How the media's desire for quick and dramatic reporting can lead to fans getting duped. Jack Bechta
When I got on the treadmill yesterday, I saw ESPN leading with the Favre exclusive with reporter Ed Werder. My first thought was, “Wow, good for Ed. I know Brett tries to avoid the media at this time of year, so he must've done some serious hustling.” However, once I saw the interview with Brett sitting in his truck, the diesel engines loudly rumbling, while he gave three one-word answers to a struggling ESPN reporter, I thought to myself, “They got me.”
ICONFavre's annual retirement decision usually results in stories getting blown out of proportion.
This was nothing new; they sensationalized the lead-in to what was nothing more than Brett trying to make a quick exit. Great effort by Ed but not worth waiting for, and I learned nothing new. Furthermore, the whole motivation to chase down Brett for an interview was based on these nuggets:
Tom Pelissero of ESPN 1500 tweets: “Can't confirm, so take with salt, but there is strong buzz here that Brett Favre has told the Vikings today he's staying retired.”
Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune tweets: “Vikings ownership and other power brokers just held meeting on sidelines here. Looked very intense. Favre related?”
I’m not picking on ESPN here, just going to pull the curtain back and help you judge everything you read and hear from the major media outlets.
I’m here to tell you that a good portion of what you hear through the media, especially this time of year, is put out by teams, players, and agents. In the new media age, where competition for information is downright warfare, the large multimedia companies are most susceptible to getting used. They are also the best at yanking your chain, as they say in Wisconsin.
Now that FOX, ESPN, CBS and several other large companies are in business with the NFL, they won’t always fairly report on them and their embarrassing issues.
The issue for a lot of local beat writers that cover individual teams is that to get complete access, they sometimes have to be a covert mouthpiece for the team. If they don’t play nice, they may get the cold shoulder at practice and in the locker room. If they’re good to the team, they get better access. But if they cause problems, they may lose their privileges.
When a team or agent wants to get their position out on a player, a contract, or a hot issue, they call a friendly reporter. I was once in a contest at the 2007 Combine with two other agents and an active personnel director, where we bet dinner on who could get their propaganda out the quickest to ESPN or the NFL Network. I won! In three minutes, I had my top free agent heading to an NFC South team. Thanks to the NFL scoop jockey who picked it up! One of the other agents had his self-serving text running across the ESPN tape in about six minutes.
I think hardcore fans are losing faith in big media. They can only be jerked around and misled so many times before they move on. Devoted fans have a better idea of what’s going with their team than the major media outlets do. National and local bloggers are emerging as a trusted source of intelligence and are nipping away at digital and TV market share. As evidence of this, Comcast recently purchased The700Level.com to be their Eagles source for news and rumors.
In 2001, when Tim Dwight was traded to the Chargers as part as the Michael Vick pick, the first outlet to have it (even before I knew) was a young blogger out of Iowa. I still don’t know how he got it.
I do have to acknowledge that certain individuals like Tony Dungy, Troy Aikman, and many of those who have actually earned pelts in the industry rarely get misled. However, these guys aren’t scoop jockeys, either. FOX’s Jay Glazer does his homework, is too secure to be used and is well-liked by NFL brass and players. Mort is still very well respected, but his peer group is dying out and the mother ship pushes him to report scoop prematurely, before he can get it verified.
Many agents and players are bypassing the media all together and using social media outlets like Twitter to talk directly to the world. Therefore, ESPN has to rely more on T.O., Brett, Rex, Chad, Albert, and the other NFL entertainers to keep delivering drama to keep their daytime soap operas popular.
Who do you trust?
Follow me on Twitter: @jackbechta
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What a great post, Jack. So rarely do you see respected men in the sport question something as simple as the fallibility of ESPN. Specifically with this Favre saga, do you think ESPN did anything improper? Or is it just the sign of the times?
Great story Jack, thanks!
I think you'll find the reason this website is succeeding is the very facts you described in your article.
We're tired of listening to "entertainment" television that has huge financial connections to the NFL for fair or impartial news. I've seen too many stories spun to make the NFL look faultless while individuals are built up and torn down on a constant basis in the quest for TMZ style shock.
Now, even the NFL has it's own media outlet in the form of NFL Radio and NFL.com. How impartial are those sources of information really?
I just find if funny how the Saints Vicodin story, the Brain Injury study on Chris Henry and some of the very odd discrepancies in the PCP are being swept under the rug by BIG MEDIA and the Brett Favre saga continues to gain lead story status.
Thank god for the independent bloggers and on-line team reporters sometimes that aren't afraid to cause a stir. Or rather get a good in-depth story after weeks of work rather than be the first to Tweet about a trade or FA signing (the fans don't care who's first).
ESPN going overboard on a story??? Say it ain't so!!!!!!!!! How else are they going to keep 25 channels and 500 personalities busy?
I trust my wife and my children. Period.
This reminds me of the late 1990's in the stock market. As an equity analyst, we couldn't publish anything even remotely negative about a company we followed - the companies knew as well as we did that the information flow would be shut off and the analyst would be black-balled going forward, not just from information, but also from lucrative investment banking deals. So everyone played nice. I personally know of a situation in which an analyst publicly recommended investors "short-sell" a company's stock (accurately, I might add), and the analyst wasn't allowed to ask a single question on earnings conference calls from then on. His calls to management were always returned last, or days after the request was made, and eventually the analyst lost his following on Wall Street because investors figured out he was always the last to know what was going on. No good deed goes unpunished.
You trust your wife?!
@Dan, LOL!
Hmmm, it's the middle of the summer, Lebron hoopla is over, MLB is in it's most boring stage, and NFL players are running around in gym shorts.... aka, there is no new news in the Sports world..... and then, as if by magic, there is new breaking Brett Favre news to fill the air.
Who do I trust?
For 49ers news...
Matt Maiocco.
Never known that guy to be wrong on any rumor regarding that team
"My first thought was, “Wow, good for Ed. I know Brett tries to avoid the media at this time of year..." (Jack Bechta)
Do you do drugs, Jack?
I hope for your sake, you were high/drunk when you wrote this shit.
If sober, you may be too stupid to write for this website.
And considering some of the absolute horseshit that is offered here, that's scary.
Here's some questions for you, cueball;
Who appeared on Jay Leno recently?
Who went to New York to appear on the ESPY's?
Who is one of the biggest media whores on the planet?
Stop shaving your bald head so close. You're cutting into your brain.
This is the first and last article I ever read by this moron.
In the Twitter age, it's on the reader to do their own filtering. We're now a long, long way from the carefully vetted stories of Cronkite-style journalism. Personally, I like having more access, but some people can't adjust to the rumor-mill style.
That said, I think you sell Judd short on this one. The genesis of this was his tweet prior to the one you mention, that Favre had communicated something to other Vikings players that they took to mean he was retiring. Are you saying Judd was getting played there?
Favre is the king of all media.
He's like Elvis.
aaron, the point of the article is that major media outlets get USED daily by agents, players and team execs to promote their own interest. therefore, its hard to trust their stories becuase reporters are in competition for breaking news, the major outlets are partenrs with the leagues and ESPN has resorted to sensationalizing stories for viewership.
judd, tom and ed did nothing wrong. but ESPN taking a few tweets, hearsay and that interview and turning it into a "hook" headline is cheap. TMZish if you will.
i think Tom may have been played ("strong buzz here") but Judd was actually being clever by playing to his audience's imagination and ending his post with a "?" Not his fault they turned it into a story.
Whenever I read DIANE comments I always want to say "thank you Maam, may I have another."
c'mon jack - you're an agent. did the possible 7 million reasons for brett's return not turn the story around at all for you? not a bad day for bus cook, send a few texts, whisper the word retire to ziggy wilf and stand back. wow, espn over-reacted, alert the media (oh wait).
do you figure bus knocks down 3 or 5% for brett. on something this masterful you'd think he'd demand 10%.
now the croc-jacking story - that one might have some legs...
Or Favre lied (again) and threw the local reporters under the bus the first chance he got b/c he knew ESPN would wall to wall it and he'd be several million dollars richer at the end of the day. After all, the local reporters stood by their story on players getting texts and Shiancoe confirmed it in after practice interviews. Did ESPN drudge it up? Yes but Favre's manipulation made that possible.
It's interesting that there's a direct correlation between communication getting technologically easier and [real] information getting more difficult to find.
...or maybe it's that all public information was always nothing but lies and now we've got enough voices so that the lies must at least coexist with the truth? Either way, the lesson as always: make sure you've got plenty of non-perishable canned goods on hand.
Breadking News !!!
Brett is a public person who reaps riches from publicity !!!
Brett will play this year if his ankle is OK, Brett will not play this year if his ankle is not OK. Check out his Doctor's tweets - they tell the true story. Listen to his Pharmisists FaceBook posts about the prescriptions consumed - that is the story.
Wait ....... There's more !!!
NFLPA walk out 5 minutes before season opener in an escalated proactive job action that puts unbearable financial pressure on the owners to settle now, not later, as was their game plan.
All of the media is guilty from Glazer to you, no one waits for facts first, they just run with it !
Jack, we say "jurking your bobber" in Wisconsin........you know cause we fish for bluegills alot....not so much "pulling your chain" anymore.
Well,
I am a media figure myself and I must say since I'm in a little town, more people trust me so long as I tell the truth. When I move on, whether or not I get used by NFL/NBA teams remains to be seen, but we'll see what happens.
Good take Jack. I sometimes get that "Damn the bastards got me on this one" feeling too.
I always feel cheap and cheated. Like I've just been worked over by tiger woods....before he went to a month of therapy and now doesn't think about sex anymore.
Quick plug for Don Banks who, while he doesn't often dazzle, always grinds away with pretty good info IMO.
ESPN stopped trying to make fans into dupes. They found it was easier to make dupes into fans.
Load the bandwagon, already!
Brad James
I'm from a small town and I don't trust you. I can't speak for everyone but...
Mr Murder heheh You're not referring to our guy Jack are you?
All good and true Jack but the big elephant in the room is the texts. If Favre texted team mates, they would be on their "smart phones" (boy what an oxymoron that is). Brett can grin fidget and put off his own personal lacky Werder but history and precedence tells us that Favre actually did send the texts thus starting off the feeding frenzy.
Pretty easy to prove or disprove.
That's how Tiger got in trouble too.
Everyone including the media needs to ignore Farv-o from Jan-August. The guy is totally mental and reporting on him just fuels the fire.
The best comment I've heard thus far on the Favre rumors this week was by Ryan Russillo (ironically, the co-anchor of the Scott Van Pelt show on ESPN radio), when he said, in criticism of ESPN's reporting on the matter... (paraphrasing) "What difference does it make if Favre said he's retiring anyway? The absolute worst source for information on Brett Favre is Brett Favre."
It doesn't matter what Brett Favre says, the only time we'll know for sure that he's retired is when football season starts. Anything before then is demonstrably meaningless nonsense.
ESPN is ratings driven, not fact or content driven, especially during the offseason. And not much better during the season.
Rumor has it: Haynesworth passed his conditioning test! I can now call off my self-imposed hunger strike and come down from my tree on the UC Berkeley. A warm shower and close shave sounds pretty good about right now.
But wait a minute...a little "Tweety" bird just told me that Farve believes that his ankle is now miraculously responding to treatment after visiting an "herbalist" medical practitioner's clinic in San Francisco. Forget the shower and shave...I am in hot pursuit of the principals here right now in the downtown area
Your faithful Internet blogger,
Tom_in_SF
Eastcoast Sports Promotional Network. Fans of West Coast teams need not apply. If I want Favre or T.O. in an endless loop I'll go there. I don't. 98% garbage.
The loop continues: ...Jets, Yankees, Favre, Tom Brady, Favre, Albert Haynesworth, Favre, Peyton Manning, Peyton Manning, Red Sox, Giants, Favre, Jets, Yankees, Jets....
Diane is a man.
If another company decided to go into a 24 hour cable TV sports channel, I doubt that I would watch ESPN again. They all seem so sickenly self-assured about everything. The relationship with the NFL makes anything resembling confrontational journalism simply impossible. They are the high-paid mouthpiece for the NFL. Sadly, with the slump in print journalism, there's few to call out the NFL. I don't trust any of the bloggers.
Hey Jack, great article as ever. Whatever happend to the video blogs you did last year, those were fascinating. Any chance of some more this season?
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Nothing has changed since my Dad first told me, 50+ years ago, 'Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see' and '...just because you read it doesn't make it true'.
Words to live by, regardless of what sport or Political party you follow.