ESPN Sort Of Apologizes For Lying About the Patriots For a Year Straight

ESPN – Sometimes, paranoia is a fair reaction to seemingly inexplicable actions. And to me, Deflategate is one of those examples because this lack of trust emanates from what has been a mismanaged affair by ESPN. Beyond the legitimate questions about Mortensen’s story, there have been other Deflategate actions taken by ESPN that have looked odd from outside, largely because they were not adequately publicly explained by the network.

The sources of Mortensen’s story were inside the NFL, and the league never made any attempt to refute the incorrect reference to 2 PSI in that story. If you believe the thesis of Van Natta and Wickersham’s piece, the NFL wanted to come down hard on the Patriots for Deflategate, and there’s little question that Mortensen’s story made that easier. This is a case where it would behoove ESPN to be as transparent as possible about its Deflategate coverage precisely because of its $1.9 billion-a-year relationship with the NFL.

That said, the Mortensen controversy isn’t the only Deflategate-related issue that has upset New England supporters. On Feb. 17, 2015, Outside the Lines reporter Kelly Naqi reported that Patriots locker room attendant Jim McNally had attempted to introduce an unapproved game ball into the AFC Championship Game, which seemed to further indict the Patriots organization. But the next day, ESPN’s Adam Schefter appeared on Outside the Lines to report that an NFL official had been fired after the game for stealing game balls to sell them. Turns out it was the same official to whom McNally allegedly had handed the unapproved ball. This left open the strong possibility that it was the official who was in the wrong, not McNally.

Late in the summer of 2015, SportsCenter twice inaccurately repeated a long-discredited 2008 Boston Herald report that the Patriots had illegally taped the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. In this case, ESPN did apologize publicly to the Patriots, on an Aug. 20 SportsCenter, with anchor Steve Levy reading this statement:
“On two occasions in recent weeks, SportsCenter incorrectly cited a 2002 report regarding the New England Patriots and Super Bowl XXXVI. That story was found to be false and should not have been part of our reporting. We apologize to the Patriots organization.” The apology was the proper move. The problem was that it aired at about 12:30 a.m. ET and was not repeated on any subsequent SportsCenter broadcasts. This led to accusations that ESPN was trying to bury the apology.

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Then, on Sept. 9, the evening after Van Natta and Wickersham’s piece was published, Patriots reporter Mike Reiss produced a blog post with some of his reactions to the story. Nothing about the piece seemed controversial. But hours after it was published, two of the seven takeaways in the digital piece disappeared. The first deleted item cast some doubt on the piece’s claim that Patriots employees had been known to go into the visitors locker room to pilfer play sheets.

“Security’s extremely tight throughout Gillette Stadium. Don’t think too many people, if any, are casually walking into the visitors’ locker room. And let’s just say they are, who leaves play sheets around?”

The second item was even less controversial:

“When you’re at the top, everyone likes to bring you down. A longtime sportscaster with a deep history in Boston relayed this thought to me that resonated: ‘They used to say the same stuff [regarding gamesmanship] about [longtime Boston Celtics Coach] Red Auerbach.’”

The removal of these two items was not noted on the edited version of the story.

The Outside the Lines report confusion, the late-night apology and the unacknowledged Reiss blog edit were, independently, minor issues. But because Mortensen’s original story remained live and unchanged throughout, each built on Patriots’ fans distrust of ESPN. “The bottom line is it’s been our lack of transparency and accountability with the Mortensen report that’s been our biggest mistake in the reporting of Deflategate,” said an ESPN editor involved in some of the coverage. Had we corrected the Mortensen report, been more up front about stating something as fact that was found to be untrue and been honest about why a reporter’s piece was mysteriously cut eight hours after it was posted, I think we’d be better off as a company when it comes to the perception in New England.”

Oh hey guys. ESPN is sort of apologizing. Pretty much admitting that they’ve made like 100 mistakes during the last 12-14 months. Reported false information, made up lies, spread rumors, apologized in the dead of night, led a national witch hunt, buy hey it’s cool. They just sort of said they are sorry. Granted Chris Mortenson, Bill Polian, Mark Brunell. Sal Pal and everybody else how has had their brains beaten in by the Pats didn’t apologize. Granted it was a year too late. Granted half ESPN should be in jail, but at least their Ombudsman sort of said they were dishonest scumbags and who screwed up Deflategate. So at least we got that going for us right? HEY ESPN FUCK YOU. APOLOGY DENIED!