Erin Andrews Situation Is Nobody’s Fault

We all knew Erin Andrews was popular among sports blogs, but who knew that this video of her at a hotel would turn into a race vs. blogs vs. maintream media debate! Jason Whitlock did:

Deadspin has been the world-wide leader in sexually objectifying Erin Andrews (ESPN actually trails Deadspin in this category) and in invading the privacy of athletes and members of the sports media, so it is not all that surprising that its editor, AJ Daulerio, would throw the match on gasoline poured by a peephole pervert.

Whitlock goes on for a few paragraphs to completely bash the founders of Deadspin. I have no affiliation with them (obviously, this site would be a lot bigger if we did) other than I read it often . Still, I feel like Whitlock is pretty of base with his analysis. Here’s why:

1. AJ Daulerio, the editor of Deadspin, ran the initial story that helped it gain viral popularity. Let’s be honest with ourselves, can we blame him? I’m not going to sit here and say that if the video first fell into our lap that we wouldn’t have posted it. The fact is that if he doesn’t run it, someone else will and, in a matter of hours, Deadspin will be nothing more than riding the coat tails.
2. The Erin Andrews fascination, to me at least, seems like more of a joke than anything, and I don’t think mainstream media gets that. I could be off base here, but when Deadspin ran the stories about Andrews busting her chin open do we really care about this? No! But, it is funny because of the mock obsession guys have with her. So, Deadspin, and other sites, ran these stories as somewhat of a joke of how obsessed people are. Most of the articles about her are sarcastic anyway. Whitlock makes it sound like the blogs of the world are defiling her by posting about things like her chin getting busted.
3. Whitlock thinks there is a “rule book” in sports media. You know what? There is, in your section of the media. Welcome to 2009 where blogs don’t have to adhere to those rules so guess what, watch your back. Deadspin and sites like ours are made to entertain. Thousands of people come to these sites to hear different things than what ESPN is (or isn’t apparently) reporting. Sports blogs are not created to hurt sports stars or media people; they are created to bring these people back down to Earth. Just because someone is a professional athlete doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be called out when they fuck up. And, they do fuck up, which is funny to people who aren’t professional athletes. Maybe Whitlock doesn’t get this, but us ‘normies’ are jealous of these people, so it’s fun to see when they fuck up. That’s the price you pay for holding out because you don’t like your $25 million contract to do something that we would give anything to do.
4. I’m not saying that personally I would feel comfortable reporting on a lot of the things Deadspin does. But, that may be a big reason (among many others) why LOS is not as popular as Deadspin.

Where was Whitlock right?

1. I completely agree that some mainstream media sites are unfair with what they pick and choose to show. The Pacman video he mentions should have been treated the same as the recent Roethlisberger incident. Most mainstream sites have their own agenda and ESPN is clearly attacked for most of the stuf they do.
2. But, this is not a race thing, which seems to be what he is referring to. There is no reason for ESPN to cover the Erin Andrews story whether she is white or black. There is not much more of a reason for Whitlock to write about the story. It is not sports, it is entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a horrible form of entertainment, but it’s no different than the defaming that Jon & Kate get from their gossipy lives. Furthermore, Erin Andrew is an ESPN employee so they have nothing to gain from this. So, if you want to complain about Roethlisberger vs. Pacman, that is perfectly valid. But this Andrews story is nothing to ESPN, and should be nothing to FoxSports, CBSsports, and SI either.
3. This begs the question, ’should a site like Deadspin run stories like this?’ Well, I would say that it is much more relevant for them than any other sites. This has nothing to with white or black. It has to do with a very popular, good looking sideline reporter. If she was black, I would contend that this would be treated the same. I could be wrong, but there are times that race is the issue, but this, to me, is clearly not one of them.

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with a blurry line between what should be reported on the internet and what is actually reported. To be honest, I don’t see how what Deadspin did was any worse than calling Steve McNair out for being shot, or Serena Williams for being lazy. All Deadspin did was speed up the process of the video getting out in the public eye. It was going to happen eventually, and, yes, Daulerio was smart to put it up asap. In the end, what we do is for fun, but what they do is business. And the media has never been known for having great ethics concerning the breaking of popular stories.

To answer the question the title bears, nobody is to blame except for the creep who took the video. It is not the blog’s fault. It is not college guy’s fault. It isn’t Erin Andrew’s fault. This story consists of nothing else than a creepy guy doing a dispicable thing. That’s it.

Whitlock: Who’s to blame for Erin Andrews scandal? [FoxSports]