Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [351]
Sometimes it’s a little jarring. I was used to being part of the background, not part of the story. But ESPN intentionally and unintentionally created the celebrity sports journalist. People were all of a sudden recognizing me, writing about me, and it was difficult. I also had to get used to the difference between print and television. TV is about how things look and sound, but mostly about how things look. I was a pretty secure person until I started doing TV. Once you start doing it, especially if you’re a woman, you become superaware of your weight, your hair, and how you physically appeal to viewers. I think viewers value my opinions, but I understand that you have to be a little bit of eye candy too. I mean you’re going to tantalize the viewer. I guess an analogy would be, you’re constantly lifting your skirt up. Being on TV taught me a different way of looking at things, not only on the screen but about journalism and what I did on the print side.
One would have thought the worldwide leader in sports would be thrilled to land an interview with potential Free World–wide leader Barack Obama. Suddenly and mysteriously, however, ESPN canceled Bill Simmons’s scheduled podcast with Obama, then the front-runner among Democratic presidential contenders, in April of 2008. Stuart Scott’s planned sit-down with Obama was also killed.
Network executives may have had sensible reasons for pulling the plug, but if they did, they weren’t sharing. Instead, public relations vice president Josh Krulewitz was trotted out to say tersely, “Fans don’t expect political coverage on our outlets.” They don’t? Critics were quick to counter that in Election Year 2004, George W. Bush and John Kerry were each interviewed twice for ESPN by Jim Gray. Bush was even the subject of a special four-part series. And Simmons was not likely to have asked Obama “political” questions anyway, since the candidate was known as a major sports fan.
One blogger derided the cancellation as a “stupid move from the worldwide follower,” while another jeeringly called ESPN officials “nervous Nellies.” Still another speculated there was fear in Bristol that the event “would embarrass the rest of ESPN’s coverage by actually being relevant to the world.” A popular blog had one word for the decision: “Insanity.”
Even The Atlantic, stately old periodical though it be, had harsh words on its website, suggesting sarcastically that since “a Simmons-Obama podcast would have been widely listened to and gotten a lot of attention,” then “naturally, ESPN decided the right thing to do was kill the idea and cancel the podcast.” The Obama campaign, meanwhile, decided to high-road it, with spokesman Tommy Vietor saying simply, “Senator Obama would be happy to appear on ESPN at any time.”
BILL SIMMONS:
When they wouldn’t let me have Obama on my podcast, they had this whole edict in place that none of their talent was allowed to editorialize about the election. I’m handing in an NFL-picks column the day before Sarah Palin gives a speech in front of fifty-five million people or whatever, and I’m not allowed to reference it in my column. So at some point—as I made the case passionately and repeatedly—are we not reflecting what real life is like? Everybody I know is talking about Sarah Palin’s speech and I’m not even allowed to breathe a mention of that in my column? What kind of alternate universe are we trying to create here? If they want to do this right, then designate your six, seven people who can talk about whatever they want and make it seem like a little bit better reflection of what real life is like.
Skipper has been my boss, and really, anything I’ve wanted to—other than interview Obama for the podcast—I’ve been able to do. They’ve never stood in my way, they’ve always tried to make things happen, and they’re always asking how to figure out how