ESPN's Political Insistence Is Truly 'Outside the Lines' of Fairness

Culture
May 12th, 2017 7:35 PM
Long-time ESPN veterans and untouchable survivors of multiple layoffs, Jeremy Schaap and Bob Ley say sticking to sports will not work in the modern world of sports. Ley also says, according to Travis Waldron of The Huffington Post, that those who say ESPN is too political are hypocrites.

Ex-ESPN Journalist: Deadspin Pushed Network Left

Culture
May 8th, 2017 8:13 PM
Ever since ESPN sacked 100 on-air employees and sent them packing April 26, conservatives and leftists have debated the reason for the network's latest round of layoffs. "Chord-cutting," say those on the Left, as well as ESPN management. "Radical turn-off politics," say the conservatives.​

Google and Facebook Are Now Driving the ‘News’ Media Cart

May 8th, 2017 11:45 AM
Our recurring joke - that is itself a ceaselessly recurring joke - is when we mention the “Media-Left,” we always follow it with “please pardon the redundancy.”  The Media-Left merger is now seamless.  I could hand you a New York Times article and a Daily Kos article - and you would be hard pressed to determine which is which (aside from the latter’s propensity for profanity). As Rush Limbaugh…

Liberal Pundit Sees Almost No Liberalism on ESPN

May 4th, 2017 8:57 PM
At one time officially, and since then unofficially, the “S” in “ESPN” stood for “sports,” and, according to Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, that’s entirely fitting. As for the frequent complaint from conservatives about the channel’s liberal bias, Drum says, “I don't really get it...I'm not a heavy ESPN viewer, but I watch enough to have some sense of its political leanings. And I haven't…

ESPN's Michael Smith: Every City in America Is Racist

May 3rd, 2017 6:32 PM
ESPN's determination to dig its own grave continues to move at high speed. On Tuesday, SportsCenter 6 co-host Michael Smith intensely overreacted to the racist actions of a small contingent fans at a Major League Baseball game at Boston's Fenway Park, using what they did to tag every city in America as "racist."

WSJ: ESPN's Troubles Far from Over

Culture
May 2nd, 2017 5:30 PM
Ever a glutton for punishment, ESPN is not ready to change its self-defeating ways. Dramatic losses in business and the jettisoning of 100 employees last week are only leading to continued defiance.

The Nation: Alt Right Charges of ESPN Bias are Hysterics

Culture
May 1st, 2017 5:32 PM
In his postmortem of last week's massive layoffs by ESPN, The Nation’s Dave Zirin has unleashed a caustic attack on any media that would dare criticize the sports network with charges of liberal bias.

Lefty Sportswriter: ESPN’s Got Problems, But Liberalism Isn’t One

April 28th, 2017 11:00 AM
This week’s avalanche of layoffs at ESPN has been a story in search of an explanation. Some say that a major reason for the network’s financial woes over the past few years has been, as Clay Travis noted, its “absurd decision to turn into MSESPN, a left wing sports network.” The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis, who endorses the recent leftward drift of sports media, thinks that whether or not ESPN is “a…

ESPN's Women's Site Posts Poem Dedicated to 1970s Cop-Killing Fugitive

April 27th, 2017 10:57 PM
Yesterday, as Jay Maxson at NewsBusters noted, ESPN laid off 100 on-air personalities. One would think that an awareness of growing financial vulnerability might convince the network to keep its employees' and contributors' most radical impulses in check, lest even more subscribers and/or advertisers get alienated. That certainly isn't happening at ESPNW, the network's women's sports website.

Message to Failing ESPN: It's the Liberalism, Stupid!

Culture
April 26th, 2017 5:21 PM
ESPN is calling today’s massive “bloodletting” – the layoff of 100 on-air personalities – a matter of “navigating changes in technology and fan behavior in order to continue to deliver quality, breakthrough content” that is part of “a strategic vision that will propel our vast array of networks and services forward.”

The Undefeated Can't Look Past Racism in Baseball

Culture
April 19th, 2017 7:42 PM
Left-stream writers love to criticize conservatives as people who are stuck in the past. But truth be known, they are mired in yesteryear as it relates to race. One of their pet narratives is to claim we are as racist a nation today as we were in the long ago past. They’re doing it again now in conjunction with the recent start of the major-league baseball season and baseball’s annual observance…

'Life-Ending' Trump Terrifies ESPN Reporter

Culture
April 14th, 2017 7:15 PM
An NBA beat writer for ESPN says he’s not sure what he can contribute to sports coverage by going political, but then found his “inner liberal” and said President Trump terrifies him because he could “end life on the planet.” Ethan Sherwood Strauss, who covers the Golden State Warriors for ESPN, made his remarks on a podcast interview with Isaac Chotiner of Slate, a publication founded by the…

ESPN Farce: New Guidelines Failing Miserably

Culture
April 13th, 2017 6:39 PM
One week in, the new ESPN policy move toward “balance" in political reporting is failing badly. This is based on two actions immediately following the so-called policy changes by the biggest name in left-stream sports media. Both are indicators that ESPN is actually doubling down on its hard Left mooring.

Reeling ESPN Yanks Conservative Off NBA Countdown

Culture
April 5th, 2017 9:05 PM
ESPN is becoming something akin to television’s version of the Cleveland Browns, who won one game in the 2016 NFL season. And now, the network has removed a conservative journalist from NBA coverage. ESPN's losing streak includes the staggering loss of 12 million subscribers since 2011, according to Nielsen. In the last two months of 2016, the subscription loss topped the one million subscriber…