media Page 71 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

ESPN Suspends Dan Le Batard Two Days For Trolling LeBron With Billboard
When ESPN's Dan Le Batard had his LeBron-busting ad rebuffed by a Cleveland newspaper, he didn't give up on his dream of taking a light-hearted, public shot at LeBron James on behalf of Miami Heat fans. Instead, he put the ad on a billboard in Akron, Ohio....

Mets Reporter Admits He Stumped For Ike Davis Because He's Likable
New York Daily News baseball writer Andy Martino published a unique notes column earlier this week. It's an introspective look at a question reporters probably don't ask themselves enough: Do they spin their reporting to favor athletes they like?...

How Dan Snyder Bought Off The D.C. Media
In 2000, then-editor Wes Pruden of the Washington Times blasted Dan Snyder's efforts to control the flow of information about the Redskins as "chickenshit" tactics....

Sports On Earth is not shutting down, contrary to one online report. But with Gannett spinning off its publishing arm, very big changes are most certainly coming. [Update: It's not shutting down, in the sense that the site is keeping the name and a few staffers. But, yeah, things are going to be dif...

What About The Maturation Of Peter King?
The first item in Peter King's latest MMQB column is about Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and "maturation." Specifically, it is about how one of the NFL's most important figures refuses to set aside childish things and instead wallows in a state of doltish adolescence. When, the reader is left to...

News Plays Wildly Inappropriate Spider-Man Video During Ray Rice Segment
This is KMSP's nightly news broadcast in Minneapolis and while discussing Ray Rice's public apology to his wife today, they obviously had the wrong tape set to roll. Instead of throwing it to video of a contrite Ray Rice, they showed Spiderman harassing a dude on the street and then getting punched....

Did ESPN Get Fooled By A Fake Twitter Account Reporting A Zobrist Trade?
Minutes ago on Baseball Tonight's trade deadline special, it was announced that Tampa's Ben Zobrist was heading to Pittsburgh. But it wasn't true, and the first and only person reporting it was a fake Bob Nightengale Twitter account....

Jim Bowden Caught Stealing From Fake Twitter Account, Deletes Everything
Jim Bowden, former MLB executive, has fashioned himself a second career as a baseball pundit for ESPN and SiriusXM radio. Today, baseball's biggest day for movement, trade deadline day, Bowden appears to have gotten caught stealing a scoop without attribution. We know because he unwittingly stole it...

Does The NFL Think Ray Rice's Wife Deserved It?
A week ago, we got news that the NFL had suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice two games for the events of Feb. 15, when he allegedly knocked then-fiancée Janay Palmer unconscious in an Atlantic City casino elevator. The punishment fell well outside the usual disciplinary regime of commis...

Dumb Person Has Bad Idea For How To "Control" College Athletes
This, by Matt Hayes at the Sporting News, was actually published yesterday, but since I haven't seen any angry reaction to it yet, I can only assume it's because we're all still so taken aback by the strangeness of a screed that wouldn't be out of place scrawled on a bathroom wall in feces. But you ...

Arian Foster Gave The Same Answer 11 Times In A 90-Second Interview
Arian Foster formally talked to media today for the first time since last season ended, but he didn't give them anything useful. The Texans running back basically repeated the same answer, about trying to be the best teammate he can be, for a minute and a half before peacing out. Though some Texans ...

The Ravens Are Trying To Make Us Like Ray Rice Again
For various obvious reasons, the Ravens would be wise to highlight basically any player other than Ray Rice right now. Focusing on C.J. Mosley, Torrey Smith, or even Joe Flacco would be a good idea. The team site, however, is not pursuing this strategy....

News Anchors Reporting Plane Crash Can't Say "Ouagadougou"
Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso. It's also the origin of Air Algerie flight 5017, which crashed last week in Mali killing 118. With the disaster coming so soon after the MH17 tragedy, coverage of the crash in West Africa deserved high placement in local newscasts across the U.S.—and, in t...

D.C. Station Remembers The Good Times, When Radio Guys Could Say "Fag"
WJFK, a CBS-owned sportstalker serving the D.C. market, made a big announcement last week. LaVar Arrington, the former Washington Redskins star and longtime co-host of the station's afternoon show, LaVar and Dukes, had moved to Los Angeles to join the NFL Network. Instead of hiring a big-name replac...

ESPN's <em>First Take</em> Opens With Horseshit Apology From Stephen A. Smith
This morning's Very Special Edition of First Take began with a scripted and seemingly pre-recorded apology from panelist Stephen A. Smith regarding the very dumb things he said about domestic violence last week. It was ... unconvincing....

ESPN On Stephen A. Smith Firestorm: Tune In To <i>First Take</i> On Monday
ESPN has issued a response following Stephen A. Smith's rant on/enabling domestic violence from Friday's episode of First Take. Here it is, in full:...

Stephen A. Smith Leaving ESPN Radio For SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio
In an interestingly-timed move, the New York Daily News is reporting that Stephen A. Smith will be leaving his ESPN Radio gig in New York and head to the uncensored airwaves of SiriusXM. And, also interestingly, he will be joining Chris "Mad Dog" Russo's stable of hosts on Mad Dog Radio. ...

Denver Sports Anchor Can't Help But Notice All This Alzheimer's
Here's 9NEWS Denver's Drew Soicher with maybe not the best lead-in to today's sports report: an Alzheimer's joke....

How <em>First Take</em> Poisoned ESPN
This is exactly what First Take was designed to do. That's not hyperbole. First Take's reason for existence is to reduce every subject, from the incredibly complex to the totally uncontroversial, down to a binary issue that can be debated. Is Tim Tebow a good quarterback? Is LeBron clutch? Should Ra...

ESPN Spent The Past 24 Hours Carrying Water For The NFL Over Ray Rice
On occasion, the invisible hand of the NFL taps ESPN on the shoulder and reminds the Worldwide Leader who really runs the show. We saw it with Playmakers. We saw it with the Frontline concussion documentary. More often than not, though, what you see is something like the video above, taken from the ...