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Owens Saga Grabs Ratings, Eyeballs

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Media “Carnival” Over NFL Star Decried, Defended

The latest drama involving Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens — the report of a suicide attempt and then its denial — made for huge headlines and plenty of airtime, and a day later, insistence from news media executives that they made the right decisions.

“Our feeling is, ‘did we do a lot of coverage?’ Absolutely,” ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz told Journal-isms Thursday. “The TV medium is very different from the print media. People aren’t sitting there for all four hours” that ESPN covered the breaking news. “The story was evolving,” involving a major sports figure “with a pretty unique story if he’d done what police reported. Fans turn to us when news is breaking. When there’s big news, we want to be there for the fan.”

ESPN covered the story live from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, and then discussed the events on the shows that followed, “Outside the Lines” and “NFL Live.” One payoff: From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., ESPN reached an average 623,000 households, Krulewitz said — double its usual rating.

[The Web site of the Dallas Morning News “had 1.7 m page views, a record number for DallasNews.com. The Cowboys are huge news in our market,” Morning News Editor Bob Mong said by e-mail on Friday. “I was proud of the coverage.”]

But on Philly.com, Web site of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, by 11 p.m. Thursday 1,593 people had responded to the question, “Did the media overreact on the latest Terrell Owens story?” The tally was 1,054 yes and 539 no.

“Who else’s reported suicide attempt turns into a party complete with Rush Limbaugh dedicating an entire segment and Good Morning America sending a crew? Jennifer Floyd Engel wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Twenty-three cameras and nearly 100 reporters all salivating at what lies, half-truths, denials and accusations would come next. And amid all the buffoonery, surprise of all surprises, the most coherent one was Owens.”

“Thing is,” added ESPN columnist Pat Forde, “when you combine a 911 call, the word ‘suicide’ in an official document, the star power of Owens and a ravenous 24-hour multimedia news cycle that sustains itself on breaking news — and never waits long before leaping from fact-gathering to analysis and sweeping judgment — you have an absolute carnival.”

The syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show” sent out a release Wednesday morning promising “extended coverage of the reported suicide attempt of Dallas Cowboy receiver Terrell Owens on BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“In addition to articles that will be updated throughout the day, the website will feature video clips from the Associated Press and allows readers to post their thoughts and prayers about the notorious receiver. Additional updates are expected throughout the week on the nation’s top ranked ‘Tom Joyner Morning Show’. Joyner broke into the show today to share the news and expressed his concern about Owens’ condition, and urged listeners to pray for him,” it continued. “Go to BlackAmericaWeb.com to listen to an audio stream of the show.”

The “experts” immediately made themselves available to reporters, Melissa Isaacson wrote in the Chicago Tribune. “Terrell Owens was scarcely out of the hospital Wednesday morning, had not yet had the chance to deny what originally was reported as a suicide attempt, according to the police record, and the machinery was already in motion. Tribune editors and reporters, like other newspapers and television outlets, started receiving e-mails from doctors, marketing experts and PR people . . .”

On Thursday morning, columnists weighed in around the country, not only on whether the coverage was excessive but on whether the right aspects were emphasized.

As the Associated Press recounted the events, “According to Owens, he made the mistake of mixing prescription pain pills with the all-natural supplements he ordinarily takes. The combination left him woozy and his publicist, who was with him at his Dallas condo, became worried when he couldn’t respond to her questions. Having also discovered an empty bottle of pills, she called 911 around 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“But around 8 a.m. Wednesday, the story took a radical turn. WFAA-TV in Dallas got hold of an unreleased police report and reported that it stated a suicide attempt was called in, that Owens was described as being depressed, that 35 pills were missing and that Owens said he was trying to harm himself.

“The police and fire department followed by holding news conferences that provided few answers. Questions lingered, even as Owens left the hospital flashing a thumb’s up sign to reporters.

“Cowboys coach Bill Parcells held his daily news briefing before Owens spoke. He professed not to know any details, then cut the session off early once he was getting hardly anything but questions about Owens.

“‘When I find out what the hell is going on, you will know,’ Parcells said, getting up to leave. ‘Until then, I’m not getting interrogated for no reason.’

“Owens made it to team headquarters in time to catch some passes from quarterbacks Drew Bledsoe and Tony Romo. He then showed up to a packed news conference wearing workout gear and his usual wide smile.

“T.O. seemed more amused than peeved. He apologized for being a distraction, thanked his friends for worrying about him and said he is ‘not depressed by any means.'”

Kim Etheredge, Terrell’s publicist, “also spoke at the news conference, telling her side of the story and criticizing the police report that found its way to reporters before sections were blacked out. About half the information was obscured once it was officially released.”

“I am just upset that I just feel they take advantage of Terrell,” she said. “Had this been someone else, this may not have happened,” she added, according to the AP.

Like ESPN’s Krulewitz, Michael Valentine, news director of WFAA-TV, where reporter Rebecca Lopez broke the story, had no apologies. The WFAA Web site got a million hits Wednesday, he said, adding that the coverage was justified because Owens is a public figure and “a face of the Cowboys.”

“Well, the Dallas Cowboys are THE biggest traffic drive on our web site,” Jim Witt, editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, similarly told Journal-isms, “so it’s hard to overplay any news they make.”

Columnists and other observers had their own perspectives.

Gregory Lee of the Boston Globe, chair of the Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists, said:

“We can all debate the merits of the coverage of T.O.’s latest drama. Is Owens going to the hospital newsworthy? Yes. The media naturally gravitated towards the hottest story instead of the ramifications of the entire episode. T.O. is a story in [and] of itself given his controversial past. But in this instance, one can argue the media could have focused more on the legal and medical issues surrounding this story rather than on Owens’ celebrity. This was a chance for the media to challenge the reliability of police reports, which media outlets heavily depend on. Certainly the question can be asked if the police report says he attempted to take his life, then how can a person who attempted to take his life can walk out of the hospital the same day with[out] having a mental examination. The media has the opportunity to develop stories on mental health issues.”

“When I hear stuff I don’t necessarily believe it,” Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School, told Journal-isms, speaking of the news media. “You’re never able to get the kind of detail in a newspaper article to come to a conclusion” about depression or mental health. “I had wished the media wouldn’t report anything until they had an opportunity to talk to Terrell Owens.”

Poussaint has a special interest in mental health among African Americans, having co-written a book in 2000 about it, “Lay My Burden Down,” after an older brother committed suicide. “The suicide rate for black males has been going up,” Poussaint said. “It’s half the white rate, and black men commit suicide at four times the rate of black women.” The stigma of mental health problems needs to be lifted, he said, “so that black people will realize that emotional trouble happens to everybody.”

On the Poynter Institute web site, Al Tompkins did write that “Whatever happened, it is an opportunity for journalists to talk about suicide, which is the 11th leading cause of death in this country (far higher than homicide) according to the National Institute of Mental Health.”

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, writing in the town where Owens played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Dawn Fallik and Alfred Lubrano told readers, “Professional sports teams typically employ doctors to care for everything from concussions to broken toes. But mental health is often kept far behind locker-room doors.”

Aside from mental health angle, Owens himself provided columnists with enough material. “Vanity. Glory. Narcissism. Pride. Greed. Controversy. Excellence. They’re all in this one athlete, everything you love and hate about sports, bursting to get out of a body that looks like God Himself carved it in an advanced sculpting class. That’s what makes Owens the most famous person in America’s most popular sport and our country’s most polarizing athlete — a cocktail of ingredients that, not unlike his allegedly bad medicine, makes us feel light-headed, euphoric, manic, irrational and dizzy,” Dan Le Batard wrote in the Miami Herald.

“Somehow, some way, Owens is the victim today,” Stephen A. Smith wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “the victim of a contingent determined to suck the life out of him. The pills he took are a mere figment of everyone’s imagination, an exaggerated tale to sell more papers and air time. It’s another story blown out of proportion. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Owens is too healthy and wealthy and locked inside a fantasy world to be suicidal. But if he ever saw himself as we see him, he’d bear the trait shared by all suicide victims: sadness,” Shaun Powell wrote in Newsday.

In USA Today, Christine Brennan wrote: “The Cowboys, exasperated as they must be today, would be wise to take a step back and make sure their flamboyant wideout isn’t truly having big problems. As much as his past antics and current denials might trivialize an issue as grave as suicide, the Cowboys cannot allow that to happen.”

Suicide or no suicide, the Joyner show did not let the subject go. On Thursday morning, it played sound bites of Owens’ news conference over a funky tune about “all these rumors.”

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“Survivor” Ends Division by Race After 2 Shows

“All the hubbub about the ‘Survivor’ ethnic experiment turned out to be pretty worthless,” David Bauder wrote Friday for the Associated Press.

“Why? Because after only two episodes, producers merged the black, white, Asian and Latino tribes into two mixed-race gangs on the CBS reality show Thursday night. No explanation was given for the quick abandonment of segregation; it seemed to pass by so quickly as to mean nothing.”

“Drop your buffs,” host Jeff Probst ordered the contestants. “You have been living together as tribes divided based on ethnicity. It is now time to integrate.”

“‘There’s a creative line you’re walking of how long to keep a group a group before you split them up,’ Probst said in a conference call earlier this month,” Gina Serpe reported for E! Online. “‘Knowing what Survivor is, we’re going to integrate you.

“‘Now the question is, do you stick with your own ethnic group, or, more likely, will you look to make alliances with people who can provide shelter or fish or who you like.'”

The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan wrote Friday on her blog, “CBS certainly got what it wanted by announcing that the show would divide the tribes initially based on ethnicity. An aging franchise got a huge dose of free publicity and a show that had become just another program instead of sensation was being talked about once more.

“. . . And what did we get? We got played, America.”

Although “Survivor’s” racial division was criticized as a cheap and offensive publicity stunt, some African American columnists found value in the concept.

“As strange as it might sound, CBS executives at least showed an honest view of race relations in the United States and on television when they divided the four teams of ‘Survivor’ along racial lines,” Lewis Diuguid wrote Sept. 20 in the Kansas City Star.

In the Orlando Sentinel last week, Tammy L. Carter wrote, “Though there was an uproar about dividing this season’s 20 players by race, the first episode was enlightening, not offensive. Viewers saw what happens when folks with a shared racial/cultural experience get together.”

She urged readers, “Instead of fearing or being offended by Survivor: Cook Islands, watch tonight’s episode at 8 on CBS. And then start talking.” [Added Sept. 29]

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Scarbrough Looking to “Resuscitate” AOL Sports

Neal Scarbrough, who became editor of AOL Sports in May, says of his assignment, “We are trying to resuscitate the body. The good news [is] we have a great medical staff on hand and their efforts to generate new ideas and page views are pushing us toward our goals.”

Scarbrough was ESPN’s vice president and news editor and spent time as the editor-in-chief of ESPN.com before joining AOL.

Since then, he told Journal-isms, “we built and launched The FanHouse, a blogger network featuring a lead blogger for each of 32 NFL teams and 40 college football teams. . . . We have committed to surfacing the contributions of our bloggers right along side our traditional news and info. We are actually paying bloggers per post and have assembled the best of breed. These guys are breaking news and live blogging NFL Sunday nights and Monday nights.

“Elsewhere, we have [been] upgrading the design of our site in advance of a total redesign in 2007.”

As reported Tuesday, Scarbrough said he views hiring Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock as “the linchpin, but we also are pursuing other new voices. We have a voice sports fans will come back to read,” Scarborough said. Whitlock left ESPN.com.

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“Black Press All-Stars” Gala a Big Bust

“It was a history-maker of an event that never happened, according to some celebrities and media professionals who showed up at the Marriott Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore, for the 2nd annual Black Press All-stars Awards slated for Sept. 15-17,” Derek Braxton and Alafaka Opuiyo wrote Wednesday in the Afro-American, which has Washington and Baltimore editions.

“‘The whole thing was a fraud,’ stated an enraged Nkiru (Christiana) Ogbuokiri, Washington Post special products coordinator.

“Ogbuokiri, along with many others who were inconvenienced by the events that never occurred, was contacted by a convincing woman named DC Livers, whose title, as written in advertisements, was ‘managing editor for Historical Black Press Foundation.’ The event boasted the likeness and participation of Earl Graves and Roxanne Shante, neither of whom attended the event.

“The purpose of the event was to build unity within the Black journalism community. The scope of the weekend included a Media All Star Awards Luncheon, Girls Empowerment Brunch and a Hip-Hop Anti-Violence Town Hall Meeting.

“According to a fired-up Felicia Hatcher, a volunteer for the alleged events, 12 people attended the awards luncheon and none of the other events took place.”

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More HBCU Newspapers Increasing Frequency

“The Student Voice at Albany State University — previously published every two weeks — began circulating every week this semester. Tennessee State University’s the Meter is producing a Thursday online edition. Florida A&M University’s the Famuan and the News Argus of Winston-Salem State University also plan to increase their publication frequency,” Darren Sands wrote Monday on Black College Wire.

“For these papers at historically black colleges and universities, the benefits of increased publication, in print and online, are clear.

In most cases, it means more advertising revenue and increased relevancy on campus. Putting out a higher volume of stories makes the student journalists more attractive candidates for summer internships at daily newspapers.”

In February 2005, the Hilltop at Howard University became the first newspaper at a historically black college or university to publish daily.

“Brian Blount, head of the Mass Communications department at Winston-Salem State, said he would facilitate an increase in the publication frequency of the News Argus from once a month to every two weeks. The department is seeking accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Increasing the publication frequency, he said, is a key part of the process,” the story said.

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2 Who Also Grew Up in South Challenge Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s attempts to invoke the civil rights movement, and to link it with the war in Iraq, have met with blistering rejoinders from two African American columnists who also grew up in the segregated South.

“Many Black middle-class families refused to confront Americaâ??s version of apartheid, yet when the doors of opportunity flung open, they were the first to march through them, riding on the back of poor people who were unafraid to take risks,” wrote George E. Curry, editor of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, who, like Rice, grew up in Alabama.

Curry wrote after Rice appeared Sunday on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes,” and “talked in moving terms about the four girls killed in the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. One of them, Denise McNair, ‘was my little friend from kindergarten’ and another, Addie Mae Collins, ‘was in my uncleâ??s homeroom in school.’â??

“She can talk passionately about the horrors of that era yet seemingly feel no shame that her parents chose to sit on the sidelines.

“Perhaps thatâ??s why Rice feels so comfortable defending George W. Bush, arguably the worst president on civil rights in more than 50 years. Unlike her parents, she is not on the sidelines â?? sheâ??s on the wrong team. And in the wrong role â?? Super Fly,” Curry wrote on Monday in a column headlined, “Condoleezza Rice pimps the civil rights movement.”

In the Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson, who grew up in Orangeburg, S.C., noted that “Rice equates the racists who bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, killing four young girls — including Denise McNair, a childhood playmate — with modern-day suicide bombers who kill in the name of jihad.

“I, too, grew up in the South during the last throes of Jim Crow segregation,” Robinson wrote Tuesday. “I don’t see how anyone could come out of that milieu without feeling that the violence waged back then by the Ku Klux Klan and other white racists was a very specific, highly personal form of terrorism.

“Just a few hundred yards from my house, three black students were killed in a 1968 demonstration that had begun over a segregated bowling alley. I remember waking up one morning and seeing a dozen highway patrol cars parked across the street, the officers crouched with their rifles trained at a house two doors from mine. They were looking for the supposed ‘outside agitator’ who was stirring up all the local colored folk, but fortunately he was long gone.

“That’s one essential difference that Rice ignores — that during the civil rights era, the terrorism was of the kind we would now call ‘state-sponsored.’ It was of the powerful over the powerless, not the other way around.”

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