Wednesday Afternoon Update or the ESPN Ombudsman is in a Bad Mood

Let’s start this update with ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber’s latest piece which has come out today. Already the blogosphere is busy dissecting it.

Schreiber goes after ESPN.com Page 2 columnist Gregg Easterbrook for what she feels is slanted reporting of rumor as fact in the Bill Belichick Cameragate scandal. In addition, she says viewers may mistake the number of opinions in this story and the Mike Gundy screamfest as actual fact. And she says ESPN fed off the Donovan McNabb controversy which began on HBO’s Real Sports. Schreiber says too often, ESPN reporters fall into the same trap, giving opinions rather than report, sometimes ending with erroneous results.

This is Schreiber’s longest piece and a very thought provoking one. I think this is her best column in her short tenure as Ombudsman.

Let’s get to some other links. SI’s Richard Deitsch says despite some record ratings for fellow Time Warner corporate partner TBS, the network did get skewered by the critics for its coverage of the League Division Series.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell looks into Agent Scott Boras’ claim that Alex Rodriguez would be worth $500 million to the YES Network over the next ten years. Rovell correctly calls the figure “fuzzy”.

Maury Brown of the Biz of Baseball site says MLB and TBS changed the times of the National League Championship Series to later starts in part to appeal to the West Coast fans of the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks to Fox’s Joe Buck about his late night show pilot.

The Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager writes in his Medium Well blog that Dennis Miller joins the rarely seen Versus next month. I guess I missed this and probably you did as well, Versus is moving 100 of its employees from Connecticut to Philadelphia according to Bob Fernandez of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post says NFL studio analysts sometimes overstate the obvious and he adds at the bottom of his column that Post colleagues Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are risking overexposure with the Pardon the Interruption halftime segment on Monday Night Football.

Neil Best in his Newsday blog has been mostly quiet this afternoon, but he did have an entry regarding Suzyn Waldman of the Yankees broadcast team.

That’s it for now. Primetime Viewing Picks next.

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013. He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television. Fang celebrates the three Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.

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