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ESPN's Print FetishThe Wall Street Journal misreads the sports network's hiring philosophy.

By Jack ShaferPosted Friday, Dec. 21, 2007, at 6:12 PM ET

This morning's (Dec. 21) Wall Street Journal thinks it's news that ESPN is "raiding news organizations for sports journalists."

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The "poaching," which has been going on for "more than a year now," as the Journal reports, has recently netted the network Rick Reilly and Jeffri Chadiha of Sports Illustrated, Kristin Huckshorn of the New York Times, Mark Fainaru-Wada of the San Francisco Chronicle, T.J. Quinn of the New York Daily News, Dwayne Bray of the Dallas Morning News, Howard Bryant of the Washington Post, and Larry Starks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

According to the Journal, "[T]his is more than a competitive shopping spree—it is a step toward reinventing the franchise."

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Sure, ESPN needs more bodies because it has more media appendages today, but the aggressive recruitment of accomplished print journalists has been ESPN Executive Editor John Walsh's favorite play since he started at the network back in 1988, as Michael Freeman's 2000 book, ESPN: The Uncensored History, explains. The résumés of ESPN journalists listed on the network's Web site indicate Walsh's longstanding hiring practices:

Chris Mortensen, acquired by ESPN in 1991; previously at The National and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
John Clayton, acquired by ESPN in 1991; previously at the Tacoma News Tribune.
Sal Paolantonio, acquired by ESPN in 1995; previously at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Wrote a biography of Frank L. Rizzo.
Shelley Smith, acquired by ESPN in 1997; previously at Sports Illustrated.
Tony Kornheiser, acquired by ESPN in 1997; still writes for the Washington Post.
Ed Werder, acquired by ESPN in 1998; previously at the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and other newspapers.
Tim Kurkjian, acquired by ESPN in 1998; previously at Sports Illustrated and various newspapers.
J.W. Stewart, acquired by ESPN in 2000; previously at the Poughkeepsie Journal.
Andy Katz, acquired by ESPN in 2000; previously at the Fresno Bee and other newspapers.
Michael Wilbon, acquired by ESPN in 2001; still writes for the Washington Post.
Skip Bayless, acquired by ESPN in 2002. Previous gigs at newspapers in Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Jose.
Stephen A. Smith, acquired by ESPN in 2003; wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer until earlier this year.
Pedro Gomez, acquired by ESPN in 2003; previously at the Arizona Republic and other newspapers.
Rachel Nichols, acquired by ESPN in 2004; previously at the Washington Post.
Terry Blount, acquired by ESPN in 2006; previously at the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle.
Angelique Chengelis, acquired by ESPN in 2007; previously at the Detroit News.

Other print journalists who work or have worked for the ESPN organization and are unnamed in the Journal article include Len Pasquarelli, Woody Paige, Jayson Stark, Andrea Kremer, Pat Forde, Pete Axthelm, John Feinstein, Dick Schaap, David Aldridge, John Papanek, Christine Brennan, Vince Doria, Gregg Easterbrook, recent arrival J.A. Adande (Los Angeles Times), and others. (Apologies to any and all print wretches turned ESPNers that I've missed.)

Walsh, as if you have to ask, was a print guy, too—Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Inside Sports, where he was founding editor.

More than other journalists, sportswriters regard themselves as eternal free agents—pens for hire to the highest bidder. When Walsh and ESPN first started poaching print journalists, the operation was just a cable channel. Now it's several cable channels, a magazine, a Web site, and a national radio network, making it sports journalism's equivalent of the Yankees, a destination for those with talent, ambition, and a love of dollars. How to forgive the Journal for whiffing the money angle in a story like this?

Addendum: More on sportwriters and money.

******

Maybe Rupert Murdoch should invest in a daily Journal sports section. Send your proposals to . (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

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Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

One would expect from this influx of journalistic expertise over the years a profound impact on the quality of reporting at ESPN. Instead, to begin with the obvious, ESPN has been the recipient of some figurative wedgies in recent weeks:

Kirk Herbstreet announces that Les Miles is going to Michigan only to be slapped about the ears by Miles for his reportage. I am not saying that Herbstreet was wrong, or even that his sources were, but he became the news rather than the reporter of it. This is a big problem with ESPN, by the way, where the 'reporters' feel compelled to generate stories where there is not yet one to report. This may be symptomatic of journalism in general in these days, but still, ESPN got its undies yanked up into its crack on this one.

ESPN says that Bill Parcells is going to Atlanta. ESPN then backtracks and says that he is going to Miami. Nice job.

ESPN makes a big deal out of the Bellicheck (sp?)/Mangini brouhaha, and then there is no story. Ooops.

Peter Gammons, the highly respected baseball god, finds himself the focal point of listener ridicule as he defends Roger Clemens and others vehemently with no need to do so. Methinks he doth protest too much, and, as such, embarrasses himself and the network.

Skip Bayless is a parody of his former self, which was a jerk. How can someone pretend to be an objective observer, and then clearly have a hate on for particular players, owners, etc?

Chris Berman is an abomination, a loud-mouthed self-serving blowhard who has no right to ever consider himself a journalist. Would any ethical journalist include images of himself playing golf in 25% of his highlight reels? The man has an extreme insecurity problem, and well he should.

Emmitt Smith? Michael Irving? Now, even Tom Jackson is starting to sound like an idiot, when he has been a voice of reason in the past, at least up until the moment when he had to become politically correct in the McNabb controversy. The only two left on that table still talking without stuttering or sounding stupid are Ditka and, I can't believe I'm saying this, Keyshawn Johnson. Everyone else has become a hack for ESPiNing.

Mortenson spouts inanities all day long until he gets the story right, and when he gets it right, forgets all of the ill-advised predictions he made earlier, those he made to create news. Perhaps his sources are no longer as high up the food chain as they once were?

Lou Holtz? Lou Holtz? Lou Holtz? Perhaps the funniest moment of ESPN's year was when Lou had to defend Bobby Petrino because Lou himself had done the same thing. This is the guy that ESPN had doing inspirational 'speeches' at half times of games, and the guy so enamored of Notre Dame that he couldn't make an objective call on that program all year.

That doesn't leave his partner off of the hook, either. Unlike Herbstreet and Corso, who included Va Tech (ranked no. 3 and ACC champion) in their 'what if' scenario, May didn't even include the team. May, one would think, had been there, done that, and would not succumb to presenting the best ESPN scenario in his analyses, but he did so all year long.

That said, let's not forget that Holtz was a known cheat before ESPN took him in, and that Irving had some serious issues in his past. The network is a whore, apparently.

ESPN was a parody of itself from the beginning, but back when it knew what it was, it was funny, its anchors were funny, and its journalism was tighter than it is now. Perhaps back then the thought of a lawsuit carried more weight.

Now, the anchors are trite, even the good ones now grown beyond their entertainment value (I sincerely hope that Stuart Scott gets past his current health issues, but his attempts at street talk now are simply babbling from someone who doesn't want to grow up, I think).

Personally, I think that ESPN has become an abyss for sports journalists (if there is such a thing, a sports journalist, that is).

ESPiNning...doing whatever they have to do to carry the day, to stretch stories, to make stories...ESPN is the ultimate tabloid, and the athletes know it.

Regrettably, so do the 'journalists', the 21st century version of yellow journalism.

Shame on the lot of you.

--SoccerFreak

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(12/25)

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