Why Didn't ESPN Air Damaging Syracuse Sex Abuse Tape?

Why didn't ESPN air damaging Syracuse sex abuse tape?

ESPN, the "worldwide leader in sports," had in its possession for almost a decade an audio tape of the wife of the man now at the heart of a growing sex abuse scandal at high-profile Syracuse University and its storied men's basketball program. A newspaper in the area had a copy of the tape for just as long. Neither of them aired or published it, and neither of them reported it to the police. They are news organizations, but do they have the same moral/ethical responsibility to have done more?

Both organizations said they didn't go forward with the story because they could not get corroboration from another abuse victim or witness, though the reporters at the newspaper actually wrote a 140-inch story - which is really long and exhaustive - but could not convince their editors to publish it. Reporters at ESPN have only said that it was a company decision.

There are questions for both, but more so for ESPN, which has the kind of resources available to it most other sports journalism outlets simply don't have. ESPN recently got the voice on the tape confirmed. Why didn't it do that 8 years ago when it first received the tape? Had that been done, that would have constituted a pretty strong second source. Beyond that, ESPN the corporate brand has all sorts of tie ins to major conferences and lucrative TV deals, which has always raised a ton of questions about its objectivity when it comes to tough cases such as these. It was initially criticized for how it handled the Penn State scandal as well before it ramped up coverage. It does not take a large leap of logic to imagine that the decision to not pursue the story further earlier was partially influenced by all of those other potential conflicts-of-interest, even if they ultimately had no influence.

Journalists are charged with asking questions about how other industries handle sensitive information. Sometimes, we must turn the microscope on ourselves.

Both organizations said they didn't go forward with the story because they could not get corroboration from another abuse victim or witness, though the reporters at the newspaper actually wrote a 140-inch story - which is really long and exhaustive - but could not convince their editors to publish it. Reporters at ESPN have only said that it was a company decision.

There are questions for both, but more so for ESPN, which has the kind of resources available to it most other sports journalism outlets simply don't have. ESPN recently got the voice on the tape confirmed. Why didn't it do that 8 years ago when it first received the tape? Had that been done, that would have constituted a pretty strong second source. Beyond that, ESPN the corporate brand has all sorts of tie ins to major conferences and lucrative TV deals, which has always raised a ton of questions about its objectivity when it comes to tough cases such as these. It was initially criticized for how it handled the Penn State scandal as well before it ramped up coverage. It does not take a large leap of logic to imagine that the decision to not pursue the story further earlier was partially influenced by all of those other potential conflicts-of-interest, even if they ultimately had no influence.

Journalists are charged with asking questions about how other industries handle sensitive information. Sometimes, we must turn the microscope on ourselves.