This breaking late this afternoon. ESPN which had been touting its collaboration with PBS’ Frontline on an upcoming series of investigations into NFL concussions, has announced that it’s pulling out of the project effective immediately. ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru had been part of the project that had been ongoing for 15 months. In addition, ESPN had pointed to this project as a shining example of its journalistic independence.
Now, we have ESPN suddenly pulling out at the last moment. ESPN cites a lack of editorial and production control over the series titled: “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis” as the reasons for dropping out. It’s strange to be dropping out at this late juncture as the documentaries will air in October.
Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder spoke to someone inside ESPN and was told that upper management was uncomfortable about not having total control over the project. We have heard about something similar before inside ESPN (think Free Bruce). Matt was told this was not a “Playmakers” situation where the NFL pressured the network to end the series. Just last week, the NFL announced that it would not cooperate with the investigation, so this is a double whammy on Frontline.
Frontline Executive Producer David Fanning and Deputy Executive Producer Raney Aronson issued a statement:
You may notice some changes to our League of Denial and Concussion Watch websites. From now on, at ESPN’s request, we will no longer use their logos and collaboration credit on these sites and on our upcoming film League of Denial, which investigates the NFL’s response to head injuries among football players.
We don’t normally comment on investigative projects in progress, but we regret ESPN’s decision to end a collaboration that has spanned the last 15 months and is based on the work of ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, as well as FRONTLINE’s own original journalism.
Over that time, we’ve enjoyed a productive partnership with ESPN’s investigative program, Outside the Lines, jointly publishing and co-branding several ground-breaking articles on our respective websites and on their broadcast. We’ve been in sync on the goals of our reporting: to present the deepest accounting so far of the league’s handling of questions around the long-term impact of concussions. This editorial partnership was similar to our many other collaborations with news organizations over the years.
ESPN’s decision will in no way affect the content, production or October release of FRONTLINE’s League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis. The film is grounded in the Fainaru brothers’ forthcoming book, also titled League of Denial, and the authors will continue to participate in the production and be featured in the documentary.
The film is still being edited and has not been seen by ESPN news executives, although we were on schedule to share it with them for their editorial input. The two-hour documentary and accompanying digital reporting will honor FRONTLINE’s rigorous standards of fairness, accuracy, transparency and depth.
David Fanning, Executive Producer
Raney Aronson, Deputy Executive Producer
And ESPN issued its usual terse statement when it comes to matters like these.
Because ESPN is neither producing nor exercising editorial control over the Frontline documentaries, there will be no co-branding involving ESPN on the documentaries or their marketing materials. The use of ESPN’s marks could incorrectly imply that we have editorial control. As we have in the past, we will continue to cover the concussion story through our own reporting.
Here’s PBS promo over League of Denial:
Watch “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis” preview on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.
We’ll see what comes out on this in the next few weeks. It’s very interesting timing over the pullout.
UPDATE, 8/23/13, 8:30 a.m.: ESPN book author Jim Andrew Miller in the New York Times reports that the NFL pressured ESPN to drop its participation. ESPN has denied this, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The timing of this is too great to ignore.
UPDATE, 8/23/2013, 11:30 a.m.: Both the NFL and ESPN have issued statements that there was no pressure on the network to drop the project, but at this point, people believe these statements as much as they believe Kathie Lee Gifford is a hard-hitting interviewer.
UPDATE, 8/23/13, 3:15 p.m.: ESPN has now issued a statement from President John Skipper on this story. ESPN apparently feeling the need to explain its denial of pressure from the NFL.
