ESPN Poynter Review Project

A furor erupted last week after country-music legend Hank Williams Jr. compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. By the end of the week, ESPN had severed ties with the longtime curtain-raiser for “Monday Night Football,” a decision that resulted in no small amount of controversy -- as well as a new Hank Jr. song.

ESPN’s decision makes sense in light of its policy on political advocacy and how it has handled similar incidents in the recent past. And, according to one of ESPN’s top executives, it didn’t help that Williams didn’t seem to understand why his comments were a big deal.

On Oct. 3, Williams appeared on the show “Fox and Friends” and said the summer’s “golf summit” featuring House Speaker John Boehner and Obama was “one of the biggest political mistakes ever ... it would be like Hitler playing golf with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

When one of the Fox hosts said he didn’t understand the analogy, Williams said, “They’re the enemy. ... Obama. And [Vice President Joe] Biden. Are you kidding? The Three Stooges.” Later in the segment, when it was noted he’d invoked Hitler’s name in apparent reference to Obama, Williams said, “That is true, but I’m telling you like it is.” (You can see the clip here.)

John Skipper, ESPN executive vice president of content, told Poynter that after seeing the clip, he and a number of other executives “made a fairly quick decision” to drop the Williams intro from that night’s “Monday Night Football.” Then, Skipper said, they decided to “gather more information from all parties involved."

That additional information took the form of two public statements from Williams. On Monday, after ESPN’s decision not to run the opener, Williams posted a statement on his website that read in part, “I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me -- how ludicrous that pairing was. ... I have always respected the office of the President.”

The next day, Williams followed with another statement: “I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me. The thought of the Leaders of both Parties Jukin and High Fiven on a Golf course, while so many Families are Struggling to get by simply made me Boil over and make a Dumb statement and I am very Sorry if it Offended anyone."

Skipper said ESPN interpreted Williams’ first statement as saying he’d been misunderstood, while his second one didn’t amount to a real apology.

"We reached a decision [last] Wednesday night,” Skipper said. “We felt it was inappropriate to have that song be the opener for ‘Monday Night Football’ given that for a period of time [the Hitler analogy] will be the overwhelming association with Hank. He has every right to voice his opinions, and we have every right to disassociate ourselves from him."

(ESPN also explored the topic on “Outside the Lines” last week.)

ESPN has established policies on political advocacy -- and previously, ESPNers have found themselves in a media tumult after invoking Hitler. ESPN “discourages public participation in matters of political advocacy or controversy among editorial employees, contributors and public-facing talent” and warns that “correspondents, producers, editors, writers, public-facing talent and those involved in news assignments and coverage must avoid being publicly identified with various sides of political issues.”

That policy came up in separate incidents this summer, when ESPN publicly reprimanded golf analyst Paul Azinger for a satirical tweet about how many jobs Obama had created and reportedly spoke privately with Kenny Mayne about a tweeted joke about almost ramming a car with a Sarah Palin bumper sticker “with intent.”

Williams wasn’t an ESPN employee; Skipper said ESPN had a year-to-year contract with Williams to record versions of “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” and license it for the opener. (A rewritten version of “Rowdy Friends,” which was first recorded in 1984, had opened “Monday Night Football” since 1989.) But while he wasn’t an employee, Williams’ association with “Monday Night Football,” and therefore with ESPN, qualified him as public-facing talent.

As for invocations of Hitler, the two most infamous of recent vintage at ESPN involve columnist Jemele Hill and coach-turned-college football analyst Lou Holtz.

In June 2008, Hill sought to tease Detroit Pistons fans who had taken to rooting for the Boston Celtics against the Los Angeles Lakers, writing that rooting for the Celtics “is like saying Hitler was a victim.” Later that year, on “College GameDay,” Holtz was discussing the need for leadership among players in the locker room and said, “Let's remember this: Hitler was a great leader, too. There are good leaders and bad leaders."

Hill apologized and was suspended for a week; Holtz apologized on the air the next day but was not suspended. (Le Anne Schreiber, in her role as ESPN ombudsman, examined the two cases in a November 2008 column.)

Williams’ comments clearly violated ESPN’s policy on political advocacy, but the real problem is that his invocation of Hitler went much further than either Hill’s or Holtz’s did. Hill was poking Pistons fans in a cartoonish way, while Holtz was offering a clumsy warning about good leaders and bad leaders. The comparison wasn’t a good idea in either case, but neither made the kind of explicitly political statement Williams did.

Yes, the singer’s initial statement on “Fox and Friends” was an analogy, but given a chance to clarify his remarks, Williams didn’t back away from talk of Hitler, portraying Obama and Biden as “the enemy.”

On the same day ESPN cut ties with him, Williams posted a new statement on his site: “After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run.” Over the weekend, the singer recorded “Keep the Change,” an updated version of his own song that jabbed at both “Fox and Friends” and ESPN.

As an aside, Williams’ statement about his decision mixed up the First Amendment with the more general principle of freedom of speech, an error many of his supporters made as well in their emails -- which number in the thousands -- to the Poynter Review Project mailbag. The First Amendment forbids the government from restricting freedom of speech but says nothing about what kind of speech one’s employer or business associate must tolerate.

ESPN chose not to tolerate Williams’ speech, effectively ending a long-standing relationship that had seemed destined to continue.

"If this had not happened, there’s no reason to think we would not have brought the song back next year,” Skipper said.

Former ESPN college football columnist Bruce Feldman debuted his new column at CBSSports.com Thursday. In addition to sharing his picks for this weekend's games, Feldman separately shared with other sports journalists a host of accusations about his departure from ESPN and the company's alleged lies to the Poynter Review Project and the public.

Feldman's story and ESPN's story do not match up.

We spoke with ESPN officials for the previous Poynter Review column on this situation, but not with Feldman, whom we spoke with twice this week - a 12-minute phone call on Thursday and a 35-minute call on Monday. Based on those conversations as well as interviews Feldman gave to Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch and radio host Dan Patrick, we've identified two main criticisms of us that merit responses:

• Feldman says that ESPN Executive Vice President John Skipper instructed him not to participate in an interview with Poynter for a July column on the controversy around Feldman's role in writing a book with former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach.

This is the most serious allegation Feldman makes, because if it's true, it undermines the foundation of Poynter's role in reviewing and publicly commenting on ESPN's efforts.

"It is categorically inaccurate that I told him not to talk to you guys. I am a little displeased with his actions," Skipper said Thursday night on the phone. He said that he called Feldman in July to encourage him to "relax." Feldman responded to that advice by saying, "the Poynter Institute called, I'm going to tell them you're all a bunch of liars," Skipper said.

"I suggested that getting into a public fight with your employer and calling them liars was not wise," he said.

As our column neared its publication in July, Skipper said, "I called Bruce and said, 'If you feel that you need to go on the record with The Poynter Institute, you should do so. I will confess that I said, 'You need to remain careful.' "

Feldman told us during a phone call Thursday evening that his wife was listening back in July when Skipper warned him not to talk to us. We asked if we could talk to her. That's when Feldman hung up the phone, saying he was needed in makeup, and then on air at CBS. He promised to call back but never did, nor did he respond to a text message late in the evening.

• Whether or not it was a formal "suspension," Feldman said that Chad Millman, editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine, never really let him come back to work, preventing him from attending the SEC's media days, enforcing a "do not book" status and insisting on unreasonable editing policies.

Millman told us the same thing on Thursday that he said back in July. He said Feldman was very concerned about showing up at the Southeastern Conference media event and having other reporters focus on him.

"I remember he and I having a conversation that he didn't want to be the eye of the storm and he didn't want to be the story," Millman said. "He was scheduled to go to (SEC) media days and I said, 'It's up to you, but you'll get asked about it.' "

He said they brainstormed alternative events in other conferences where there would be fewer journalists likely to turn the questioning on Feldman. He ultimately did a video segment for ESPN.com from the Pac-12 media day.

"That is not true, the SEC is a big deal to me," Feldman said in response Thursday night. "That is complete B.S. I said to him that the least of my concerns coming out of this is press coverage."

On the "do not book" policy, Millman said talent bookers were constantly asking if they could use Feldman on the air and he told them all yes. On Aug. 8, Feldman appeared on an ESPNU show.

Millman said he did request to see Feldman's Insider column before it was published, and that was a change from their earlier arrangement.

"I wanted to make sure there wasn't a blow up, and be aware of ties to Mike Leach and other coaches, that worked with Leach," he said.

Feldman insisted this was unreasonable because it's not the treatment other Insider writers receive. We think extra editing is always a good thing.

Our initial analysis in this dispute faulted ESPN for allowing Feldman to sign a book deal that had him authoring an autobiography for one of the more controversial figures in college football.

While we originally laid the blame on ESPN, we also suggested that Feldman shared a smaller portion of responsibility for the situation because he failed to seek clarity. Feldman told us and others that he repeatedly sought clarity.

The longest conversation we had with Feldman was Monday afternoon, before he announced his departure to CBS. He called to ask about our sourcing and the editing process. We listened to him for approximately 35 minutes, asking for details and evidence to clarify his assertion that he had repeatedly asked his bosses at ESPN for guidance and that Skipper told him not to talk to us in July.

He described one series of conversations in the Spring of 2010 with editors, which we wrote about in July. And he described conversations with ESPN's lawyers six months before his book was released, but said he did not know if his editors knew he was talking to the lawyers. He didn't provide any details about his conversations with Skipper.

He suggested that his conflicts, created by writing the book, are tiny compared to those of Craig James, the ESPN announcer named in Leach's lawsuit. If the allegations in the lawsuit are accurate -- that James hired a PR firm to smear Leach -- then ESPN has an even bigger problem that we'll certainly be writing about.

But that ethical problem that doesn't overshadow or eliminate ESPN's responsibility when facing other ethical issues. The network should have never let Feldman do the book, because it devalued one their best NCAA football insiders.

The primary ethical failure still rests on ESPN's shoulders. It grows out of a bad policy that allows "as told to" books and a failure of leadership to step in and prevent Feldman from going forward with the book when it became clear that the publication would create an impossible tension.

But if your boss won't protect your credibility, you have to do it yourself. Feldman should have recognized that in writing Leach's book, he was becoming too much of an insider on that topic, walling himself off from too many important stories.

Now his conflicts are CBS Sports' problems. And ESPN, and the Poynter Review Project, are left to address the James issue.

Big audience numbers are expected for the ABC/ESPN broadcasts of this weekend’s Little League World Series games in Williamsport, Pa. That is likely to mean big criticism as well.

ESPN has already attracted its share of disapproving columnists and critics, who argue that a children’s event (these players are all between the ages of 11-13) should not be on national TV. Most of the critics question why we need to see the boys cry.

We say why not? What’s so shameful about little boys crying?

This year, in addition to airing all 32 tournament games, ESPN also broadcast several regional qualifiers.

If you haven’t watched any of the coverage, the games are intense. The draw is obvious. This sporting event is all about the boys, from those who have yet to shed their baby fat to those with a shadow of a teen ‘stache on their upper lip. Metal braces poke out from between their lips. Their ears stick out from under their caps. It's fun to watch boys who are glorious in their boyhood, and happen to be amazing athletes.

The games are remarkably similar. After the boys boogie with Dugout, (we think he’s a bear), the official mascot, they retreat to a coach’s huddle, then retake the field with stoic game faces. That doesn’t last long. By the fourth inning, they look like the boys they are, which is to say intensely competitive and with their emotions as outerwear. They grimace with anxiety, sigh heavily to calm shaky nerves, drop their heads or smack their gloves in frustration when they make mistakes. They hang on the fence in the dugout, begging for a hit. When they lose, sometimes they cry.

The also crack open great big grins when they get on base or make big plays. Because they are so fresh and genuine, their smiles are as endearing as their tears are gut-wrenching.

It’s those faces that make such compelling TV. It’s those same faces that make the critics lash out.

Turning a bright spotlight on children, detractors argue, is over the top.

“They're kids, the kind who still have favorite foods and take cartoon-shaped chewable vitamins.” wrote Jelisa Castrodale of NBC Sports. “I’m not sure they need to choke down two weeks’ worth of nationally televised scrutiny on top of it.”

Others go further, accusing ESPN of exploiting children.

“Allowing the public viewing of pubescent angst under the guise of a baseball game is opportunistic, offensive and just plain wrong,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke.

Here’s the thing: Kids cry when they lose a big game. We shouldn’t turn away from that. It’s not at all shameful for a 12-year-old boy to cry in the face of disappointment. Instead, we should articulate what aspect of those tears is a part of a healthy, normal response -- and what is unhealthy. Our hunch is that folks who accept the grief that comes with losing are comfortable with emotional expression. Those who recoil have their own issues.

Most of the boys cry for the right reason: because they’re sad. It is a singular moment of great sorrow. They had something within their grasp and it slipped away. If 12-year-olds don’t cry a little at moments like that, we as a society should be concerned. Some of the boys crumble for the wrong reasons, because they feel they’ve let down their parents or their coach or some other adult in their life. Or even worse, they equate their failure on the field with failure as a human being.

Such is the consequence of out-of-control, elite-level youth sports, said John Tauer, a psychology professor and head men’s basketball coach at the University of St. Thomas, a Division III university in St. Paul, Minn.

But that’s no reason for ESPN to shy away from airing the Little League World Series, he says.

“I don’t know of any study that has looked at the long-term effects of playing sports on national TV at age 12,” he said. “My hunch is that most of the kids who play in the Little League World Series don’t suffer any adverse effects.”

And for the few who really do emotionally collapse, it’s not because TV cameras are there to witness their failure, he said. It’s because of the toxic environment that surrounds youth sports.

So look at the boys who cry. But you'd better watch close. In response to the intense criticism, ESPN producers work hard to cut away from sobbing boys, said Bill Graff, senior coordinating producer. A camera shot might catch a few tears, but it won’t linger.

“I will tell you that we are very sensitive to kids that get overly emotional,” he said. “We don’t stay on it very long. We won’t stay on a shot of a kid crying. People see that and they say, ‘How in the world can (ESPN) make money showing that kid crying?’ But there may be three instances of that in a whole weekend.”

That’s a noble approach, if maybe a bit misguided. By turning away from the tears, ESPN misses an opportunity to take its coverage of the Little League World Series to the next level. The television audience for LLWS, which at times this week beat out the audience for MLB games aired at the same time, is filled with kids, parents and coaches who would eagerly lap up good information.

Instead of minimizing the intense emotions, we suggest having the resources on hand to explore these difficult moments.

• Bring in an expert to analyze the coach’s interaction with his players. Sure, the coaches are highly guarded when a microphone is clipped to their collars. Even so, much of what they tell their young players is confusing or paralyzing to the players, Tauer said. But occasionally a coach is brilliant. Let the audience in on what works and what's counterproductive.
• Produce segments on how parents should responsibly manage young athletic talent.
• Track down players from a decade or two ago who did not go on to professional sports careers. Then talk to mental health experts about how grown adults put early success into proper perspective.

ESPN takes the middle road with the Little League World Series, for admirable reasons. We say go further. Look the critics and the crying boys in the eyes and ask why. (OK, not literally. But don’t turn away.) Help us all understand what’s healthy and what’s not healthy about intense pressure on young children. Bring more context to this compelling story, not less. It would capitalize on already good TV.

When the NFL lockout ended and the wild week of free agency began, ESPN hit its stride. Before that, the network bumped its way into stories and stumbled and fumbled trying to connect a disinterested audience with a complicated story.

This is how it goes in 24-hour television. This is how it goes in an era of social media and digital delivery. This is how it goes when journalists from one specialty move outside their comfort zone.

It’s not that ESPN did a worse job than other newsrooms covering the NFL labor dispute. To be fair, many newspapers and magazines floundered as well. It’s more that the story was a bad TV story, an awkward fit for ESPN’s talents and a difficult narrative to consume.

Covering a labor dispute is like covering a divorce. And if you’ve ever gone through a divorce or watched one close up, you know that each step is tedious and excruciating. While it’s compelling to the people directly involved in the dispute, the only question anyone else really cares about -- even those who love the two parties in conflict – is, when will this be over so everyone can get on with life?

ESPN knew this from the get-go. At ESPN.com, lockout stories got underwhelming numbers of clicks. TV ratings during the dispute were “soft” as well.

“Our viewers didn’t want to get overloaded with the details of the negotiations. No minutiae. They just wanted to know when it was going to end,” said Seth Markman, ESPN’s senior coordinating producer in charge of NFL, during a phone interview this week.

Even diehard fans struggled to pay attention. We have a couple dozen sports journalism insiders we turn to for advice. To a person, when we asked them their views on lockout coverage, they told us the story itself was so boring, they hardly paid attention.

But ESPN has a lot of resources dedicated to the NFL. And they were producing a lot of information. In addition to the broadcast team of NFL analysts Chris Mortensen, Adam Schefter, Sal Paolantonio and John Clayton, the network hired Andrew Brandt, a former NFL team executive, to augment ESPN’s business knowledge. On top of that, ESPN.com has another dozen bloggers and columnists dedicated to the NFL.

Then there’s the hole: 24 hours of airtime on the main channel and an endless amount of space on the Web. What was the reporting strategy?

“We flood the zone with just about everything. When you have as many reporters and 24/7 outlets as we have, right or wrong, fair or foul, that’s the nature of what we do,” said Patrick Stiegman, vice president and editor-in-chief of ESPN.com. “Clearly, this was a different story to attack. It was esoteric and slow-moving. But that’s the lifeblood of what we do.”

On top of that, sports reporters and analysts are often out of their comfort zone in labor negotiations. That means it was a struggle to know what was news, and what wasn’t. We heard that from sports reporters everywhere, not just those at ESPN. Factor in the social media maelstrom of athletes tweeting their thoughts, and you get a formula for confusion.

The uncertainty was painfully apparent as the owners agreed internally on a settlement and sent a proposal to the players, who decided to ask for more information rather than vote immediately. Journalists everywhere, not just at ESPN, flailed as they tried to describe what was happening.

“We were getting sources saying the players just have to vote,” Markman said. “These were good sources, good reporters.”

As a result, predictions were made -- “soon” “almost over” “24 hours” -- that came and went. Precise language was elusive as well. For example, many reporters insisted on calling the settlement a CBA -- collective bargaining agreement -- when in fact that term only applies to a union negotiation. The players decertified their union and wouldn’t have a CBA until recertification.

If he could do it over, Markman said he would be more cautious about putting a timeline on anything. It’s not just that the sources were wrong; some information, such as when the players would vote, was simply unknowable.

What could ESPN do better, especially as it covers the current NBA labor dispute, which makes the NFL conflict look simple?

Resist the urge to report minute-by-minute, or even the hour-by-hour updates. Minimize live banter in favor of a prepared package that gives an overview of the issue and a roundup of latest developments. Spend those vast resources on context. New information often seems important, simply because it is new. But that same nugget, viewed over time, is often meaningless. Giving the audience an authoritative report once a day may be a better way to serve fans.

Once the lockout ended, ESPN picked up with what the network does well -- covering football. So far, that has meant wall-to-wall reports on which free agents were going where, and which players were being traded. Schefter in particular has broken several big post-lockout stories.

“I’d so much rather be doing this,” Markman said of the transaction frenzy.

“This” is covering football, and issues that affect the way the game is played, as opposed to labor negotiations.

Now that NFL fans are getting what they want -- a football season -- it’s likely that most of the confusion over the lockout coverage will fade. Players will play, fans will watch, and ESPN will tell a more compelling football story.

ESPN couldn’t have scripted a more dramatic soccer story than the U.S. women's national team's quest for a World Cup title. The team's latest match against Brazil generated a lot of buzz -- with questionable calls, a red card, 30 minutes of extra time, and a goal at the last possible minute to force a penalty kick shootout -- that paid off for the network and should carry over to Wednesday's semifinals.

ESPN was in place to capitalize on the thrilling match, thanks to heavy lifting done weeks, months and even years before this week’s final games.

ESPN is betting big on soccer, securing the rights to four rotating summer championships -- the men’s World Cup, the women’s World Cup, the European Championships, and the Confederations Cup. It’s part of a larger strategy to build a U.S. audience for the sport and chip into the world market.

ESPN has a team of 200 people in Germany for the three-week tournament -- that's two-thirds the size of the staff that went to South Africa last year for the men’s World Cup. But it’s comparable, since the women’s tournament has only half the participating teams and fewer locations. And it’s much more ambitious than 2007, when announcers called all the games from a studio in Bristol.

This time around, a giant mobile studio rolls from site to site. Announcers call all the games on location (except for overlapping games, early in the tournament.) And the ESPN production crews help other organizations get interviews and clips, hoping to build demand for the game coverage.

The ratings are skyrocketing, compared to the women’s World Cup four years ago. Sunday afternoon, for example, 3.89 million viewers watched the U.S.-Brazil match. It was the largest American sporting audience all weekend, beating out ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" by a full rating point. The average game in the women's Cup gets 804,000 viewers, so far.

The women's World Cup home page on ESPN.com has generated nearly 1.5 million views, and espnW set a record for traffic Monday, following the U.S. women's victory over Brazil. That same match is also setting records for replays on ESPN3.com.

ESPN executives hope for a similar audience in Wednesday's semifinal match between the U.S. and France, a game competing against mid-week work schedules.

Yet, the numbers are predictably much smaller than last year’s men’s event, when an average of 6.6 million people watched the U.S. group-stage games. But ESPN folks point out that comparing a men’s event to a women’s event is unfair.

So why invest the resources for a smaller audience? It’s got nothing to do with equality, according to Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president of studio and event production. It’s about potential new markets.

"I don’t make decisions to put things on the air for our health," he said. "I’m here to drive ratings and monetize and improve the brand."

The level of athleticism and competition in women’s soccer has improved enough recent years to merit ESPN’s full attention.

"Go back and look at a women’s World Cup of 1999," Williamson said. "Outside of the final (in which Brandi Chastain famously clinched the win with a penalty kick), the overall level of play today is much stronger."

Jed Drake, senior vice president and executive producer of World Cup coverage, is the man in charge of bringing specific shape to the event on ESPN. He did the same at last year’s men’s tournament in South Africa.

"We make sure we develop all the stories we can and we make the stories compelling," he said. "Ultimately this is a sporting event and viewers are left to decide. It’s important to recognize the distinction being producers rather than being advocates."

ESPN brought British commentator Ian Darke back after a successful run at the men’s World Cup. By now, you’ve heard him react dozens of times to Abby Wambach's game-tying goal in the 122nd minute against Brazil Sunday: "Can you believe this? Abby Wambach has just saved USA’s life in this World Cup.” Darke and analyst Julie Foudy make a good team.

Along the way, there have been a few bumps. Fans complain in the Poynter Review mailbag about Chastain, now an analyst for ESPN, habitually using the words "we" and "us" when describing the U.S. team. She should break that habit. Others complained the ESPN.com headline "Drama Queens" was sexist. We get that the headline writer was trying to turn the phrase on its head, as in "The U.S. women were the queens of a dramatic event."

The biggest gaffe may have been inserting the U.S.-Brazil game into a Top 10 Most Dramatic Sports Finishes highlight list on "SportsCenter." It’s a premature assertion to make without a little passage of time to offer perspective. And the fans took exception to it, pointing out dozens of other dramatic endings that were left off the list (such as Kerri Strug’s one-footed vault landing to secure a team gold in the 1996 Olympics.) All minor stuff.

By covering the women’s World Cup, ESPN is documenting a riveting international competition featuring the best players and best national teams the world has to offer. It’s great to see women getting the same level of coverage as men. Sure, there’s a long way to go before women athletes have the same opportunities. But getting the same coverage for the same reason -- because there’s money to be made -- is true progress.

A year ago today, ESPN aired "The Decision."

It was the first chapter of a story about hubris that unfolded throughout the entire NBA season, ending a year later with LeBron James still lacking a championship ring and ESPN’s name and reputation forever linked to the debacle.

Since then, the most famous quote from that night, “I'm going to take my talents to South Beach,” has become an oft-spoofed meme on YouTube, a common punchline for late night comedians and even, umm, another euphemism for a favorite pastime of teenage boys.

It was one of the most viewed, and one of the most hated, moments of ESPN television. For ESPN critics, “The Decision” is now shorthand for the network’s arrogance. It doesn’t matter what disgruntled viewers are objecting to -- golf, tennis or baseball -- when they voice their complaint in the Poynter Review Project mailbag, they routinely reference "The Decision" as evidence that ESPN just doesn’t get it.

So a year later, what has the network learned?

No one we spoke with at ESPN suggests that if they had a do-over, they would reject "The Decision" outright. Instead they talk about doing it better.

“I don’t have any regrets,” said Norby Williamson, executive vice president of studio and event production at ESPN, and one of the architects of "The Decision." “It was a huge news event. We were committed to covering it. We would go after it with the same energy and passion.”

Williamson acknowledged in a phone interview that he would execute the broadcast differently today. But he didn’t want to go into detail.

“We still disagree here over how we should have handled it,” said Vince Doria, ESPN's senior vice president and director of news. “If our goal was to get people to watch television, we succeeded."

Doria told us ESPN’s biggest mistake was to try to make "The Decision" look like one seamless show. Viewers couldn’t tell the difference between the part that LeBron and crew controlled and the part that ESPN controlled.

“We should have done it as a press conference, then transitioned into our own show,” Doria said.

"The Decision" and the criticism that followed shined a light on the dual -- some would say schizophrenic -- nature of ESPN. On the one hand it is a journalism organization, specializing in sports news. On the other, it is a production company, covering, and at times staging, big events. Our predecessor, then-ESPN ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer, did an excellent job detailing the dueling loyalties that collided in "The Decision."

Other ironies sprouted from the production. James’ notoriety spiked and stayed high. The crowd loves to hate him. And ESPN benefits from his status as a villain. For example, four of the five most-viewed stories on ESPN.com in the last year related to James. ESPN launched the Heat Index to great success, partially because Miami is now the NBA team everyone loves to hate.

Describing how he would change things if he had a mulligan, Doria added, “We probably wouldn’t pay him either.” Sure, James donated the profits to the Boys and Girls Club.

But his team got to sell the ads and then decide what to do with the money. ESPN policy forbids payment to sources in exchange for news. That was the policy a year ago as well. Yet that’s exactly what happened here, as Ohlmeyer pointed out.

ESPN isn’t above marking the first anniversary of that notorious hour of television without a hint of irony. “Taking my talents” was the refrain in a "SportsNation" Autotune mash up Wednesday afternoon. "SportsCenter" aired its own montage on Thursday. ESPN.com revisited the spectacle as well.

Both Doria and Williamson look back on "The Decision" as a unique beast without a lot of bearing on the day-to-day choices at the network.

“We could have done everything right and people would still be angry about LeBron,” Doria said.

Sure, but fans wouldn’t conflate their anger toward LeBron with their anger toward ESPN. No matter how normal ESPN tries to make "The Decision" appear, it will forever remain in the minds of fans a target of deserving scorn.

At 8:13 a.m. on May 12, incoming Alabama football player Aaron Douglas was found dead on the balcony of a home in Fernandina Beach, Florida, after an evening of partying with friends. The cause of death has not yet been released.

Just after 11 a.m. that same morning, ESPN Insider’s Rumor Central published a short item titled "Shocker at LT" with news of the death, and speculation on the implications for the Crimson Tide’s lineup.

By its nature, a rumor column needs to be fast and attention-getting. This was both, and neither in a good way.

Many in the social space commented on the Rumor Central post. One of the earliest tweets, from @FO_College, summed up much of the reaction that followed:

"Possible starter found dead in Jacksonville, opening door for five-star signee Cyrus Kouandjio." Are you serious, @CFBRumorCentral????

Within 30 minutes, ESPN Insider editors reviewed and removed the post.

There’s no point debating whether ESPN should be speculating on who will benefit from a man’s death, especially within hours of the discovery of his body. It should not. The more important question is: How does something like this make it on the Insider site?

First, some background on Rumor Central. It’s a paid service, part of the ESPN Insider package. The role of RC is to take rumors swirling around various sports, especially those reported by ESPN and other media outlets, and either move them forward or debunk them. Quickly. For an in-depth look at how Rumor Central works, read past ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer’s column on the topic.

Insider writers, mostly freelancers, craft the RC items and post them directly to the site. The posted item is then sent to other Insider editors, who review the items and make any requisite changes, “usually within 5 minutes,” according to Chris Sprow, general editor for ESPN The Magazine & ESPN Insider, who is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of Rumor Central.

In the case of the Douglas post, the copy editor who read it Thursday morning was uncomfortable with the tone and brought it to the attention of Sprow, who then quickly pulled it off the site. The post was "live" for roughly 20 minutes.

As it became clear that the story was spreading via social media, people at ESPN discussed a response.

Later in the afternoon, an apology appeared on the site:

"We apologize to everyone, especially the family, friends, teammates and fans of Aaron Douglas, for the tone of a post that appeared on Rumor Central today related to Aaron's tragic death. For a brief moment, we lost our sense of what matters most, and recognized and addressed our insensitivity within 20 minutes."

Around that same time, two apologies were sent via Twitter. Rob King (@rfking), vice president of editorial for ESPN Digital & Print Media, tweeted:

Apologies for the Rumor Central post related to Aaron Douglas' tragic death. It did not meet ESPN editorial standards and was removed asap.

Sprow (@Sprow_ESPN) also posted the following:

One of my roles at ESPN is to oversee Rumor Central. My deepest apologies for an earlier post I considered insensitive. It was regrettable.

Despite the fact that posts go live before they’ve been edited, "you can count on one hand the problems that we’ve had," Robbyn Footlick, executive editor and executive producer for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN Insider, said during a phone interview.

This one, she argued, was the equivalent of accidentally swearing on air.

"The good news is that what we can do, and what we do do, is apologize for it and move on," she said.

We disagree. Apologizing and moving on isn’t enough. Fans who wrote into the mailbag were outraged.

David Cox, of Murphysboro, Ill., wrote, "I was absolutely sickened. To conclude that the most important thing about this death opens up a roster spot is completely unthinkable to me."

Tyler Williams, of Emporia, Kan., echoed Cox’s emotion: "While I understand that Douglas' reported death will have an impact on the 2011 Crimson Tide, it seems incredibly callous to just dismiss his death this easily."

Albert Lin, a freelance writer who posted the item, did what Rumor Central is charged with doing: spin breaking news of the day forward, using knowledgeable sources and observers to speculate on possible player implications. There’s nothing wrong with that, in general. But breezing past a young man’s death to discuss its roster implications suggests that a sense of perspective got lost in a rush to publish.

"In the end," Gary Belsky, editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine, said, "someone made a mistake in judgment reflecting the company's incredibly earnest desire to please fans, in this case Insiders, who subscribe to a product whose staffers are trained to an almost Pavlovian level to take every bit of sports-related news that happens and spin it forward, as quickly as possible, with angles meant to satisfy an A-list fan's interests and passions."

The next day, Sprow followed up with an email to the RC team:

"You guys are consistently ahead of the news cycle on ideas, logical speculation and where things may lead on the field. But this is basic: every one of you has reporting experience, and you’ve all been in this long enough to know that while personnel issues are why people read, speculating on them in the case of a tragedy will only draw scorn. Let the hurricane pass before you consider the real estate opportunities."

Why put the responsibility for this on Lin? With Rumor Central, ESPN has created a product meant to push boundaries. The writers are paid to be fast, focused and prolific. But if it takes five to 10 minutes for an editor to read a post that has been published, why not do that before it goes live? If an editor had reviewed Lin’s entry first, it may never have seen the light of day.

"Our focus coming out of this mistake is the same as it would be for any organization operating at Internet speed," Belsky said. "We want to learn the right lessons. From senior management down we’re reviewing our posting and editing processes to build in the smartest safeguards, ones that will retain our ultra-responsive spirit while ensuring the level of excellence in curation and judgment that we strive for every day."

That's good news. Perhaps Rumor Central should consider a two-tiered system, where most items go live without editing, but sensitive posts receive extra attention before they hit the site.

Apologies only go so far. Revising the system that allowed the mistake to happen would reassure fans that ESPN values both speed and sensitivity.

ESPN got beat on its own in-house story this week when a Detroit television station broke the news that basketball analyst Jalen Rose was recently cited for DUI.

Rose, already in the spotlight for controversial comments on his Fab Five documentary, apparently didn’t tell anyone at the network about his run-in with the police for almost three weeks.

ESPN encourages its "talent" -- those employees and contractors who are paid to appear on the air or write for the Web or magazine -- to tell their bosses about potentially embarrassing personal issues that might become public. But no written policy explicitly requires them to come forward.

ESPN officials say they learned about Rose’s arrest when his agent called Laurie Orlando, senior vice president for talent development, Tuesday afternoon, as WDIV in Detroit was preparing to air the story and publish it on its site, ClickonDetroit.

"We’ve been pretty clear since last year when we had a pretty long meeting with all the talent," Orlando said in a phone conversation. "We said to them we need you to disclose your situations. I know Jalen was here in house for those conversations."

Orlando, whose team negotiates the contracts for ESPN’s talent, says she is thinking about protecting the company’s reputation when she urges folks to step up with any dirty laundry. After all, it would look bad for ESPN if Rose was on the air while a competitor broke news that he was facing criminal charges.

It looks even worse on the journalism front, with the perception that ESPN is willing to report on the failings of current athletes but sweeps the failings of its own staff under the rug. In fact, a number of fans have already questioned ESPN’s loyalties on this issue in letters to the Poynter Project mailbag.

"If ESPN did cover this up, heads need to roll and people need to be fired," wrote David Miller of Warner Robbins, Ga. "That's not journalism, that’s favoritism."

Jay Vivian of Kansas City wrote, "There is a perception that ESPN hypes its interests over real reporting. The hyping of ESPN-produced items such as the LeBron James announcement and the (admittedly very interesting) documentary about the Fab Five seem to conflict with 'real' reporting. It breeds a little cynicism to the average sports fan."

ESPN apparently didn’t cover up Rose’s DUI, but critics arrive at their own conclusions. When it comes to criminal charges -- part of the public record -- it’s only a matter of time before the story gets out.

In fact, it’s surprising it took this long for another news organization to stumble over Rose’s citation. A tipster alerted a reporter at WDIV television in Detroit on Tuesday that West Bloomfield Township Police had cited Rose after an accident in the early morning of March 11. WDIV pulled the documents, aired the story on its 6 p.m. evening news Tuesday, and simultaneously posted it to its Web site. TMZ picked up the story an hour later.

Meanwhile, ESPN was trying to confirm the story through Rose’s agent and its own reporting.

"Some of the story the agent was telling us was inconsistent with our reporting," said Vince Doria, ESPN's senior vice president and director of news.

Once that was sorted out, ESPN.com posted the news of Rose’s DUI around 8:45 p.m., using a combination of its own reporting and information from the Associated Press. In that same hour, the story hit the ESPN News network. It was on the 11:30 p.m. broadcast of "SportsCenter."

This was obviously a story ESPN should have reported first. The network pays analysts such as Rose to offer insight regarding athletes -- including those involved in off-the-field incidents -- which raises the question: Why didn’t Rose tell anyone at ESPN immediately after the accident? Through his agent, Rose declined comment. Orlando said she asked the same question of Rose’s agent, but didn’t get a satisfying answer.

However, there’s nothing in the contracts for Rose or anyone else on air at ESPN explicitly requiring them to notify management when their personal life is likely to become a news story. And although ESPN’s written policies address when the criminal activity of those they cover becomes a story, there’s nothing to suggest how and when the network will cover similar issues for its own.

Until there’s clarity in contracts and policies, this likely will happen again, given the number of on-air and online talent that ESPN employs.

Rose has admitted his blood alcohol content tested over the legal limit and apologized, explaining that he did not recognize that he was legally impaired. Orlando said she wasn’t sure how management was going to discipline Rose. He’s off the air for now, while the network awaits the outcome of his April 20 court appearance.

In addition to creating policy, ESPN’s response to Rose’s concealment of the DUI citation will go a long way in communicating to other ESPN personalities what the network’s expectations really are.