Reality Bites Back -- Some At ESPN Assail BONDS Show

(From The New York Times -- By Richard Sandomir)

A two-day seminar attended by ESPN personnel at an airport hotel in Hartford earlier this week exposed a schism within the network about the wisdom of televising a 10-hour reality series starring BARRY BONDS.

The series, BONDS ON BONDS, starts Tuesday at 8 pm Eastern, on ESPN2. It will join the overheated Bonds-oriented news cycle that includes a raft of accusations in a new book, GAME OF SHADOWS, about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, and Baseball Commissioner BUD SELIG's announcement Thursday of an investigation into steroid abuse.

There have been rumblings of discontent within ESPN since the plan to carry the series was announced, but the internal critics were unable to confront a unified senior management until Monday.

The emotional, sometimes angry debate within ESPN centers in part on whether it has put itself in an untenable journalistic position by aggressively reporting on Bonds' pursuit of HANK AARON's career home run record while simultaneously carrying, at least through midseason, a series that provides Bonds editorial control of its content.

Other serious concerns are whether ESPN is paying for access to Bonds, who is difficult to cover, and giving him hours of time to rehabilitate his image.

ESPN is paying several million dollars to TOLLIN/ROBBINS PRODUCTIONS, which is sharing marketing revenue with Bonds.

"This has conflicts that need to be resolved," said
JEFF BRANTLEY, an ESPN analyst who played with Bonds on the Giants in 1993. "Take this one -- PEDRO GOMEZ is covering Bonds on a daily basis, and if he asks tough questions, will Barry be allowed to go back at Pedro on his show?"

VINCE DORIA, ESPN's News Director, who admitted to having early reservations about carrying the series, said Thursday that Bonds would be "ill-served" if he uses the series to "belittle some of our people."

Gomez, who was among those who objected most pointedly during the meeting, declined to discuss what he said. Others who cover baseball for ESPN were also said to be among the harshest critics of the series.

Doria said the reactions among the ESPN reporters, analysts, anchors and production workers included those who "felt it was a deal that we shouldn't have made, some felt it was fine, some felt in between."

ESPN executives have justified their decision to carry the series by saying it is a product of ESPN ORIGINAL ENTERTAINMENT (EOE), which is separate from the news operations of SPORTSCENTER and other shows.

To that end, they have said, ESPN will not use anything from the series until it is aired, and will make it available to other networks and stations.

"If real news is broken and we can't use it until it airs, people will raise questions," Doria said. "But I'd rather face those questions than give the impression that we're paying for news."

A guest speaker at the Monday seminar was MIKE WALLACE, the 60 MINUTES correspondent, who was paid to discuss his interviewing style.

Wallace arrived after the main session but said in an interview Thursday that after talking for a while about his work, debate returned to the Bonds series. "And all of a sudden they began to shoot their mouths off, about how could ESPN, in effect, pay this huge amount of money to this production company for what isn't reportage," Wallace said.

Wallace said he told one of the ESPN executives, "You've got to be kidding," in reference to the decision to carry the series. And in the interview, he said, "I think the majority thought it was a bad idea."

He also called the series an example of "checkbook journalism."

Brantley said he was satisfied with the responses of ESPN management, but is still concerned how the series will look and if it will make the network seem, as he put it, "stupid." He wondered if the series would stay on the air if it was substandard.

When the seminar resumed on Tuesday, JOHN SKIPPER, ESPN's Executive Vice President for Content, who had opened up the seminar for the Bonds debate, said the series would proceed as scheduled.