Oh, ESPN, our love, our umbilical cord to all that is sports, where have you gone? What have you done? We can’t figure out if you are the tabloid or just in them every other day. It’s all so confusing. Until it becomes salacious for the sake of salaciousness, like it did on Outside the Lines this past Sunday.

On All Souls Day ESPN showed that it has lost sight of its own.

In a move that can only be compared to Clinton bombing Iraq after his ‘relationship’ with Monica Lewinsky broke, the sports network from Connecticut saw the following as news: An ex-wife of Tom Cable alleges that, in an effort to help him, she has come forward to tell the world that Tom Cable hit her 20 years ago, when he was 24 years old.

Here’s the lead in blurb from the ESPN website: “Oakland Raiders coach Tom Cable, who was accused of assaulting one of his assistant coaches, has a history of alleged physical violence — specifically against two former wives and a former girlfriend. One former wife sought a temporary protection order against Cable in 1989. A former girlfriend filed a police report earlier this year accusing Cable of assault. Both women spoke with “Outside the Lines,” although neither pursued criminal charges.”

So, they gloss over the fact that he wasn’t charged with assaulting an assistant coach because there was no evidence to support the claim, and they assume their readers will note the use of the word ‘alleged’ when ‘reporting’ that he has a history of ‘alleged’ physical violence.

With all the stories swirling around the world of sport these days, at a time when every major sport is in action, the best ESPN could come up with on Outside the Lines (a show described by ESPN as “the pioneer investigative sports-news program”) was an “investigative piece” on Tom Cable where one woman talks about an incident that happened 20 years ago and the other describes a scene in which she ought to be ridiculously embarrassed.

Seriously, what kind of woman goes to the door of the home of a man with whom she has a dating relationship at 5AM and demands to be let inside, throwing a fit to meet the “other” woman? A fatal attraction style woman. Wait! That’s kind of like the 22 year old ESPN employee, Brooke Hundley, that was sleeping with Steve Phillips, another ESPN employee who also happens to be married.

So how did this go down?

Hey you clean cut sports cats, Tom Cable is at it again! Well, sort of, maybe. See, around 20 years ago when he was 24 years old he (A) may have hit someone. He also may have (B) forced a woman who was trying to gain access to his house at 5AM in the morning to leave by grabbing her arm and pushing her back through the front door. While this is now ‘breaking news, let’s assess his motives: (A) Youth. Inexcusable, but please…news? Nah. (B) Trespassing, attempting to gain unlawful entrance to a private home, and potentially getting ready to go all Glenn Close on him. BUT, we’ve got some time on Sunday and we have divert attention away from the Steve Phillips scandal and the Deadspin aftermath that exposed our very own culture of sexual misconduct. So let’s just run with it as if it’s factual, accurate and important, timely ‘news’ that our viewers need to know.

ESPN, The Fantoo Girls are here to save you from yourself. If you find that your employees are in the tabloids while aiming to be part of a reliable news network then perhaps you should stay away from hiring people who are enamored with sex as if they were still teenagers. And stay away from covering tabloid-esque stories, and, lastly, avoid all situations where you might find yourself calling the kettle black.

Don’t stoop to CNN’s level and make OTL a sports version of the insipid ‘Nancy Grace’ show. Get back to sports. There’s enough drama already without you having to ‘make the news’.

Believe us Girls when we tell you that you will get your ratings without slumming yourself. Leave that to CNN. Or TLC. Or Perez Hilton.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 am and is filed under Fantoo Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.