Will Leitch at Deadspin gets kudos from Jane McManus of the Journal News for his coverage of the Harold Reynolds firing:
What used to be there was a clear line between blogs and the established media, but that is changing. The fact that Leitch said “Harold Reynolds” was the No. 1 search Wednesday on technorati.com, a blog emporium, and he was No. 12 yesterday, shows just how often people are turning to nontraditional outlets for news.
“If any other organization did this in sports, ESPN would be demanding to know why,” Leitch said. “If the A’s fired Billy Beane, ESPN would be all over it.”
It’s sad that my best two traffic days ever were yesterday and Wednesday because of the Reynolds story, and all I’m doing is passing on news and my personal feelings about the man. Anyway, here’s a good story about the man, one of many I could tell. It’s not meant to absolve, but to give you a clue as to why I’m shocked.
So… can we find out if ESPN.com traffic has gone down since the Reynolds story broke? I’m sure there are many fans such as myself who NOW realize that there are other credible sources (most notably deadspin and the big lead, etc.) that can offer the information we are craving.
Just curious – anyone know where I can find that out?
I personally am upset with how ESPN has handled this as I know many people are also. I’m just wondering what the suits at the worldwide network are thinking now?
Rigg, in a word, “lawsuit.”
What did ESPN do that makes you question how they handled it? They are not required to provide the public with the reasoning behind their employment decisions. In fact, given the nature of the decision, it was up to only HR to divulge the reasoning (which he did). ESPN just fired someone. That’s all they did. Whether or not he deserved it is unknown to us.
I agree, though, that I find sources like Deadspin, this site, and other blogs to be far more reliable and interesting in terms of information. ESPN was slow to tell us HR got fired, but I wouldn’t know that if no one pointed it out.
If you were fired from your job, would you want your employer telling everyone? Why should HR, famous as he may be, be any different?
Wells,
because HR is in the public eye. I expect him to be on BBTN most nights. When he’s gone, that is news. True, ESPN does not have to go into gory details (which might open them up to a lawsuit), but an immediate “HR is no longer employed by ESPN, we do not discuss personnel matters” would be nice.
Agreed rbj, disclosure is mandatory for a journalistic organization. Clearly ESPN is no longer in that family.
Maybe they were protecting Harold and not putting his personal business out there, because they still like him. Most people fired don’t get a meeting with the head man of the company to reconsider their decision.
They can get sued for telling why Harold was fired, by Harold and the women he allegly harassed.
They probably did not want to stand in the way of him getting another job by saying why he was fired.
That’s what I love about the Internet. We can complain no matter what ESPN does.
If the network released an 87-page affidavit detailing every instance of alleged harassment, we could complain about an invasion of Reynolds’ privacy.
If the network clammed up with a simple announcement, we could complain about our right to know.
And if the network took a middle course by releasing some details but not all, we could complain about both an invasion of privacy and our right to know, on alternate days.
I love the Internet.
All good comments, but back to my original question: does anyone know how I can find out if ESPN.com traffic and ESPN TV ratings (specifically BBTN) have gone down because of all this? I’d just like to know if they have, cause from what I have been reading the last couple days, there are lots of folks who are fed up with ESPN. Granted, they may have done nothing wrong legally, but from the publics perception, I think they mis-handled this whole thing. Makes you wonder if they had anything to do with the whole Floyd Landis scandal, just to send the publics attention somewhere else! (Ha…. that’s obviously just a joke, but I’m just saying…. wouldn’t be a bad idea on their part)