The Erin Andrews videotape
What happened
A videotape surfaced on the Internet of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, who was filmed naked through a peephole in a hotel room. Andrews'' representatives and ESPN acknowledged the grainy video was of Andrews and that they would seek civil and criminal action against those behind the video if they are caught.
This column will attempt to add context and reasonable perspective — two things generally lacking when a favored white woman is wronged in America — to the debate raging in the sports blogosphere about whether blogs contributed to the crime perpetrated against Ms. Andrews.
While all agree that Andrews was the victim of an abhorrent act, that didn''t stop several media outlets, including Fox News and CBS, from airing either photos from the video or the video (with parts of Andrews'' body blurred). The New York Post also ran several still photos, and ESPN has responded by banning Post reporters from appearing on its shows.
Surely by now you''ve heard. Someone secretly videotaped Erin Andrews while she was nude at a hotel(s) curling her hair and ironing her clothes. TMZ.com speculated rather persuasively the Zapruder in this fiasco might very well be one of Andrews'' co-workers.
The video had been available (and ignored) on the Internet for months, but gained popularity this week when the influential Web site Deadspin wrote a post on the subject and linked to the Web site hosting the Andrews peephole footage.
Deadspin has been the world-wide leader in sexually objectifying Erin Andrews (ESPN actually trails Deadspin in this category) and in invading the privacy of athletes and members of the sports media, so it is not all that surprising that its editor, AJ Daulerio, would throw the match on gasoline poured by a peephole pervert.
Bottom line
Any news organization has the right to set the standards by which it will report a story. But because this case involved a civil suit and a high-profile athlete and because reputable news organizations, including the New York Times, reported the story, it did seem odd that ESPN chose to ignore it, especially when it calls itself the "Worldwide Leader in Sports." If nothing else, ESPN''s future practices on reporting such stories will be under heavy scrutiny.