ESPN Is OK with Laura Lane's Personal Blog, but 'Don't Bother Looking for It, It's Long Gone'

ESPN the Magazine is taking a decidedly different approach to this whole Laura Lane-Vanessa Bryant potty-mouthed semi-soap opera than some people probably thought they would. The Worldwide Leader is actually embracing Ms. Lane's decision to write about her encounter with Ms. Bryant on her personal blog.

This is a good thing. Corporations tend to freak out when people with any insider knowledge discuss the company. (As a freelancer, Lane's not really an insider. But again, corporations often shoot first and question later in these cases.)

So, credit to the ESPN powers that be who kept their cool here. But the company gets significantly less credit for the vague and somewhat hypocritical manner in which it lays the blame in this instance. The root of the problem: They still don't seem to really understand how blogs work.

First, there's the disappearance of Lane's blog itself. Lane claims that she removed it herself after it received a swell of attention, some of it from within Bristol. On the ESPN post addressing the issue, an anonymous ESPN editor notes that some of that attention came from within the company:

[The story] received extra attention in the halls of Bristol because Laura was (incorrectly) ID'd as an "ESPN reporter" (She's not. She's a freelancer and was at the game as such.)"

Let's start with the basic fact that this is an erroneous statement. If she was at the event with an ESPN press pass or simply under the pretense of reporting for ESPN, she is an "ESPN reporter." The company can give out whatever titles it wants internally, but it can't dictate who's called a reporter and who isn't.

But then the reasoning gets really screwy. Right after emphasizing that "ESPN does allow its writers to maintain their own blogs," the unnamed ESPN editor explains that:

As far as we're concerned, Laura didn't do anything particularly "wrong" other than assume her personal speech would be taken as just that: personal. Sadly, now she knows better.

If you can figure out what that means, help me. Clearly Lane did something wrong (or "wrong"). Does ESPN fault her for not seeing this kerfuffle coming? If it does, it's fair to assume Lane took her bosses' displeasure into her calculations when she took her blog down.

Or, perhaps they are attempting to rid Lane of any blame because the reading public -- and even personal blogs are very much public, folks -- somehow failed to discern the difference between Lane's writing for ESPN and for her own blog. Because, if you recall, they both contain the same subject material.

What's more, the anonymous ESPN editor seems ignorant of the irony of the following timeline: 1) Lane posts the ESPN item based on a candid conversation with Bryant. 2) Bryant reads Lane the riot act about publishing the contents of what Bryant considered a private conversation. 3) Lane writes a glib post about the "awesome" confrontation on her personal blog. 4) Lane doesn't like the attention her "personal speech" is getting, so she takes down the blog entry.

Neither the ESPN editor nor Lane seem to acknowledge that taking down a blog post that makes you look stupid is bad form. If you're a reporter, (and again, she is) it suggests you don't stand by your story. And when it comes to journalism, neither context nor content are excused when your writing moves to a blogspot url.

What Lane does with her own blog and her own reputation is her call. It's more relevant how ESPN decides to approach the issue: And the post's closing statement boils down to: Don't blame us, we're just a dumb blog.

We're sure there's a First Amendment point we could make here but we feel like we're in over our heads as it is. Suffice it to say, we remain big Laura Lane fans here at The Mag.com and we've got her back.

The message is: We're glad to have her back, but she's not a reporter. We want you to know we're OK with blogs, even though this blog disappeared after the suits became unhappy with the coverage it caused.

Since the editors don't seem to get it, here's how I see it: The blogosphere is not a consequence-free environment. When you delete posts that make you look stupid, you lose credibility. And when you try to downplay your mistakes by arguing that people shouldn't take you seriously, people take you up on that suggestion.

Glib posts can be fun, and the blogosphere as much as any medium contains a bevy of sarcasm and snarkiness. But sometimes, particularly when attempting to discuss your own journalistic practices, you need to lay out the issues in a clear and painfully longwinded manner. (See also: this post.)

PS. It's just "Christmas Ape." There's no "The" in his name.