Dear NFL and ESPN
Ben Roethlisberger was implicated this week in the rape and sexual assault of a hotel worker and is now facing criminal charges for it. My question to you, NFL, is: where is the firestorm of hate now? Where's Roger Goodell reprimanding his actions and the Pittsburgh Steelers dropping him like a bad habit? Where are the fines, suspensions and warnings? I swear, NFL, you are a modern-day plantation. The only difference is that there are white slaves that don't get treated like slaves. When Pac-Man Jones makes it rain in the club and his friends (not him) shoot people, Pac-Man gets suspended indefinitely. When Michael Vick heads a dogfighting ring, he gets suspended indefinitely. Why is it now, that when Roethlisberger, one of the poster children of the league, a two-time Super Bowl champion, steps out of line, Goodell's move is to 'look into it'?? There's no getting around the implications of this type of action by the NFL. Race clearly plays an issue and unless Goodell treats Roethlisberger in the same way he does any other person implicated in a crime, then he is contradicting himself and the spirit of the player conduct policy he so vehemently enforces. This brings me to the second culprit of Roethlisberger's fiasco, ESPN.
Now, I know we don't always like ESPN. They show way too much baseball and beat stories to death. However, it is really the only media outlet completely dedicated to sports, so we have to endure through it. We expect from ESPN fair and balanced coverage of ALL sports stories, so why is this happening:
via Philadelphia Inquirer:
"At this point, we are not reporting the allegations against Ben Roethlisberger because no criminal complaint has been filed," an ESPN spokesman told me. "As far as we know, this is a civil lawsuit that Roethlisberger has yet to address publicly."
ESPN, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Since when has an athlete's nondisclosure kept you guys from constantly reporting on whatever issue it was? This lawsuit was filed on July 17th, and unless I'm unknowingly blind and deaf, I haven't heard diddly squat about Big Ben on Sportscenter. It seems like there's a little bit of bias or some sort of foul play going on here. When Michael Vick goes to prison and Pacman Jones gets arrested, you can't turn on ESPN or go on ESPN.com without being bombarded with news, analysis or opinion on their respective cases. Why is Roethlisberger being kept from this same media crucification? Is his charge of raping a woman less severe than dogfighting or a shooting that an athlete wasn't even involved in? To me it just seems like you guys have a field day when reporting about the wrongs that black athletes commit, but have a hard time doing anything to soil the reputations of white athletes. The last time I checked, double standards have no place in fair OR balanced news reporting, sports included. To withhold information not only misinforms the public but makes you look bad as a network. I guess ESPN couldn't stand to make one of its cash cows into the bad guy, no matter how petty they look...
To both the NFL and ESPN, I say this: create your standards, and then STICK TO THEM. Wishy-washy player conduct rules and biased reporting don't make either of your entities any more highly regarded, and though I shudder to say the R word (racism, you idiots), it's becoming more and more evident as a black sports fan that there is a lot of it in the sports world...