ESPN: We Didn't Cover for Michael Beasley

Back when Dumbgate first broke, an early ESPN report by Chris Broussard on the Mario Chalmers-Darrell Arthur rookie camp bust mentioned Michael Beasley had been in the hotel room as well. Beasley's name was quickly yanked from the story without notation ... but not before the Kansas City Star (and others) caught a glimpse. The Star story which cited the presence of Beasley's name has since left the internet (it is more than two weeks old, and has apparently gone to paywall heaven), but The Pitch, a Kansas City weekly, has also documented the turn of events for posterity.

In comments to The Pitch, ESPN director of PR Crystal Howard said the reference was pulled when editorial staff decided his connection was "hearsay." She also noted no apology or correction would be offered. It seemed weird: ESPN connected Beasley, however briefly, to fairly notorious scandal based on supposed "hearsay," but refused to acknowledge the mistake in doing so on its own pages?

Of course, Beasley has since been fined $50,000 by the league for his involvement in the incident and his lack of cooperation in the investigation. ESPN has not run from it: an Associated Press account of the news remains a top NBA ESPN headline, and Henry Abbott has written a lengthy post on the matter. (I'm not aware of what flavor of TV coverage the story received Thursday evening and Friday morning.) But Broussard clearly had something two weeks ago when he mentioned Beasley's name, and Abbott confirms this by noting all the rumors he has heard over the weeks from NBA sources.

Beasley happens to be featured in an editorial series for ESPN.com dubbed "The Rookie." It's a series of webisodes which will take viewers though Beasley's premiere NBA season. The first vids were published around the time of the June draft. Obviously, ESPN has a relationship with Beasley. It's obviously in Beasley's interest (whether he realizes it or not) to keep a clean nose in the public eye (ask J.R. Smith, contracts don't write themselves). Could Beasley's camp exert pressure to quiet the world's leading sports journalism outfit from sniffing on a tenuous story? It's possible.

I contacted ESPN PR to find out the exact nature of the network's relationship with Beasley and whether this had a bearing in the editorial decision to strike Beasley's name from the early report without notation. Josh Krulewitz, an ESPN spokesman, says this was "absolutely not" the case.

"We are a multi-faceted company that has business relationships with numerous (virtually all) leagues, teams and individuals that we cover aggressively every day. Our news operation in no way is impacted."

Krulewitz said ESPN contracts with P3 Entertainment to produce the Beasley project, and does not have a direct contractual relationship with Beasley.

Did ESPN aggressively cover this story? I think, based on the record, they did not. As Matt Moore mentioned Thursday, an infamous photo of Beasley with a spliff-holding Chalmers on a hotel balcony has made the rounds for two weeks. I find it impossible to fathom none of ESPN's myriad NBA reporters came across the photo. The ESPN NBA team is damn good at what they do (evidenced by Broussard's breaking of the initial story). Yet there has been zero original reporting of Beasley's connection published since the story broke. Again: this is the most prolific collection of full-time NBA reporters around. There's little chance they randomly missed a story they had already sniffed.

I don't think it has anything to do with "The Rookie" or some vast ESPN cover-up, though. This was a touchy story from the get-go. FanHouse knew about the photo last week, and AOL Sports photo editors were asked to look at the photo to ascertain its credibility. (They found no obvious evidence of Photoshoppery.) We still didn't run the photo. I understand ESPN's initial concern with the story, because accusing someone of a small crime and a large dose of stupidity is no small matter. That's why FanHouse didn't run with the story.

I assume that's why ESPN fell behind on this and didn't follow the Beasley angle any further: there's no proof of anything beyond Beasley's confession to the NBA. Still, this whole conspiracy theory (which others have discussed elsewhere) could have been avoided if ESPN had done the right journalistic thing in the first place by issuing a retraction instead of pretending the backspace key makes information disappear.