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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This piece on Deadspin nails a lot of what sucks about ESPN.
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I've only recently discovered that The Undefeated was a thing. And I don't get it.
I'm still not clear what ESPN had in mind after reading this article. Did they want a site with black talent writing about sports and pop culture? Seems like they wanted some true substance by the way they were chasing Coates. But then what does the site look like? Black issues in sports and everywhere else written about by black talent (with sports issues pulling people in)? If given the freedom to write about actual issues in a way that would surely offend people that make up a huge base of ESPN's demo, it sounds like a great site, but a terrible business move.
Generally speaking, ESPN sucks for lots of reasons. The two biggest reasons for me are: (1) As the article says, they have fallen into this "Every issue has two
legitimate sides" false equivalency bullshit such that whenever one of their small-minded employees who thinks they're brilliant because they're on tv says some stupid, offensive shit, ESPN doesn't know what to do and (2) The people they employ are not journalists; they're fans and they conduct themselves like fans. There is very little impartial reporting. All of the personalities they promote are trying so hard to have relationships with the people they must base their reporting on that it's just one big, incestuous clusterfuck. Either you are legitimate news source or you are E! You can't be both. They try. How can you report on the NFL doing all the dirt it does on the regular and maintain a business relationship with them at the same time? Not possible.
Finally, I've never paid much attention to Whitlock, but that's because I can't recall him saying anything interesting.
TM
