Reports: ESPN Cleans Up Its Bizarre Sourcing Policy

ESPN has had a rough time with attributing stories properly. Another outlet with an exclusive suddenly transforms into "reports" or "sources" on ESPN or ESPN.com. This isn't very polite, and competitors understandably have been cranky about the practice in the past. Just look at this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this. The only policy that ESPN had about crediting competitors was described by former morning SportsCenter guy Josh Elliott, who said that producers freely stole other people's reporting.

Finally the day has arrived that ESPN has a coherent attribution policy. It includes shocking guidelines such as:

We will use the name of the entity where we obtained the information in scripts, on BottomLine, and, where possible, in graphics. We will only use "Report" in graphics if the name of the entity is too long.

For example, BottomLine and anchor readers would say: "The Ravens will meet with Broncos defensive end Elvis Dumervil, the Baltimore Sun reports."

Was that so hard?

[ ESPN Front Row]