Report: ESPN Suspends Two Producers For Cutting Away From Notre Dame AD's Te'o Presser Last Week

Just about four hours after we broke the Manti Te'o story, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick held that extremely weird presser. He got choked up. He talked a lot about an intense investigation after Notre Dame hired some PIs (which turned out to be the biggest nothing investigation ever). He confirmed the hoax stuff. It was mostly just strange and riveting TV. At Deadspin HQ we were watching the press conference online, but we noticed a lot of people on Twitter going nuts because ESPNews cut away from the presser while it was very much still going on.

And now, according to The Big Lead, two ESPN producers, Eric Smith and Bernie Ritter, have been suspended for bailing out of the press conference. You can see it in the video above. Their suspension is a short one: one day, TBL reports.

Why'd they cut away? Who knows. It's not as if folks at ESPN weren't interested in the story. After all, they're telling anyone who'll stand still long enough that they knew all about the story (from Manti Te'o's agent) before we did.

Two ESPN Producers Were Suspended for Dumping Out of the Jack Swarbrick Press Conference During Sportscenter Last Week [The Big Lead]