Everyone is chiming in on the ESPN “Outside the Lines” piece, including radio hacks like Scott Ferrell on Sirius satellite radio.
I think one of the things we tend to forget in the matter is that Anthony Scirrotto and his girlfriend were acosted before anything in the apartment happened. I watched the piece for a fifth time this morning, and ESPN is recycling it more than any Brett Favre or Manny Ramirez story out there right now.
What really gets under my skin, and hear me out on this because I DO NOT condone the actions of the football players one bit, is how ESPN painted the students in the matter, the ones who lived in Meredian II apartment 302 as victims here.
OK, granted, the players unlawfully entered 302 and went after these guys, but why? Did those portrayed as victims in the story not smack Scirrotto and his girlfriend first down on the street? Did they not out number the two? Did they not knock Scirrotto’s cell phone out of his hands as he tried to call the cops to report the incident?
See this is where I throw everything out in terms of credibility with ESPN. How can you fairly tell the story of the indicent without getting that point across from Scirrotto? There was one quote from Scirrotto in the piece and it was about word of the incident “spreading like wildfire,” meaning he called teammate Lydell Sargeant and Lydell made a call and so on and so on. If you didn’t think ESPN had some sort of agenda in their shoddy reporting of the story, look no further than the use of Scirrotto in the piece. One lousy quote that paints him a guy hellbent on punking out a couple of partiers in the Meredian II building.
Yet what we get from ESPN’s shoddy and inept reporting is that these guys barged into the apartment and acosted the tenents and proclaimed “you don’t know who you’re messing with.” Like I said I don’t condone what Scirrotto and his teammates did, but I can’t say I would have done anything differently if that was me and my girlfriend.
All I’m asking is that ESPN fairly report in it’s next OTL piece. Is that too much to ask? Actual fair and balanced journalism is few and far between. How does anyone take ESPN seriously anymore? How can anyone who covered this story or read the police reports and knows the tenants of 302 instigated the incident from the start, now look at them as victims. Just because it was a bunch of PSU football players? Because Michael Haynes says that PSU recruits a different bread of player now?
Please.
Do some homework, get some facts and then report. It’s basic journalism. Apparently no one at ESPN can understand that. Paint a fair picture. Only then when you do that can the public full decide what’s right and what’s wrong.
