I am breaking my sabbatical from posting this week to bring up an issue that I have with ESPN.  Yesterday, ProFootballTalk.com reported that ESPN put a gag-order in place in regrards to the civil suit against Ben Roethlisberger. They are claiming that they do not report on civil suits unless criminal complaints have been involved.  People have found several civil suit cases and linked them, but the police were involved in some way or another.  However, we decided to see if their civil suit thing really held way.  So what do athletes divorces, or child support lawsuits, or any other type of civil suit have to do with criminal complaints/charges or the police? Last I checked, the answer to that question is; nothing. However, ESPN has no problem reporting these civil cases.  Our emails to the company have gone unanswered.

Even the NFL has talked about the case. Commissioner Goodell has already issued a statement that he will look into it. NFL Network reported the story yesterday, and the analysts on the station went as far as saying that the case could be the perfect distraction the team needs as they avoid a Super Bowl hangover. It is just simply bad journalism by the 4letter.  There is no need to talk about the specifics of the case on the air or analyze it, but failure to put out the fact that an extremely serious accusation has been made towards the face of the Super Bowl Champs is irresponsible. A 30 sec segment that reports the charges, a one paragraph blurb on their website, and something on their crawl was all that was needed.

Dan Patrick chastised his former employer on his show this morning, criticizing them for running stories about the breakups for Richard Jefferson and Tony Romo, but their failure to report simple facts about this case.

There is a rumor circulating that this is coming down from above ESPN, meaning Disney.  As you know, Disney is the parent company of ABC and ESPN.  Shaquille O’Neal has a reality show coming in the ABC airwaves soon.  Shaq is going to be taking on Roethlisberger during one of the episodes. Ben scrapped a press conference promoting the show.  So I am willing to say that there may be some serious validity to that.

ESPN’s excuse isn’t being bought by anyone, especially since every major MSM outlet has reported the story.  Will we ever get the true story out of them? Of course not, but it will continue to give us great fodder to rail against them about.

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