasted on this non-story. They already had asked multiple guests their opinion on this story. But they hadn't talked to Jay Bilas yet, of course they had to talk to him now. From 10:35 to 10:47 they talked to Bilas. (Remember this whole time I'm listening to my iPod, so I'm only reading what is being shown on the screen.) Usually how these stories go is the same point is brought up again and again. I'm sure ESPN gave their folks the same talking points.
At that point I couldn't take it any more, I had to switch over to "First Take". Yes, the rambling hyperbole of Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless was better than the same boring story being drowned in it's own inanity. But even with watching them I couldn't get fully away from the Rutgers story, as the Rutgers story was constantly on the ticker. And when I did flip over to ESPN briefly, of course they were still talking about the Rutgers non-story.
And as I'm writing this, at nearly 1:00pm EST, the Rutgers non-story is still the first thing I see when espn.com comes up.
However a story that in my opinion is much more newsworthy, the latest Auburn debacle, was barely being paid attention to at all. Why is ESPN focusing on a jerk coach at basketball backwater Rutgers? Why aren't they spending time on Auburn changing grades, paying NFL draft eligible players to stay at Auburn and having about a dozen players smoking synthetic marijuana (spice)? Remember this is the team lead by Scam Newton that "won" the national championship. Honestly I don't think anyone has been fooled, this felt bad from the start. It's only a matter of time until this alleged national title is stripped from Auburn.
I'm calling on the ESPN Ombudsmen to do what he can to put a stop to this inanity.
themusicaddict
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