Mike Leach's new book, Swing Your Sword, was released Thursday, and Leach's co-author on the book was famed scribe Bruce Feldman (The Meat Market, 'Cane Mutiny). Small problem: Feldman also writes for ESPN.com's Insider section, and that may prove to be something of an issue when Leach's book contains a litany of complaints against ESPN on-air personality Craig James for his role in getting Leach fired from Texas Tech.And yet, according to reports, Feldman was given the green light to proceed with the book, and he never engaged in any promotion for the book before or after its release. Non-issue, then, right? Well, wait:ESPN college football writer Bruce Feldman was suspended indefinitely during a conference call with three ESPN officials this morning.[They] informed Feldman today that he has been banned from writing for any ESPN entity, is forbidden from appearing on any ESPN platform, is not allowed to Tweet from his Twitter account nor participate in any promotion of a recently-released book in which Feldman played a role.Such is the report from Sports by Brooks, anyway, and thus far there's been nothing to indicate the report isn't accurate. Feldman, who's normally a fairly active tweeter, has been silent since Wednesday on his ESPN-branded Twitter account @BFeldmanESPN, and no other ESPN personalities are commenting on the matter.Just about everybody else in the world is commenting, however, and "Bruce Feldman" became a trending topic fairly quickly Thursday night on Twitter. Twitterers made use of the #freebruce hashtag early and often, especially after Sports Illustrated writer Andy Staples canceled his ESPN Insider subscription in protest:Now, since ESPN hasn't released its side of this story yet, and since all we're working on is one report from one media outlet, SBB is a media outlet? it would be premature and assumptive to rake ESPN over the coals for this decision at this point. All reports indicate that Feldman was given the go-ahead to help write this book before the ugliness between ESPN and Leach. So if there was some amendment (whether explicit or tacit) to the arrangement after ESPN became directly involved, obviously, that would be relevant information that hasn't been released yet. We're all operating with limited information, and rather than build 1,500-word arguments based on assumptions that could be disproved by a single PR release before sunrise Friday, it's probably best to wait and learn more from the parties involved. WAITING! What a concept, media people!!!That all said, it's worth noting that, generally speaking, suspensions from organizations (whether sporting, media or otherwise) rarely improve the product being put out. Dez Bryant getting banned by the NCAA for the rest of his senior season didn't make Oklahoma State or the Big 12 any better or more entertaining, for example, to say nothing of what the NCAA lost when it wouldn't let Ohio State RB Maurice Clarett or USC WR Mike Williams get drafted or come back and play after their second seasons out of high school in 2004. Rules are rules, but taking talent off the field makes what happens on the field worse.Obviously, that's not to say that all suspensions or other disciplinary actions are inherently bad -- discipline is important, and to keep the examples in college football, nobody would argue that Lawrence Phillips didn't spend enough time off the Nebraska squad after his domestic assault charge during the 1995 season. So yes, clearly, suspensions or firings/dismissals serve a well-needed purpose.Yet, based on what we know now, Feldman didn't do anything wrong. He helped write a book that a whole lot of people really wanted to see written, and it wasn't even that one about ESPN itself that so many past and present ESPN employees gave testimony for -- under their own names, no less.No, instead, ESPN is apparently degrading its PR standing (to say nothing of its paid Insider product, to which Feldman actually contributes) in order to punish Feldman and push this notion of ESPN as a faultless company that virtually zero of its consumers actually believe. It's extremely difficult to find a benefit to the company itself in this decision. The product is worse. The public perception is worse. The journalistic freedom within is now demonstrably worse. Exactly what is ESPN trying to accomplish here?The appearance is that Craig James used his position at ESPN to force enough public pressure on Leach to be ousted from Texas Tech, and is now using his position within ESPN to force Feldman from the ranks at Bristol. If either is inaccurate and James would like to see Leach or Feldman restored to their previous statuses, by all means, we'd be glad to document such a statement. If not, it's hard not to think that ESPN is being used as a bully pulpit, and if that means a college football world without heavy involvement from Leach and Feldman, then college football is worse off for it, and that's no role for ESPN or any other major college football media organization to hold.
Well, that suspension levied on Bruce Feldman for co-authoring Mike Leach's book, Swing Your Sword, didn't last long. In fact, if you ask ESPN, it didn't happen at all. ESPN announced in a statement this afternoon that Feldman had been returned to his normal duties with the company, ending a 20-hour controversy over Feldman's treatment and involvement with the book. Here's ESPN's statement in full:Quote"There was never any suspension or any other form of disciplinary action. We took the time to review his upcoming work assignments in light of the book to which he contributed and will manage any conflicts or other issues as needed. Bruce has resumed his assignments."Now, the notion that Feldman was never under any disciplinary action, frankly, strains credulity. Again, it took 20 hours for ESPN to address this issue, and it's one that could have been resolved in, well, minutes. Further, the idea that Feldman wasn't suspended is apparently news to Mike Leach, who excoriated ESPN on the radio this morning, saying ESPN "isn't going to let little inconvenient details like the facts get in the way of their agenda."Moreover, the suspension was all but confirmed by Craig James, who expressed surprise on Twitter about the news this morning -- something that SB Nation's Spencer Hall believed to be true in this editorial, which is a little too scathing and scattershot to be of merit here.With that, then, this issue is effectively settled unless one of the parties feels the need to bring it up again; that seems unlikely. As mentioned before, suspensions almost always degrade a product, especially since Feldman was hardly a limiting agent for ESPN Insider, so ESPN is now better off for having reinstated (or whatever they want to call it) Feldman, so let's leave things like that and move on to more important things. Like video game football.
"There was never any suspension or any other form of disciplinary action. We took the time to review his upcoming work assignments in light of the book to which he contributed and will manage any conflicts or other issues as needed. Bruce has resumed his assignments."
Say this much for ESPN's Craig James, he's nothing if not masterfully disingenuous. By Spencer Hall - Contributor Bruce Feldman's suspension from ESPN has nothing to do with Craig James' godlike powers, and everything to do with giant infants in business suits. Jul 15, 2011 - During World War II, General Joseph Stilwell had to fight a war in China without troops, supplies, or help from his allies. It was bound to happen: a war machine is a big thing to run, and eventually some lonely department is going to fall into a hole of bureaucratic neglect. That vacuum of oversight will be filled by someone, and in most cases that vacuum will be filled by someone completely insane and incompetent. Case in point: Stilwell had to answer to Chiang Kai-Shek, a morphine-addicted lecher who would go on after the war to offload the entire Bank of China onto a boat, go to Taiwan, and slaughter tens of thousands of native islanders. Like many people who love power, he was completely crazy. During the middle of one battle, as Stilwell and his troops fought for survival in Burma, as the entire campaign was "crashing down around his ears," Stilwell was pulled to the back lines for a very, very important message from Chiang. In a perfect world this would have been a promise of reinforcements, supplies, or at the very least, encouragement from his only real ally. Instead, the telegram ordered the issue of one watermelon for every four men immediately.Never assume the adults are in charge. They are not. If adults were in charge, we wouldn't have battlefield orders for watermelon snacks, and we would not have college football writer Bruce Feldman suspended by ESPN for doing his job. Feldman, as easygoing, fair, methodical, and exacting a reporter as there exists in covering college football, was suspended for his work editing the new book by former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, Swing Your Sword, despite apparently being given full permission beforehand from ESPN to do so. (This story just gave me another excuse to link the Amazon page, and make you aware of its existence. Leach's literary agent and publishing house thank you for your free advertisement, ESPN.)I read the book on the plane Thursday night, and unlike every other piece of evidence cited by ESPN in their coverage of Leach's firing from Texas Tech, Leach's claims are documented. It's all right there in a series of emails included in an appendix, and in the sworn testimony collected from depositions. Like a good reporter or litigator, Leach builds his case, a case heard on CBSSports.com, CNNSI.com, SBNation.com, and a hundred other sites. One of those sites not listed is ESPN.com.There are reasons for this. ESPN is excoriated in the book for shoddy reporting, particularly Joe Schad, the on-air personality who regurgitated whole chunks of the narrative offered by Spaeth Communications -- the PR company Craig James hired -- without scrutiny or suspicion. The ethical conflicts within ESPN regarding Leach's case have been beaten to death elsewhere, and reheating them here is not the point. The point is larger than the network's boggling loyalty to Craig James, who admittedly comes across as the worst kind of person: an idiot too stupid to recognize his own malice, too weak to fight his own battles in public without the help of an odious PR agency, and too hambrained to avoid contradicting himself on the stand while "making a face like an infant messing his diaper," in Leach's words. He is arguably despicable, but he likely had little to do with the suspension of Feldman.Feldman's suspension -- and this is purely guesswork -- came about out of the sheer incompetence and breakneck ignorance an organization as big as ESPN/Disney/Matsumoto Fishing Concern produces. By structure, ESPN as a whole owes nothing to journalism, or even the act of stating fact, an inherent tension between the "E" in their name and the news it presents. When the two come into conflict, the one attached to cable subscriptions and the pipeline of cash wins, and everything else is thrown into a snowbank of indifference. By scale, it is impossible for one arm of the company to have full knowledge of what the other is doing. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the company's divided television and news branches. TV brings in money, but online their staff breaks much of the actual news, news which should, by dollar and organizational birthright, go on television first. If you wonder why an online writer is paying for the sins of a television commentator, this schism is why. Online will always lose the fight between the two because watching is easier than reading. To make things worse, the adults are not in charge. The oral history of ESPN is full of examples of corporate omerta squelching anything resembling an original voice excepting Bill Simmons, who is too huge for them to control at this point. If the adults were in charge, they would have known what an employee with an existing book agreement with Leach meant. They would have either compensated him for the busted deal, or simply allowed this to proceed.Instead, some fussy Babbitt up the corporate ladder became enraged when he, not understanding exactly what this meant or completely ignorant of the potential, read the spiciest excerpts from the book. Who knows whether they even know Craig James, or like him, or make sweet love to a picture of him rushing for one yard in Super Bowl 20 against the Chicago Bears. That does not matter here. All you need for explanation is an angry whippet in an office barking at a dog walking by its window without its explicit permission, and the suspension is complete. It is atrocious PR, horrendous management, and yes, antithetical to everything you would consider journalism. Don't sanctify journalism, mind you: it has its own collection of infants with Blackberries, just like any other profession. But while you're at it, don't forget to deal in shades of petty evil. There are brilliant people at ESPN, and there are those ticks who have been on the dog so long they think they're the ones you're saying "Good boy!" to after a successful fetch. Meanwhile, Leach's book is up to number four on Amazon's list of best-selling sports books, two spots above...These Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. Watermelons all around, manbabies, and that is an order.
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