While looking at the topic of the media portrayal of the NBA, the article I have chose to analyze for this week’s assignment is ESPN’s article, “Damian Lillard, Blazers livid after missed call in final seconds vs. Jazz” that reports on an incident of a missed violation which cost Damian Lillard and Trailblazers to fall to Utah Jazz, 117-114 Friday, Feb. 7.
When further analyzing how the media portrays NBA news, I chose ESPN because I believe it to be one of the most reputable sources for sports news. ESPN refers to multiple sources within the content of the article which includes, NBA officiated assessment of the last two minutes of the game, Interviews of players of Portland and Utah, and mentions that the Associated Press had contributed to the article. All the sources and evidence enhance the content of the article and reporting on these events.
The sources ESPN highlights in this article all convey credibility other than interviews with players because that would be categorized more into an opinion. The NBA officiating report is a source directly from the National Basketball Association and can be confirmed credible. Associated Press, according to The AllSides Media Bias Chart, remains as a neutral, source online and continues to hold high credibility for news in our media environment today.
I did find the following article on the internet via ESPN’s website but the article here includes many hyperlinks with more information on specific players, statistics of this specific game, and evidence referred to like the NBA report. The article includes embedded tweets and other media that refer or report on the same line of events which portrays and makes it easy to fact-check the information provided by media consumers. All of these strategies mentioned above make it less difficult for consumers to verify the information in the article and reinforce ESPN’s credibility.
ESPN uses one of the officiants of the game, Josh Tiven’s interview from a Pool Report to reveal a view from the officiatiants’ standpoint. Tivens admits in this Pool Report that after the play was later reviewed, they had missed the violation. The article also includes a quote from Utah’s Rudy Gobert mentioning his opinion on the missed call, “Mistakes are made. Officials are human. I feel like it’s all part of the game.”
Although there is no specific ESPN reporter credited for this article, I do argue that ESPN remains to be a credible source when reporting on majority of NBA news. ESPN uses interviews, official reports, and other news sources to allow them to remain credible and back up the information provided.
I would give the overall content and article a letter grade of A because I would argue ESPN news services has excelled at remaining factual and neutral on the the topic reported on above. The source, as I previously mentioned, provides multiple links to more information and official league reports to ensure the information within the article is factual. All of these practices shown while I analyzed the following article enhance ESPN and the sports news provided as credible, factual, and showing no bias.
