Got tipped off to this by our friends at USAToday’s SportsScope blog:

“Brendan O’Reilly is the sports director at WBNG-TV (Johnson City, N.Y.). His station covers Cornell, which just won the Ivy League men’s basketball title, earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

ESPN wanted video of Cornell’s big win. They wanted it badly. And they went to O’Reilly.”

Appparently, O’Reilly was none too pleased about the way The Worldwide Leader handled themselves when trying to get the footage and wrote a letter to the network on this blog.

Some of the highlights included:

“Thanks so much for calling my cellphone repeatedly on Saturday.
Not sure how you got that number, but it sure was super to chat. Say hi to Neil Everett for me. He’s awesome.”

“Yes, we are happy to share the video from Cornell clinching their Ivy League title. Hope you don’t mind if we go ahead and worry about our show first though. I know everyone loves the Sportscenter, with the zany commercials and all, but we’re going to go ahead and edit our stuff first.
We’re selfish that way.”

“Second, after I send you the video roughly 15 minutes after we get the tape back from Ithaca, feel free to call again and ask me to resend it because “the video quality isn’t the best.” No sweat. It’s not like I mentioned we’re a staff of 2 putting together a 30 minute show.”

“I’ll keep your number for when I want a different angle on all the stuff you send to WBNG.”

“Third, when you run our video on all your shows, please find a font size roughly one pixel in height to show that it was shot by WBNG. We want people that have 60 inch monitors to have to squint to read it. That’s the goal.”

First of all, let me compliment O’Reilly on how epic0 it was for him to call The Worldwide Leader out like this. I think ESPN is of the opinion that everyone who works in sports, indirectly works for them, you know the whole Worldwide Leader thing.

I have an idea for ESPN. Instead of badgering someone that works for a station that isn’t even an ABC affiliate, the Worldwide Leader should work on upping their journalistic integrity.  Too many times, their reporters have taken credit for the work done by print journalists or other news media outlets. In our business taking credit for something someone else has done is called plagiarism and it’s a career-ender.

Reputable news sources issue corrections, retractions or clarifications. ESPN does not. When their talking heads posed as journalists go on the air and report incorrect information, their audience is never apologized to for receiving bad information. Instead, the Worldwide Leader and its catchphrase-slinging talking heads act as if Kirk Herbstreit never reported that Les Miles was taking the job at Michigan or that Andy Katz never reported that Kelvin Sampson would likely be suspended by Indiana. For the record, Miles called a press conference to officially — and firmly — deny Herbstreit’s report and hours after Katz’s stellar reporting and fact-checking work, Sampson took a buyout and resigned as Indiana head basketball coach.

Well done, guys. That Peabody’s on the way.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.