ESPN MMA reporter Josh Gross (Photo/Getty Images)What separates a blog from a news source is simple; the latter has a series of editors and journalistic expectations to uphold, while the former is at the discretion of a sole proprietor and is as free to mention the weather in Chicago as they are the score of last night's basketball game.
Editorial oversight is just one of the fundamental principles of journalism. Writers and reporters don't have the freedom to pontificate their beliefs or unwind unjustified half assertions for millions of readers. Editors, beholden to the truth, are supposed to ask tough questions of their reporters; challenging them to uncover irrefutable pieces of information instead of conjecture. Effective and successful news sources demand documentation of facts and on-the-record interviews. Most news organizations believe that if they can't prove it one-hundred percent they won't run it; retractions aren't just humiliating, they're expensive.
Nowhere is documentation more necessary than in investigative journalism, which seeks to challenge institutions of power and provide protection for those who otherwise don't have a voice. Big investigative pieces can come to define a journalist's career; Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle are excellent examples of momentous efforts that brought reform. Those pieces rose above rumor, above salesmanship, above intimidation, and uncovered evidence that won over readers and forever changed America.
The principles and ethics of journalism are important to consider when reviewing the recent story about fighter pay in the UFC by ESPN's Josh Gross and John Barr. Their piece of investigative journalism for "Outside the Lines" and ESPN.com intended to show that fighter compensation in the UFC lagged behind those of other major sports and that management was using intimidation to quiet who might wish to speak about the injustice.
The piece was mishandled by the editorial staff at ESPN and the participating journalists, going to print and air even as it suffered from serious weaknesses. The piece included no attributions to current fighters, and provided no significant financial records indicating malfeasance by the UFC. Further, the written piece implies that the Fertitta brothers, who own Zuffa and the Station Casino chain, have been embroiled in several lawsuits with unions who operate in the hotel and service industry -- ostensibly as supporting evidence for their poor treatment of employees.
Had ESPN been able to uncover the necessary documentation or produce even a single on-air interview of value, the story might have silenced the UFC -- or even forced follow-up stories by other news outlets. Instead the article and television piece allowed the UFC to launch a counterattack on the journalistic credibility of ESPN, Gross and Barr.
After ESPN ran their piece the UFC released a 12-minute video highlighting what they believed to be misleading editorial decisions by ESPN and their journalists. The video is damming because it verifies that the story filed by ESPN contains large gaps in information, places where the journalists could have pursued an angle that might have originally disagreed with their initial thoughts for the program. Because they didn't Barr, Gross and ESPN appeared to be less objective than readers and viewers expected. The UFC video reclassified their work from that of serious journalism into the realm of "He said, He said."
The business of sports has always been entertainment and the majority of sportswriters (especially in MMA) have tended to be fans first and critics second. The four major sports in America each grew up in the early 20th century when newspapers were forced to report the truth or lose out to competition. MMA has grown up in the late 20th and early 21st century, in an age when the Internet pays by clicks rather than substance. It's been a painful, but successful maturation for some MMA journalists, graduating from message boards in the early 90's to the recent purchase of leading news site MMAJunkie.com by USA Today.
ESPN recently gave full-time consideration to its MMA section when it hired a cadre of qualified editors and writers to join their online staff. Gross, who'd done great work for several years at outlets including SI.com and Sherdog was among the big-name hires for the site. He launched a radio program, Gross Point Blank, gained more followers on Twitter. and has maintained his position as one of the industry's best journalists.
Moving to ESPN meant a larger platform for Gross and others, but it also might have cost him institutional credibility.
According to UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, ESPN-held companies generated $2.8 billion in revenue last year. The bulk of that revenue came from selling advertising during football, baseball and basketball games. Each of those sports have agreements worth millions to to ESPN who profits from selling commercial space. Because the network has such close entertainment links with major sports organizations, and by default their players, they've not only failed to report major stories, they've at time sent memos directing that individual reporters not investigate the day's biggest stories. A serious betrayal of the audience's trust in their integrity as a news source.
Ben Roethlisberger and former Syracuse basketball coach Bernie Fine are just two recent examples where the network limited the efforts of their reporters. When the stories finally broke, the influence of the company's billion-dollar relationship with the controlling entities left readers to question the company's intent. Of course, Dana White has also pointed out that because ESPN doesn't invest in the UFC he thinks they're more emboldened to write unfavorable pieces, and in this case run the results of an investigation that failed to come up with any new or compelling data.
He has a valid point.
Decisions like those in Pittsburgh and Syracuse are what distances the New York Times from ESPN, and what makes anonymous sourcing in pieces by ESPN even less acceptable. Readers don't have the same guarantees of authenticity in reading ESPN as they might with the NYT or other information sources that uphold a journalistic standard. The NYT does include anonymous sourcing for stories, but they have 150 years of news service, floors of editors who do know the sources, and usually include other supporting documentation that makes clear that their story has validity. ESPN has failed to provide the full story in the past and with their story of UFC fighter pay, Gross and Barr extended that tradition by having neither numbers, nor named sources.
ESPN's failure to matriculate the ball of journalistic integrity down the field is so pronounced that it gave birth to online sports websites like Deadspin.com which now makes gobs of money for filing stories ESPN won't touch; stories ranging from Brett Favre's penis to questioning the finances of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The site is at times dirty, and their moral radar might be in question, but their journalistic intent is often appropriate and damning. They back up their arguments with facts and documentation, even if that includes cell phone shots of #4's private parts.
The argument about what is fair and what isn't fair about the UFC's pay structure is better left to the commentators who'd like to transpose their ideas of capitalism upon the UFC's business model (Note: Both Fertitta and White mentioned American values and the system of capitalism in their rebuttal. The fighters also mentioned that they were upset with how much money "management" was seeing versus what they were getting paid). Until we have more information, it's a fool's errand to comment.
What we do know is that the UFC is becoming significant competition to the major four sports organizations in acquiring the viewership of 18-35 year-old men and the advertising revenue that's attached to their demographic. With that increased position in the marketplace comes challenges from the media regarding everything from their compensation structure to the health effects of performing inside the octagon. These are credible inquires that the UFC will need to answer, and that serious journalists like Gross and Barr should be prepared to investigate and report.
The UFC could very well be running over their fighters, abusing their leverage as owners by withholding income athletes and intimidating them off-the-record and out-of-sight. Hell, they might be lavishing them with gifts and treating them better than average. To uncover the facts will take a journalist willing to report a piece that doesn't just assume a dark edge to the institution, but gives it a name; a report that not only includes rumors of profit and percentages, but the support of internal documentation.
Any journalist wishing to report a companion piece will need insider information and on-the-record interviews. Only then can a substantive discussion about fighter pay and intimidation begin. It's a piece that many fans would pay to read, and if substantiated could produce effective changes to a powerful organization. If not, it'll just be another weak story, one that White and the UFC will be more than happy to knock down.
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