Jason Whitlock Blasts ESPN, Takes Shots at Chris Fowler

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Bigging up Ball State? Good thing. Taking shots at ESPN analyst Chris Fowler? You be the judge. First off, though, he sets his sights on Fowler's employer:

Ball State's football season perfectly illustrated my problem with ESPN and why I believe the World Wide Leader is the most evil and destructive force in the sports world. It has driven and hastened the destruction of authentic, independent, democratic, courageous sports journalism.

ESPN is the enemy of the truth, and all who believe a pursuit of the truth is the lifeblood of a genuinely free society must stand against the Wal-Mart-ization of sports journalism.

I reached this conclusion when trying to figure out why Ball State quarterback Nate Davis isn't one of the top-five Heisman Trophy candidates and Ball State coach Brady Hoke isn't the front-runner for national coach of the year.

He then takes time out to personally attack Fowler himself:

What Fowler has done is ridiculous and reeks of the kind of simple-minded arrogance that permeates ESPN. Fowler has had his ass kissed for too many years. He travels around the country during football season and everywhere he goes, there's an Army of BCS sports information directors waiting to kiss his ass and tell him how great "GameDay" is.

He has never been a professional journalist a day in his life. He's a TV personality. He knows what someone else has told him. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'd suspect he hasn't worn a jock since junior high school.

This is the combination that is killing the sports media. No journalism background, no real athletic experience and no backbone. No clue. Fowler wouldn't make a competent blogger.

I quoted these because they're probably the most gossip-worthy parts of Whitlock's article. However, they're also the weakest and most unnecessary. He's correct to point out that ESPN--given its role in sports news--has driven public opinion to the point that any player not in a BCS conference is sure to not get any love on the big stage. He's also correct to call Fowler out on the carpet for inexplicably dropping Ball State from his top 25 ballot after they'd beaten Central Michigan. However, the personal potshots just make him sound as though he has a bad case of sour grapes: ESPN dropped him three years ago, so now he's settling a few scores through this column. Put bluntly, Whitlock's inability to keep his piece professional detracts from an otherwise sound argument, an argument which Whitlock himself did not do justice.

Given that, let's examine it closer. As I've said on this blog before, there are a number of players who get overlooked in the 10 player shuffle ESPN does each week; if you're not in that shuffle, you're not getting attention. So while everyone knows about Graham Harrell, Tim Tebow, and Sam Bradford, they probably don't know about guys like Chase Clement (who, for my money, is a better college QB than Davis is) or Case Keenum. They probably don't know that James Casey--and not Jermaine Gresham or Chase Coffman--is the best tight end in the country by far. Why? Because players like this aren't from big time schools. This isn't to say that the Harrells and Tebows of the world don't deserve attention, but to say that other guys deserve attention as well. In this case, Whitlock is absolutely right about ESPN: because they're tied to so many different TV stations with so many different conference tie-ins, they do drive public opinion about which players are the best. This leaves everyone outside of this network out of luck. It also means that ESPN's competitors, such as FOX Sports, aren't able to provide countering viewpoints.

ESPN has so much sway because they're the only show in town. FOX Sports, who Whitlock now works for, gets the occasional Big 12 or Pac-10 game, but not near the amount of games that ESPN, which televises games on ABC in addition to its slew of home channels, does. FOX used to be able to claim sole coverage of the BCS bowl games, but with ESPN and the BCS recently working out a television deal, that advantage is now gone. It's a good thing if you're ESPN, but a bad thing if you want to see a more diverse array of players covered. If you want the non-BCS conference teams along with their players to get more love, it's probably best to look elsewhere, unfortunately. ESPN is the TV equivalent of top 40 radio right now, and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. They'll continue to drive public opinion, and fans will continue to see more of them same boilerplate analysis combined with the same boilerplate opinions on the best teams in the nation. And if you don't believe me, consider this: for all of the possible talk of Florida being screwed by the BCS even with a win over Alabama, two undefeated teams--Boise State and Utah--despite each having wins over ranked teams, won't even be in the discussion.