ESPN's official comment on the Erin Andrews situation is this: "Erin has been grievously wronged here. Our people and resources are in full support of her as she deals with this abhorrent act." Mine is after the jump.
If this story becomes covered in the mainstream media — chances are it will, that press release went out everywhere; even the French are intrigued— there's inevitably going to be some backlash against the sports blogosphere. Unfortunately, we'll get hit pretty hard if some blog-centric finger-pointing ensues as to why this happened. Considering the enormous amount of coverage we've devoted to Erin Andrews throughout, oh, the site's existence, we're obviously an easy target if that type of Princess Diana-paparazzi discussion takes place.
To be fair, both during my time as editor and Emeritus' time, most of our coverage has been tongue-in-cheek — covering the coverage of America's Sideline Princess. Some people get that, others don't, and see any and all coverage of Erin Andrews as exploitative and voyeuristic in its own way. But it's important for people to know that I don't think anybody who's been part of the Erin Andrews pageview gravy train thinks what's happened is funny or is elated that this will be good for business. Will this change things? It has to. If covering Erin Andrews made this site — and plenty of other sites — look like pandering fools, any cheesecake coverage from here on out creates an additional, unnecessary layer of sleaze.
Regardless, this is a different, legitimate news story now — this isn't her getting whacked in the chin with a baseball, or her wearing a revealing dress to the ESPYs, or college kids posing for photos with her or her eating a sandwich. This is real and disorienting and just frighteningly sad. I apologize for posting the site's address in the initial story — I was unaware that, even though the videos were taken down, people could get access to them. I didn't want the story Dugg.* I didn't want the shit to end up on Twitter. But I took that risk when I initially wrote about it and I'll take full responsibility for pushing the video out there, even though that wasn't the intention.
Look, we're here to laugh and have a good time and make the occasional lewd jokes and that won't be abandoned for the sake of reaching some higher moral ground to rise above this unfortunate situation. But I do ask that any other stories about this incident, please don't get out of control in the comments, mainly, don't direct people to where they can see the videos. But discuss it — discuss our coverage, any other coverage on it, how it should be handled, etc. I just hope no one feels like they need a scalding bath when they read about any new information on the legal fallout from this.
Anyway what else is going on?
UPDATE*: (To clarify: when I said I didn't "want the story Dugg" or "Twittered" I meant how it was "Dugg" and "Twittered." The story was Dugg independently by a person who sold it as "ESPN BLOCKS ERIN ANDREWS SEX TAPE VIDEO." Not my doing. Also, we were Twitter hacked with a "ERIN ANDREWS PEEPHOLE VIDEO at #Deadspin" on Friday night that wasn't my doing either. That's what I was referring to and that should have been made more clear.)
Blogosphere's Erin Andrews Obsession Crosses The Line [Watchdog]