MICHAEL WILBON SHOULD RESIGN FROM ESPN IF HE REMAINS AN ALMA MATER SHILL
A troubled network is rife with conflicts of interest, but one glaring impropriety must end: The daytime host, somehow a Northwestern trustee, is protecting the school’s hazing-gutted image on the air
Not that Sir Bob Iger cares about journalism ethics as he tries to save Disney Company from a perilous future. He spent the week convening with other media power players in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he wore shades and a “Bob” name-tag while lugging around a large iPad.
The CEO has given up on the linear TV business, as most of us have, and is anxious to sell ABC — ever think those words would be uttered in our lifetimes? And he wants a new strategic partner for ESPN’s new and desperate voyage into direct-to-consumer offerings, which will be the ultimate test of whether fans care about anything but live sports. He’s concerned about the streaming monster that is devouring ESPN’s cable business and isn’t really interested in Michael Wilbon’s ongoing faux pas, even if Iger’s wife, Willow Bay, reminds him late at night that she’s the dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
But there’s a line that Wilbon has crossed, and it should be addressed when Hollywood Bob returns to an entertainment industry in crisis, with actors joining writers in picketing across town. Calling it the “worst time” for double-whammy strike actions and describing the demands as “just not realistic,” Iger said, “It’s very disturbing to me … adding to a set of challenges that this business already is facing that is quite frankly very disruptive and dangerous.” If sports continues to be Disney’s potential long-range salvation — and NFL, NBA, NHL and collegiate games don’t require actors or writers, nor do tennis and golf events — shoulder-programming commentators such as Wilbon are vital to the trust of any grand plan moving forward.
Right now, I’m not entirely certain Wilbon is a commentator. Or what he is.
The line is undefined. Blaring alarms don’t go off when you cross it, but your conscience tugs. Or at least it should, unless you’re too far gone to feel it. This is the dilemma of every journalist who ever has carried a notebook and pen, if those old-school accessories still exist in the age of iPhone voice memos.
Do you remain faithful to the readers, viewers and listeners in your for-the-record editorial observations about the news? Or do you side with an outside entity or influence that leads to a conflict of interest?
As a TV conversationalist with the debating chops of a former Washington Post columnist, Wilbon doesn’t have many weaknesses. One flaw is his large Rolodex of friendships with sports figures who, on occasion, become personal friends more than professional sources. And his most glaring flaw: He is true to his alma mater, Northwestern University, in his hometown of Chicago. Many years ago, he accepted a position on NU’s board of trustees, which meant he became an institutional decision-maker and did way more than cross that line — he long-jumped over it, into an ethical quagmire.
And in a treacherous summer such as this, with the school’s football program ensnared in a hazing scandal that claimed the job of head coach Pat Fitzgerald, Wilbon is in the heat of the disgrace. As a steward, he indirectly allowed the vile abuse to happen on his watch and then offered his opinions when it was time to issue verdicts about Fitzgerald and baseball coach Jim Foster, who also was fired after bullying allegations.
Worse, he conveyed those opinions on a large platform — ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” the weekday program he has co-hosted since 2001 with another former newspaperman, Tony Kornheiser. Imagine NFL commissioner Roger Goodell making a ruling about concussions and CTE, then emotionally weighing in on his own afternoon show. Thus, Wilbon was a purple propagandist, and after I mentioned it in one of my Fitzgerald-related columns, my former newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times — which I’ve accused of similar conflicts through the years — appropriately crushed the native South Sider, under this subhead of Jeff Agrest’s media column: “I don’t understand how anyone schooled in journalism can toss aside the press hat they wore for decades while the press covers a story that’s right under their nose.”
The abandonment of integrity was impossible to ignore on Tuesday’s show. I’d call it a naked conflict, but it would be insensitive, given the sickening nature of hazing allegations witnessed by at least 11 current and former NU players. Is Wilbon a network analyst or a Northwestern official? He can’t be both and still be taken seriously as either. “Do I think we can dig our way out? Yes,” he told substitute host Frank Isola, his reference of “we” qualifying as cringeworthy. “There’s scandals all the time that people dig their way out of. We may lose a ton of kids in the transfer portal. A new dynamic, charismatic coach can pull kids right out of the transfer portal to a school that’s still top 10 academically. I’m ready to turn the page and get started with what’s new.”
I also cracked that Wilbon is hiring the next coach. Actually, that might be true, absorbing this from his appearance on Chicago sports station ESPN 1000: “We have to have a young, ambitious, energetic, charismatic coach who can rally this,” Wilbon said. “I’ve gotten the phone calls. I will know, I will make it my business to know who the best candidates are for this in the next few days. That’s what I’m gonna be obsessed with. And we’ll find that person.”
Whoa. He’s taking phone calls from people pushing potential candidates? Or people who want the job? What is he, the athletic director? If I’m at a rival school such as Ohio State or Michigan or Illinois — or, starting next year in the Big Ten Conference, USC or UCLA — I’m wondering how I ever get a fair shake on “PTI” if the co-host literally works for Northwestern. More importantly, if I’m the parent of a player who was hazed, I’m asking why Wilbon is ignoring the shame to shill for a new coach and how he advocates pulling “kids right out of the transfer portal to a school that’s still top 10 academically.” I’m also wondering why Wilbon referred to university president Michael H. Schill, who finally dismissed Fitzgerald three days after suspending him for only two weeks without pay, as “Mike.”
I’m aware of the double entendre here — a shill working with Schill. For the university and the Chicago area, considerable money and prestige are at stake as the scandal is internally managed. Wilbon should be editorializing on “PTI” as a detached voice, not as an invested trustee and season-ticket holder trying to rescue Northwestern’s shaken image. Did he and his fellow trustees — the 70-member list and accompanying “life” list have enough marquee-name potency to bring down the Kremlin — just happen to convince Schill to fire Fitzgerald last weekend after the original soft penalty? I am shocked Wilbon doesn’t understand the professional discrepancy, how bad it looks beyond his Evanston circle. And I would expect Iger, or at least his wife, to put a prompt end to it as the story spills into the weeks and months ahead.
Here's the deal: Either Wilbon resigns from the board of trustees or he resigns from his front-facing position on ESPN. He can’t have it both ways.
One of the reasons I don’t work at the network anymore — after eight years as a daily panelist on “Around The Horn,” the show that fed “PTI” with big ratings in our peak period — is that I steadfastly refused to cross the aforementioned line. There’s a wink-wink understanding among executives, whether the top boss was John Skipper or current chairman Jimmy Pitaro, that on-air talent can and should have cozy relationships with the people they should be covering with fierce and probing independence. These kiss-kiss bonds feed into the network’s mantra of “why we love sports,” which is dropped robotically about 100 times in any given day, as if brainwashing a viewing audience that might not love sports as much as it follows sports.
Ethics died the minute Iger decided to become so “bullish on sports” that Disney climbed into business bed with what is now an $800 billion industry. There’s a better chance of Mickey Mouse committing mass murder than ESPN ever tackling an expose that would do irreparable harm to its league partners. Do you really think Wilbon will do investigative work on hazing when it’s much easier to save his school — a path made convenient when network “insiders” such as Adam Schefter and Adrian Wojnarowski are systematically fed comparatively innocuous stories by leagues and agents? Rarely does ESPN execute journalism anymore. So Wilbon’s conscience doesn’t tug when he says, “Do I think we can dig our way out? Yes. … I will know, I will make it my business to know who the best candidates are for this in the next few days. That’s what I’m gonna be obsessed with.”
Here’s what particularly bothers me: I remember Wilbon when this never would have happened. It wasn’t long ago when I suggested in print that he be given a career achievement award in sports multimedia. We’ve known each other since the 1980s, when we both were among the nation’s youngest columnists. In Chicago, had he taken a column gig at the Tribune, we talked about doing a Sunday TV show. He was smart enough to stay in Washington and launch his successful and prosperous gig with Kornheiser. I joined him on the same hour programming block for eight years — and I think he had something to do with it — and some might say I’m back-stabbing him today.
No. I am staying true to my craft — when almost every journalist who signs with ESPN has an eventual philosophical call to make. Most have turned sharply toward show business, none more so than Stephen A. Smith and the league insiders. I never abandoned my conflict-free, lawyerly presence on “Around The Horn,” which led to a gradual erosion of my ESPN relationship and, in the end, a quick and dirty exit amid a recklessly reported legal case while another network commentator was protected by Bristol. Point being, I’d have raised hell in our morning production sessions if Wilbon was on the Northwestern board then, a dicey situation when our meetings were led by boss Erik Rydholm, who helped create “PTI” and developed the Wilbon-Kornheiser alliance.
The news business has cratered largely because the sacred line has blurred, because the respected likes of Wilbon and USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan forgot about their professional constitution when asked to appear on Northwestern’s board. It’s why I can’t be in this business anymore. Ultimately, if I returned to a TV network or radio station or even a digital news site, I’d have a problem with someone about something. Most of my colleagues have sold out, though few will admit it. They need the money — I, fortunately, do not — and if sports has no rules anymore amid the Wild West culture of legal gambling, why would sports media obey rules when they share residency in the same sleaze pot? I’d love to help a serious media initiative or two. Sadly, they don’t realize why they need help, though red ink and waning traffic should be strong hints.
So sports media aspirants today want to be Wilbon. They should prefer independence, but that perception train left the station long ago, when a so-called crusader such as Dan Le Batard rallies for ethics without mentioning his own egregious conflict: a lucrative podcast relationship with DraftKings. Le Batard sold out for the money. Wilbon sold out for his school. Mike Greenberg, an ESPN host who never has broken a finger much less a major story, has sold out to a personal brand supported by cushy relationships with network and sports executives. In a candid moment recently, Wilbon told a Phoenix radio station, “I used to be a journalist. I don’t know what I am now.” I tried to reach him for an interview Thursday night and haven’t heard back.
They like their celebrity. I like my ability to write honestly for the readers, after three prosperous decades on the other side, without editorial interference swayed by business relationships. I am the anti-ESPN, after spending years building ratings from scratch. I am the anti-Fox, where the big sports boss, Eric Shanks, bragged about his journalism contribution as owner of a small California newspaper just months after cutting dirty deals not to cover Qatar’s human-rights abuses during the network’s World Cup coverage. I am the sports-section critic who thinks most daily presentations are boring, soft and afraid of rocking the yachts of leagues, teams and billionaires.
Would they have me now, even with my unassailable record as a network TV and local radio ratings king and newspaper readership lion? Nope. They think I’m radioactive because, hey, I went after Michael Wilbon. Yeah, just as I gave up a lucrative career at the Sun-Times and declared newspapers dead on HBO. I am loyal to myself. I have to live with myself. If people want to blackball me, I don’t want to work with them anyway when they don’t know a thing about me or my life and never have asked. I was the guy who jeopardized a relationship with Michael Jordan by writing about his gambling issues — as an editor warned they might be my final career columns — and realized years later than Jordan never held it against me. I was the one who waved off Dave Wannstedt, who liked sharing information after I urged Bears fans to give him a fair coaching chance in the post-Ditka era. That link snapped when the team’s public-relations director at the time, Bryan Harlan, called and said Wannstedt didn’t like something I’d written. I was the one who broke many a story about Sammy Sosa, whose agent didn’t trust other Chicago media, until I trashed him for steroids and bat-corking. Sosa’s hugs abruptly ended.
My loyalty is to the good people who read me. Not to my university. Not to my editors and publishers. Not to my broadcasting bosses. And never, ever to the people I cover.
Which I why I joyfully write at Substack. And why I’ve never written better, unencumbered by the bullshit of sports and media in the 21st century.
What’s important to know is that The Daily Northwestern, which broke the hazing story that led to Fitzgerald’s firing, is an independent operation. It is supported by a nonprofit organization and isn’t connected to the university.
ESPN and Disney are profit machines. Maybe Michael Wilbon, the one I know, finally will feel the tug of his conscience and recuse himself from the board. I’m guessing he likes the power. Or maybe he’ll resign from ESPN? I’m guessing he likes the money. He’ll keep having it both ways, as long as Iger and Pitaro don’t care about principles.
Wait, his phone is ringing.
David Shaw is on the line. He wants the football gig.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.