ESPN

A month ago ESPN commissioned a viewer survey by Langer Research Associates, and ESPN Front Row’s Barry Blyn concluded the sky is not falling: Approximately two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents believe ESPN is getting it right in terms of mixing sports news and political issues. Another 10 percent had no opinion … and 8 percent said ESPN does not do enough politics in its programming.

Deadspin, the perpetual cactus in ESPN’s side, had a field day with the sports network’s phony-baloney performance before advertisers in New York this week. Kevin Draper and Laura Wagner pointed out a huge gap between what’s going on at ESPN and the façade its brass displayed to advertisers.

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.

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.​

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…

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 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."

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.”

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…

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…