Did ESPN Really Scoop the Iverson Story?
Media Gossip/Musings December 20th. 2006, 4:57pm
When is a scoop not a scoop? When ESPN claims it as its own.
Tuesday, when Allen Iverson was traded to the Denver Nuggets, ESPN claimed the scoop. Chris Sheridan and Marc Stein shared a byline and surely a high-five in beating the masses on a story of national interest.
Except that the Worldwide Leader didn�t get it first. Late last night, we received an email that cleared everything up:
I’m a big fan of your site. Enjoy it very much. And I feel funny doing this, but I have to protect my paper and myself.
The Philadelphia Inquirer broke the story about [Tuesday�s] trade. I should know, because I wrote it. It was on our site about 10 minutes before ESPN “broke” it.
I don’t expect everyone to read every website every minute of the day, and the Four-Letter is ubiquitous, so people almost always see it first. But in this case, they weren’t first. We were.
I hope you can make the appropriate correction.
Regards,
David Aldridge
[Philadelphia Inquirer]
Surely 80 percent of you could care less about this. (And we sure hope we’re not getting duped like Jim Gray. Boy would that suck.) But as a journalist, there�s nothing more rewarding than breaking a big story, especially one the entire country is chasing. When another entity claims your break as their own, it�s disheartening, to say the least.
Perhaps someone from ESPN will respond to Aldridge�s claim of the scoop.
[Aside: Anyone remember last week�s Matsuzaka-to-the-Red Sox news? Sports Illustrated claimed the scoop in the early afternoon. ESPN refused to concede for hours. Then, in the evening, ESPN finally went with the �breaking news� tags � even though the news was hours old. Here�s what we loved: the next day, ESPN�s front-page story was about Scott Boras and Barry Zito. Boras, the slimy agent, was mentioned first, before Zito! When does that happen? Anyone else think the Worldwide Leader did that as a �favor� in hopes of winning over Boras, so when Zito signs, Mr. Big Shot Boras can slide it to ESPN first? You probably think we�re drunk, but these races are extremely fun to watch.]
Iverson goes to Nuggets for Miller, Smith and picks (Philly.com)
The Iverson Trade: A Roundtable Discussion (NBA Fanhouse. Sorry for the blatant plug here, but a bunch of bloggers got together for a roundtable discussion on the Iverson deal, and it�s fantastic stuff.)
20 Responses to “Did ESPN Really Scoop the Iverson Story?”
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December 20th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Just looked on the Philly Inquirer site, no timestamp on aldridges story but it’s the first one (well i guess the bottom one, which makes it first) on the story. Did the email come from the phillynews.com domain? that would most likely clear it uo
December 20th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
ESPN wishes David Aldridge all the best in his future endeavors…
December 20th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Hmmm….ESPN NOT giving credit to a former employee. Who knew?
December 20th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
ESPN rarely, if ever, scoops anything. Whether it be an Associated press writer or, in the case of the AI trade, David Aldridge, they’re no first. I remember working for a now-defunct sports website working on the Gary Barnett is fired story. I was in constant touch with a dude at the Denver Post who like the website actually gave me the news that Barnett was gone before Barnett’s late-evening press conference, before his own newspaper wrote one word about the firing.
So I did a quick write-up on the imminent firing - got it out first. About 10 minutes later, the Denver Post came out with a quick write-up. Fifteen minutes later, less than a minute before the press conference, ESPN reported that Barnett was gone, claiming in the process that they “broke the story.” Watching this happen on ESPN News, the report neatly word-for-word reread the Denver Post write-up.
People at the Associated Press tell me that they have an “agreement” with the AP where ESPN can basically steal their work, repeat it with either an “ESPN News Services” byline or with of of the ESPN writer’s bylines if that writer includes a “portions of this article are from the Associated Press” caveat.
They’re amazingly heinous.
December 20th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
DA is a great NBA reporter……….way better than “Screamin A. Spliff”
Reputations are built/broken on who reports a big story first and correctly.
December 20th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Yes Phil Mushnick tirades (correctly) about this every six weeks or so–ESPN employs so many writer/info types that is all too easy to attribute a story to them, even when it is quite clear that someone else broke the story. One of the ESPN Radio guys yesterday afternoon even admitted it, saying “we are saying Stein/Sheridan broke the story, but we heard about it in the newsroom about 30 minutes before that from another source…”
They’ll claim breaking a story days after it is known by the free world (and most of North Korea).
December 20th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
DA getting even with his former employer…I love it. I am sick of ESPN reporting everything…ESPN reports “I just typed on my keyboard”. blah blah blah. It gets really annoying, especially when they don’t even break the story.
December 20th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I’m just impressed David Aldridge reads this site. It validates me…
December 20th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Breaking news….ESPN’s Screamin A. Smiff is reporting an NBA fight took place the other night…..many suspensions and fines coming….two teams with coaches who don’t like each other…..more details to follow….
December 20th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
David Aldridge kicks ass.
December 21st, 2006 at 12:17 am
considering the moment the story broke, i checked espn, both tv. and the internet and couldnt find the story, i find it odd as well. When i emailed you guys that it was breaking , I Was using DA’s story for the proof. ESPN is worthless..I pray someone comes up with a 24 hr sports network to unseed them..
December 21st, 2006 at 3:08 am
Eric speaks the truth. His was the first email to hit our inbox, and it did link to the Philly paper. In case anyone is wondering - and you’re probably not - there have been no emails from ESPN brass today refuting Aldridge’s account.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:20 am
You guys are idiots. what does it matter? 10 minutes… thats like splitting hairs. Maybe i don’t get it b/c i’m not a journalist, but it would bother me more if a reporter jumped the gun on a story just to say that they got the ’scoop.’ Sheesh, stop hating on ESPN, yeah they have their problems, but who else could do what they do? I mean, they have boosted the way sports are covered, shows/games are produced, and give exposure to games that otherwise the public would never see or hear about. I’m not saying get down on your knees for espn, but why so much hate?
December 21st, 2006 at 4:44 am
What everyone should also know is that there’s also an internal pecking order at the WWL for scoops too. For example, Chad Ford will get a breaking story on a prospect for the draft first, but the credit will go to Andy Katz (who finds out through another channel later) because he’s the “college basketball guy” or he was slated to write about that prospect .
Thus, Stein/Sheridan may not have been the guys at ESPN who first heard about the story. They may have simply been assigned to write columns on AI if there was a trade (planned days ago), and thus were credited so their columns could also conveniently run so it looks like ESPN got a scoop AND its writers filed immediately. This creates more excitement around the news and in theory drives more traffic. That’s why they switched the front page to Skirmish mode (where the image of AI also took up the flash module).
Yup, the AP deal with ESPN allows .com to simply cut and paste the story. If you simply want to see what’s going to come up soon under ESPN Headlines, just click on the “Wire” link (at the bottom of the Headlines box); those are the same feeds the editors get (although the general audience gets them on a 20 min delay unless you know the “secret”).
December 21st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
“what does it matter?”
What “matters” is journalistic integrity. It’s really plagarism when you get right down to it - taking credit for someone else’s work. Particularly a “someone else” who once worked for you and who you dumped for reasons to this day I still don’t understand. Good for Aldridge to beat em on this one.
It’s a shame that ESPN does this ALL THE TIME and gets away with it.
December 21st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Where’s the beef? Who has proof? Oh, I get it no one figured this out until the BigDick figured it out that this supposedley happened. Give us his email address. Right bigpicture, I expected you to figure this out after rating erin andrews, but I guess you had to wipe the computer off christmas slush. I better get credit for this because I found out I was going to write this before you did. Okay.
Oh yeah, I can not write properly.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
ESPNisajoke,
The question I think Justin had is the same I have. If it is a difference of ten minutes, how do we know that ESPN and Alridge did not independently learn of the trade and the time difference is a matter of a difference in the time to write it up and get it posted to the site?
December 21st, 2006 at 6:43 pm
This happens all the time with espn … like any sports web site, they get wire feeds from all over the place so if a story comes in (and let’s face it, the AI deal was already out there in some capacity) they have one of their guys churn something out, maybe grab a quote or two or put their analysis in it, slap an “AP contributed to this report” and they run with it as their own because that’s pretty much the fastest way people are going to get it. Rarely does one of their guys actually break anything. More often than not it’s some beat writer in that location that has the scoop and it’s either on that paper’s web site or whatever. And ESPN’s guys (reporters, editors, etc) know (like the rest of the world) that if a guy is going to get traded from a team, a paper from that city is likely going to have it first so they’ll keep an eye on that web site, keep in touch with that reporter, etc.
December 21st, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Good point DBVader. We all know that Deadspin gets all the stories and the other blogs just ride on their coat tails. The other blogs just change a few words and call it thier own, but they give a small mention to deadspin. Like dwil of Sports on my Mind, who hated deadspin, but now is taking turns blowing them with critical sports blog. I wonder if they use two ply or bounty to wipe of the jizz.
December 24th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Veterans committee of the hall of fame WAKE UP , and induct RON SANTO into the baseball HALL OF FAME