WHY DID THREE MEDIA WRITERS FOCUS ON MEL KIPER JR. OVER SHANNON SHARPE?
The dumbing-down of the industry happened in The Athletic, owned by the New York Times, where a $50 million rape lawsuit against ESPN's Sharpe was preoccupied by Kiper Jr.
It was a lost media weekend when publishers, editors and CEOs wondered about the future of a bleak industry. The flashpoint happened when Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said at the beginning of the annual event at the Washington Hilton, “There’s no president. There’s no comedian. It’s just us.”
Why were hundreds of people in a ballroom when the business doesn’t exist?
Maybe the bosses should collectively wonder why readership has faded away. It’s too easy and convenient to blame the President. Maybe they should examine the lazy and cowardly production of their reporting staffs. Allow me to point out a glaring mistake in coverage by media reporters at the New York Times’ sports website, The Athletic.
The biggest story of the year in that limited category happened last week when ESPN’s Shannon Sharpe was accused of rape in a $50 million lawsuit by a 20-year-old woman. If three staff writers — Dan Shanoff, Andrew Marchand and Richard Deitsch were gathering online to break down a major story: They should have discussed ESPN’s relationship with its waning audience, how viewers will examine the network’s biggest show “First Take,” and its $100 million host, Stephen A. Smith, who recruited Sharpe to that program, and the fact Smith is considering whether to run for U.S. president in 2028. Most importantly for Disney, how does ESPN intend to sell “First Take” during a direct-to-consumer launch this fall in what CEO Bob Iger calls the company’s “biggest transition in our history.”
Aren’t those the real stories in sports media? Journalism, we call it.
Saturday, the reporters huddled to wonder if draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.’s trashing of NFL franchises might take him down at ESPN. As quarterback Shedeur Sanders was rejected by teams in the first, second, third and fourth rounds, Kiper was angrier than Sanders or his father, Deion Sanders. “The NFL has been clueless for 50 years when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks. CLUELESS!” Kiper shouted. “They have no idea what they’re doing in terms of evaluating quarterbacks. That’s proof. There’s proof of that. They say, ‘We know exactly what we’re talking about when it comes to quarterbacks.’ They don’t!”
I don’t need three writers psychoanalyzing Kiper. He has made a living for decades, thanks to ESPN, by evaluating college players. If he thinks Sanders’ fall to the fifth round was “disgusting,” that’s his take. He showed emotion that kept viewers from changing the channel. Big deal.
What I need from Shanoff, Marchand and Deitsch is a serious analysis of Sharpe and Smith and “First Take.” Unless, of course, they are dumbing down their own profession. What you must understand about media critics is that their gigs require access to key people at the networks. If word gets out at ESPN or Fox that any have fallen out of line, they won’t get once-a-year interviews with bosses Jimmy Pitaro or Eric Shanks. Why wouldn’t they point-blank ask if viewers will shut off the show, knowing Smith brought Sharpe to a starring role at “First Take.” How will Iger and Pitaro market the show to DTC streamers.
“Hey, we paid $100 million for a host who brought an alleged rapist to ESPN!”
Not all sports media writers have lost track of priorities. Michael McCarthy, Ryan Glassspiegel and the Front Office Sports staff wrote groundbreaking stories on Sharpe last week, including a report that Sharpe, while co-hosting “Undisputed” at Fox Sports 1, was accused of choking a female production assistant in the workplace and that Sharpe and Fox “settled with the accuser for several hundred thousand dollars.”
That showed me their heads were in the game and made it tolerable when McCarthy later wrote this of Kiper: “He should find a way to relax—a warm bath, meditation, a beverage of choice; any of them would work.” His staff didn’t gather for an examination of Kiper. What’s the point? Back when I was a sports media critic — age 21, the Detroit News, fresh out of college, before I became a general sports columnist — I knew what was predominant on the beat.
The Sharpe story is only beginning. Kiper will remain at ESPN, someone tell the three Athletic writers. They just got their asses kicked by FOS. Their editors should take note.
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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.