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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsESPN Quits Film Project on Concussions in N.F.L.
ESPN on Thursday ended its official association with Frontline, the public television public affairs series, on a two-part documentary about concussions in the N.F.L. that is scheduled to be televised in October. After 15 months on the venture, ESPN chose to strip its name, logo and credit from the films, League of Denial: The NFLs Concussion Crisis.
ESPN belatedly focused on the fact that it did not have editorial control of what appeared on Frontline long into a collaboration that has already resulted in nine joint television and online reports that have appeared on ESPNs Outside the Lines program, on ESPN.com and on the Frontline Web site. Together they also created Concussion Watch, a database that tracks concussions and other head injuries in the N.F.L.
Chris LaPlaca, an ESPN spokesman, said, In hindsight, we should have reached this conclusion much sooner.
But Raney Aronson-Rath, the deputy executive producer of Frontline, said that ESPN executives had for more than a year understood the ground rules of the collaboration: Frontline would keep editorial control of what it televised or put on its Web sites, and ESPN would have control of everything it televised or posted on the Web.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sports/football/espn-exits-film-project-on-concussions.html?hp
geomon666
(7,512 posts)was not based on any concerns about hurting its contractual relationship with the N.F.L. And I believe him. I mean really, what could the good people at The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation have to hide?
MADem
(135,425 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)ESPN is great as a sports journalism network. As just another sports broadcast network, it loses that advantage.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)That's a shame.