Maintaining Independence while Being Dependent

 Cameron Robertson

cr102019@ohio.edu

Photo via Public Opinion Strategies

The world of Journalism becomes trickier and trickier to navigate with each passing day. Media outlets are becoming dependent on either corporations they are owned by, or the relationships and contracts that they have with others. 

The sports world and its vast array of media coverage is a shining example of this type of struggle and bias. Specific geographic publications, such as the Boston Globe or The Washington Post who can typically be overly critical of their local sports teams, may now feel pressure to do so due to ownership and potential ties to powerful people. But perhaps the most obvious example of this is ESPN, the "worldwide leader in sports."

As shown in the Columbia Journalism Review article, ESPN has a lot of vested interests when it comes to both the National Football League and College Football specifically. In just those two sports, ESPN has a reported $31.3 billion in revenue from simply television contracts. This certainly calls into question how the outlet chooses to cover these sports and more specifically, when it comes to the more unfavorable stories.

This is especially prevalent right now with the current stories coming out of the NFL. Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden recently resigned from his position after a series of racist, sexist, and homophobic emails from his past were exposed in an investigation of the Washington Football Team.

What's important to note here is that this story was not broken by ESPN, who surely had to have had sources within the investigation, but rather in an expose by The New York Times. Also, Gruden happened to be a former employee at ESPN, further placing bias from their perspective on this story.

From my view as a member of the public, this specific instance has really pushed me to see the bias that ESPN does hold. I think that their coverage of the Gruden situation lacked importance, as they only really talked about it for about a day before they moved past it. Especially in a time where our country and the National Football League are pushing for inclusivity and equality, having an important and famous member of the League contradict that movement calls for more coverage than they provided.

This is just one example. As an avid sports fan who religiously watches, reads, and consumes ESPN content, every day I begin to see more and more examples of this bias that isn't just bleeding into the sports journalism world, but the entire journalism world as a whole. 

The objectivity is slowly declining, and that's a problem journalists need to fix before it's too late.