Deadspin Goes Medieval On ESPN – Is It Too Much?
It was a bad weekend to work in Bristol, Conn. Last week, the friction in the sometimes friendly, mostly unfriendly, four years of co-existence between ESPN, the sports broadcasting and online behemoth, and Deadspin, Gawker Media’s popular upstart sports blog, finally ignited a huge, flaming ball of holy-crap-this-should-be-interesting. What had been a long-standing, contentious relationship turned into a bitter feud that’s not likely to be resolved, or even cooled off for a while, after Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio posted a story with headline, “ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sexual Depravity.”
The post was a response to the New York Post’s revelation that Steve Phillips, a high-profile ESPN baseball analyst, had been suspended for having an affair with an ESPN production assistant. Daulerio had been sitting on the story for a couple weeks and felt he had been lied to by ESPN’s communications arm, and thus, scooped by the Post. Needless to say, Daulerio wasn’t happy about it and retaliated by unloading his inbox of rumors about the indiscretions of ESPN executives under the … well, hilarious tag “ESPNhorndoggery.”
Reactions since from both the traditional media and the sports blogosphere have been, for the most part, critical of what Daulerio did. Right or wrong, this is a fascinating story because it tiptoes so close to that imaginary ethical line that the traditional media always hysterically yell about about when talking about the blogosphere. But nobody has actually ever attempted to define exactly what that line is. Is it legal? Is it ethical? Is it based on long-standing journalistic standards?
I’d say it’s purely legal, because, well, that’s the ultimate measure of right or wrong here. Obviously, Gawker boss Nick Denton has Daulerio and Deadspin’s back here, and Daulerio was a trained, professional journalist for years before joining Deadspin, so it’s his call as to where the ethical line is drawn and if he cares about the long-standing journalist mores. Absent restraint from his bosses and from himself, defamation law is the only check on Daulerio. Clay Travis, a former lawyer and former Deadspin writer, has a pretty thorough run down of the legal issues involved and concludes that Deadspin and Gawker are pretty much in the clear, legally.
That really is the final word here. If, in the eyes of the law, Deadspin’s war against ESPN is legal, than so be it. ESPN can call it “despicable behavior,” Daulerio’s sports blogging brethren can complain and members of the traditional media can hold their noses at the messy kerfuffle that’s so obviously beneath them, but the law is the final call on legal or not, and Daulerio and Gawker have the final say on right or wrong.
And something that’s been missing from the discussion as well, is that Deadspin might have exposed a pattern of sexual misdeeds that point to a widespread institutional rot within ESPN. Not to suggest that Daulerio is today’s Upton Sinclair, or his “Horndoggery” posts an update to The Jungle, but in a sense it’s akin to modern day muckraking, just on a smaller scale. ESPN though, might argue it’s more like yellow journalism. But this is the new media environment, and these issues need to be worked out. Who knows, if ESPN files suit against Gawker, this case could establish future precedent.
Under its founder and editor emeritus Will Leitch, Deadspin basically founded what is now a thriving, interesting and exciting sports blogosphere. Under Daulerio, Deadspin might also pioneer less comfortable, but massively important new territory around standards, ethics and exactly what the new journalism is. It’ll be exciting to see.
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Scott Cornthwaite