re: #159 ObserverArt

I miss hearing Jemele on ESPN radio. I always like her no BS approach to sports. She offered great takes from the perspective of a woman. And she was unafraid to ask sharp questions to big egos.

ESPN blew it there, but then…ESPN. They have their issues. They got too big for their britches.

ESPN’s problem is that they haven’t be able to decide if they’re going to be a journalistic entity or an entertainment entity. I remember up until the mid-90s, when I was in high school, most of the “sports” that the showed was filler - things like bowling, lumberjack competitions, darts, that sort of thing - between news broadcasts like Sportscenter or analysis shows where they did real analysis. They might have the occasional baseball game or whathaveyou, but mostly they were a source of sports news. Then they started getting into these “partnerships” with various leagues, both pro and collegiate. And the thing about being a “partner” is that you have a fiduciary duty to your partners to not hurt the partnership. So a lot of their news/analysis shows became more opinion/entertainment. But they’d try to straddle the line between journalism and entertainment and it’d almost always blow up in their face.