Talbot Rocked by Toronto
July 9, 2011Big Weekend Set for the Tribe
July 9, 2011
It seems like Dari Nowkhah has become a household name around here this week. He upset many Clevelanders with his twitter comments but explained himself with some insightful remarks in the comments section of Craig’s piece. On Thursday night, he proudly stated that Sportscenter would lead off with Travis Hafner’s grand slam – as they should, a walk-off slam down 3 has only happened 7 times in the past 25 years (although dot com’s Sportscenter highlight of the night was the Red Sox’s win putting them in first place – because the sports consumer hasn’t seen enough of that in the past 25 years).
But one night later, Nowkhah anchored a Sportscenter that took some conflated and odd shots at Cleveland. Because a Blue Jays-Indians game has a lot to do with “The Decision,” Sportscenter decided to pipe in audio and video of last July into the completely unrelated highlight package of last night’s game. It contradicted what Nowkhah said repeatedly this week and was exemplary of what started this all.
Nowkhah seemed to be enjoying the highlights and creative idea to cut in video of “The Decision.” He commended the video guys and producers who put it together on air and on twitter with: “Great stuff Bro. RT @charlie_hulme Big thanks to @espndarinowkhah for shouting out screening during my Indians SC highlight tonight!”
Charlie, the apparent brainchild of these highlights, describes himself as a “LeBron apologist” in his twitter profile.
The highlight package featured shots from the angst-ridden Cleveland bars last July (including that infamous blonde crying) every time something wrong happened to the Tribe. Travis Snider hit a homer and “took the ball to South Beach.” Manny Acta was faced with “The Decision” of leaving in or taking out Mitch Talbot. As the runs piled up, they showed footage of each Jay crossing the plate with the “Not 1, not 2, not 3…” audio piped in.
What was the point? ESPN, on its various platforms, spent much of yesterday commemorating (but not celebrating) the anniversary of “The Decision.” There were articles about how much everyone’s life has changed, how the boys and girls club of Greenwich has been impacted. But there was little reflection or regret on just how that night played out on their network. This day last year, ESPN was getting crushed on a national level by the media, even by their own employees, almost as much as LBJ was getting filleted. But they’re embattled partners in the trench on this one (as Adrian Wojnarowski is wont to write, it’s LeBron’s personal cable network) and that negativity questioning the entire idea and execution wasn’t going to be re-hashed for anniversary purposes.
As I watched live last night, I thought the highlight package was random and seemed forced but I wasn’t really offended or angered by it. Then I saw the self-congratulation on twitter this morning and it irked me. There are many opinion shows on ESPN but Sportscenter, the standard-bearer of the network, is not one of them. Nowkhah defends ESPN as being impartial and not anti-Cleveland.
But the creator of that odd bit last night calls himself (perhaps facetiously) a “LeBron apologist” – that’s fine, everyone has their teams and players, regardless if they work for an objective media outlet.
After the “LeBron apologist” line in his profile, production assistant Charlie offers up the twitter boilerplate: “My views, not those of my employer.” Are they? What about Sportscenter? Because it looked to me like your personal views came through pretty clear on your employer’s marquee and objective program.
But then again, maybe Charlie’s views and his company’s views are one and the same.
19 Comments
I saw that. That s**t was horrible. Classless
Other than MNF, I haven’t watched ESPN since “The Decision”. Every opportunity they get to [WFNY edit] Cleveland, they do. It got much worse after the decision, including the Mangini high-five – say what you want about the guy, but if I’m supposed to be watching an objective sports news show, that seemed a bit unprofessional. The thing that puzzles me most is, I don’t know why they would have anything against Cleveland or its sports teams, so it just seems even more ridiculous.
The network is predominately made up of a bunch of elitist east coast ultra libs that scoff at a “fly over” midwest blue collar city like Cleveland. We have a pretty large and caring fan base which plays into their hands. Ultimately, bashing us at every opportunity makes the people at the network feel important and it boosts ratings. If everyone took a page of of Steves33’s book it wouldn’t be much of an issue anymore. Seriously though… the poking is getting really old and its definitely conscious actions.
Seriously, falling back on the line that The Decision “helped kids” and is therefore morally acceptable is such a straw man argument.
Regardless of how the boys and girls club benefited, the way Lebron handled the situation (w/ the support of ESPN) inflicted a trauma on our fan base in a completely irresponsible way.
It’s as if the responsibility for causing the (relative) suffering of hundreds of thousands of people can be absolved by a small act of charity. Remarkably stupid logic.
ESPN = No Credibility when it comes to LBJ, and yet they staunchly defend their credibility. It is so transparent, it is laughable.
The way I see it, Cleveland should metaphorically charge the mound. The tying of The Decision to Indians highlights seems to me in direct response to our anger over ESPN once again using the “misery montage” during their Indians broadcast Wednesday night. Much like a pitcher throws high and tight after getting roughed up, ESPN took a cheap shot at Cleveland.
I can’t stand to watch sportscenter anymore. Too many “personalities” I could care less about when all I want is the facts. On a side note, I gave MLB network a shot this year and have been thoroughly impressed. It’s entertaining, inciteful, and completely unbiased. There show “MLB tonight” had a live look-in of the Indians game Thursday night in the bottom of the ninth. Everyone on the show couldn’t stop raving about the Indians’ ability to bounce back after having their slump the last month.
I don’t know how anyone who has seen Sportscenter in the last 10 years can say that it isn’t an opinion show. That’s why I gave up on it a long time ago. Too many opinions and forced story lines, not enough objective sports stories.
Not sure what perceived politics has to do with any of it, acrossthefield.
It’s pretty simple: we as viewers make a conscious decision to watch (or not watch) ESPN. It’s pretty simple to just change the channel and not worry about it.
I spent 3 years working for a national network as a highlight editor, associate producer, and backup anchor. I learned that it is ALWAYS the editors and producers who have the final say as to what airs. If a guy is from Boston you can bet the Red Sox will lead-off the A-Block. If he is a big LeBron fan, you know the highlights from “The Decision” will be cut differently from the Cleveland local news.
It is just sad that in pre-show meetings, people will bring up players they don’t like and talk about how they can make them look bad. I have lived it. it happens. every.freaking.day.
i got over it a long time ago. and i know a few guys who moved on to places like ESPN and decided to quit because the culture was just full of shhhh.
@ Denny
It would be easier to agree with you if the commentary and pot shots were coming from fox sports or VS. However, Sportscenter is the sports news show of record in America. At some point, you gotta say “enough is enough” when your name is being dragged through the mud on national tv…almost constantly.
That was clearly intentional. That’s all I have to say about that.
ESPN is the new LeBron of WFNY. I don’t want to care about either of them so I refuse to watch either of them, and I do want to enjoy this blog without being reminded how much they bother me. ha.
I saw that too and am glad you posted about it. I was involved with the twitter interactions with Dari and after his explanation and SC leadoff with the grandslam I even told him on twitter he may even bring me back to SC. So I watched again yesterday and saw that highlight I was extremely disappointed. (Not so much ubset as much as just disappointed) I guess my boycott is back on.
@acrossthefield11 – “ultra lib?” I’m not sure how an “ultra lib” point of view manifests itself in sports highlights but that made me laugh. And I seriously doubt bashing us “boosts ratings.” I’m imagining all those Yankee fans tuning into SportsCenter just hoping to see them crap on Cleveland again.
Good lord. Everything was fine until a no name video producer tweeted that he was psyched he was mentioned on the air for what had to be some labor-intensive production work, so we have to have another post about how Cleveland is ESPN’s victim.
Cleveland’s sports misery is one of the easiest dramatic narratives ESPN has at its disposal. You should really stop taking it personally.
I wonder if anyone would have had the idea for this Decision mashup if folks hadn’t created such a ridiculous stir at Nowkah earlier this week. I’m sure they’re enjoying themselves, and whether it’s right or wrong for them to do so, looking at all the whining here makes it easy to see why they would be.
It’s the liberals’ fault! Boycott! Good lord.
ouch!! That hurts Frowns!!
For a guy who supposedly prides himself on “media criticism” and has not spared WFNY over at his site when he felt it was called for, Cleveland Frowns is awfully dismissive, don’t you think?
No, not at all. There’s justified criticism and there’s unjustified criticism. The victimization re: ESPN here is unjustified for reasons explained here and elsewhere. Why are we still talking about this?