ESPN

Lance Briggs Issues Statement Regarding NFL’s Decision on 9/11 Commemorative Gear
By Rusty Weiss | September 10, 2011 | 9:56 AM EDT

The National Football League avoided a potential public relations nightmare, and more importantly, did what was widely considered to be the right thing, announcing Friday that players may wear special shoes and gloves that differ from official NFL equipment for Week 1 games.  The move came a day after Lance Briggs, six-time Pro Bowl linebacker for the Chicago Bears, sent out a picture of shoes and gloves provided by Reebok to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of 9/11.  He then tweeted:

“Reebok great job on these gloves and shoes… looks like I'm getting fined this week.  Lol!”

But the league, which normally enforces a very rigid uniform policy, said they do not “anticipate any issues”.  The AP reported that Greg Aiello, spokesman for the NFL, sent an e-mail stating that, “We have extensive plans for Sunday to respectfully recognize the significance of the day.”

He added that, “Lance Briggs and all players will participate.”

After finishing up practice on Friday, Briggs declined to comment.  He did issue a statement to me later in the evening which read:

ESPN Comes Down on Golf Analyst for Criticizing Obama
By Noel Sheppard | August 27, 2011 | 12:56 PM EDT

ESPN has come down on one of its golf analysts for publicly criticizing President Obama.

It all began Thursday when former golf great Paul Azinger tweeted the following:

Surprise: Comcast Employees Are Obama's Biggest Donors
By Noel Sheppard | August 27, 2011 | 8:00 AM EDT

The employees of the company that is a part-owner of NBC and MSNBC are the biggest donors to President Obama's reelection campaign.

Chris Moody of Yahoo News reported Friday:

CNN's Kyra Phillips Alludes to Bachmann As 'Crazy'
By Matt Hadro | August 15, 2011 | 5:31 PM EDT

ESPN's LZ Granderson labeled Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as "crazy" Monday, and CNN anchor Kyra Phillips seemed to credit his judgment.

Granderson, a CNN contributor, said of a Bachmann candidacy that "the people aren't going to vote for crazy. And she [Bachmann] still registers as crazy with a lot of independents." Phillips immediately responded that "If you could go back decades, there's a lot of people who vote for crazy, guys."

ESPN Turns from Sports to Gay Marriage
By Catherine Maggio | July 18, 2011 | 10:11 AM EDT

Gay “rights” and same-sex marriage have been all over the news lately. Sick of the issue? Why not tune to ESPN for the baseball scores and an update on the football lockout? But there, instead of “Web Gems” is … gay marriage.

ESPN is supposed to be in the business of sports, but lately the network has allowed social advocacy to creep into its programming, and the Disney-owned sports network’s take turns out to be identical to the pro-gay mainstream media.

CBS 'Early Show' Calls on Obama to Make Tough Decisions...On His NCAA Picks
By Kyle Drennen | March 17, 2011 | 12:16 PM EDT

On Thursday's CBS Early Show, news reader Jeff Glor declared: "President Obama is ready for March Madness, it appears. He broke out the brackets at the White House yesterday and made his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament." However, he lamented how the commander in chief "Didn't exactly go out on a limb....For his Final Four he chose all number one seeds."

Only moments earlier, Glor received a report from correspondent Mark Phillips in Libya, who described the losing battle rebels were fighting against dictator Moammar Qadhafi. While Glor noted the United Nations was still debating the creation of a no-fly zone to aid the democratic forces, he said nothing of President Obama's unwillingness to "go out on a limb" and lead on the crisis.

Daily Caller Gets KeithOlbermann.com, But Will Olbermann Sue?
By Matt Robare | July 15, 2010 | 11:56 AM EDT
Daily Caller A1 7/14/10Tucker Carlson is now the proud owner of a slightly used Keith Olbermann.

With a large-print headline announcing "We own you" and a picture of ol' Keith looking bemused whilst he adjusts he glasses, The Daily Caller promoted their newest acquisition: http://keitholbermann.com/.

It's just the latest shot across the bow in the escalating feud between Olbermann and Carlson, which will one day be featured on a Cracked.com list of the top eight inconsequential personal feuds the media chose to cover instead of events that were actually newsworthy.

ESPN's Weissman: Despite Exoneration 'The Questions Remain' About Duke Lacrosse Players
By Mark Finkelstein | May 30, 2010 | 1:33 PM EDT
What will it take for the MSM to stop smearing the falsely-accused Duke lacrosse players?  Judging by the performance of ESPN's Steve Weissman this morning, legal exoneration is not enough.

Introducing an ESPNNEWS item on a lacrosse game between Duke and the University of Virginia, Weissman claimed that three years ago, the Duke team had been involved in "a devastating scandal," and that while the accused players had been exonerated, "the questions remain."

Weissman, looking for a hook to intro the story, went for the cheap moral equivalence between the false charges leveled against the Duke players, and the murder charge against a UVA player in the death of a women's lacrosse player.

Rush 'Divisive', Snoop Dogg OK for ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown
By Noel Sheppard | October 30, 2009 | 12:18 AM EDT

While NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was calling conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh too "divisive" to own a professional football team, rapper Snoop Dogg was appearing in television ads for ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown."

I guess Goodell and other higher-ups within the league weren't concerned with having a man possessing multiple felony charges against him including murder do commercials for the highly-watched Sunday pre-game show on the nation's leading sports cable network.

Maybe Goodell should have looked at Snoop's rap sheet before he derided Limbaugh right out of an ownership position with the St. Louis Rams (ESPN commercial embedded below the fold along with Wikipedia highlights of the rapper's legal issues, h/t NB reader Shekhar Jain): 

WaPo Columnist Michael Wilbon Reaches New Heights In Cognitive Dissonance
By Mike Sargent | October 16, 2009 | 5:11 PM EDT

Michael Wilbon, a sports writer and columnist for ‘The Washington Post,’ has written a really entertaining column today.Entertaining, in that it’s self-contradictory in the extreme.  This column is the literary equivalent of punching an inflatable Bobo the Clown.  And of course, it has to be about Rush Limbaugh.Wilbon can’t even make it out of the first paragraph without making a contradiction that would confuse Yogi Berra:

ESPN Guest: 'Racist' Rush Would Never Hire Black Coach
By Mark Finkelstein | October 14, 2009 | 9:07 PM EDT

When it comes to slurring Rush Limbaugh in his quest to obtain an interest in the NFL's St. Louis Rams, someone's going to have to work hard to top Adrian Wojnarowski.  The Yahoo Sports reporter today called Rush a "racist" and a "bigot" and implied he would never hire a black coach.

Wojnarowski spouted his slurs on Jim Rome's "Rome Is Burning" show on ESPN this afternoon.

ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI: People do not want a bigot as an owner.  He's a racist. He's a bigot. He's shown it for years. He's made his career off in a large way off marginalizing black culture and African-Americans, and now he wants to buy into an industry where 70% of the players, the talent, the work-force is African-American and make money off of it? He doesn't get to do that.
In response, Rome didn't exactly leap to Rush's defense, but did pose this question.
Pulitzer Winner Likens Rush Limbaugh to Plantation Owner
By Jeff Poor | October 13, 2009 | 5:17 PM EDT

One of the most damaging accusations you can level at opponent is call that individual a racist in one form or another. And that's the tactic MSNBC and others left-wing opponents of Rush Limbaugh are taking to thwart his bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

During a segment on MSNBC on Oct. 13, former Pulitzer Prize winner Karen Hunter appeared to voice her opposition to the Limbaugh's NFL bid. She made one of the most outrageous - likening Limbaugh's ownership of an NFL team to being a plantation owner, a metaphor that invokes the image of antebellum South during the 19th Century, when slavery was rampant.

"I can just see the visions of plantation grandeur dancing in his head as we speak," Hunter said. "Yeah, it doesn't make you a racist to want to own a team. But, it does kind of with all his history question his power position over these players who make millions of dollars and his ability to be able to move them around, deny them contracts and do whatever he wants willy-nilly. It's the ultimate power position to be an owner of an NFL team."