Because of the sensitive nature of the corrosive news media infrastructure, you may have noticed mainstream outlets regularly publishing "news" based on the accounts of sources who remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of __________.
Journalists can be lazy but nature ain't sensitive. Please help us ridicule anonymous sources for the cop outs they represent.
It was July 2003 when Kobe Bryant was accused of persuading a concierge at hotel outside Vail, Colo., to come to his room. Now it is July 2009 when Ben Roethlisberger is accused of persuading a concierge at Nevada hotel to come to his room.
ESPN was all over the Kobe story, sending reporters and attorneys from Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as the trial unfolded. Maybe Roethlisberger never comes to trial. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to come to trial — although then again, possibly he does. But why the shift in ESPN’s approach?
“Based on the sensitive nature of the story and other factors we mentioned,” ESPN’s Bill Hoffheimer told Pro Football Talk “we initially exercised caution and did not report it.”
That philosophy is admirable, except it runs counter to the very existence of ESPN which, while most of the time doing a fine job, rarely can be described as exercising caution.
