ESPN Reporter Erin Andrews Peephole Video Scandal Renew

ESPN Reporter Erin Andrews Peephole Video Scandal come with a new look in a new battle.
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The battle between ESPN and the New York Post heated up last week over the paper's publication of images grabbed from an illicitly filmed peephole video showing ESPN reporter Erin Andrews naked in her hotel room.
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The Post defended its publication of the images, while accusing the sports network of having outed Andrews in the first place.

ESPN on July 22 said it was banning Post reporters from appearing on the company's programs because the newspaper published three photos from the video.

A newspaper spokeswoman declined to comment on the ban. She referred The Associated Press to an item on the Post's gossip page published Thursday that takes ESPN to task for allegedly outing Andrews.

“No one would have known that a sick voyeur had secretly videotaped ESPN reporter Erin Andrews nude in her hotel room, if the Mickey Mouse sports network hadn't sent a letter to an obscure Web site demanding that it take down its link to a fuzzy video of an unidentified blonde,” the Post said in its popular “Page 6” column.

The Post quoted ESPN spokesman Chris LaPlaca as saying the network is acting “in concert with Erin and her team.” A spokesman for the Bristol, Conn.-based company, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., declined further comment Thursday.

ESPN executive editor John Walsh, in an interview Thursday on a syndicated radio show hosted by former ESPN employee Dan Patrick, called the Post's coverage embarrassing and reprehensible to Andrews.

“We felt if we were the parents of the victim of this crime and we saw the words 'New York Post' on our air that we wouldn't be doing justice to the person that we know is our colleague,” he said.

ESPN last week sent a letter to a Web site demanding that the video be removed. The person who posted the video didn't identify the nude woman, but her attorney has confirmed the video was of the 31-year-old reporter.



The Post was one of several TV networks and newspapers that aired or published images from the video, which Andrews' attorney says was shot without her knowledge. Andrews plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the person who shot the video and anyone who publishes the material, attorney Marshall Grossman said.

Grossman previously told the AP that Andrews decided to confirm it was her “to put an end to rumor and speculation and to put the perpetrator and those who are complicit on notice that they act at their peril.”

Post reporters, including columnists Lenn Robbins, Kevin Kernan, Joel Sherman and Mark Cannizzaro, are regular guests on ESPN shows.

Everybody knows by now about the Erin Andrews incident—in which the model-gorgeous ESPN reporter was videotaped in the nude, allegedly through a keyhole in the door to her hotel room. Stills from the video were published by The New York Post, among other media outlets. Some online news outlets even ran pieces of the video.

ESPN then banned New York Post sports reporters from its TV shows. The story exploded anew after that, with a second round of echo-chamber effect in the blogosphere. Everyone has an opinion. That's the Wild West we today call the blogosphere. There have even been suggestions by little-known bloggers Andrews arranged to make the video as a publicity stunt.

I agree with Seattle Times staff columnist Jerry Brewer, whose article is entitled, "Erin Andrews nude video is a sick crime; when will men grow up?"

The Andrews incident has largely been labeled an Internet scandal (blame it on the blogs, huh?), but really, it's a sports culture scandal. It's about men being men at their worst. It's about the false notion that it's OK to be intolerable and horny and barbaric because it's all part of the guy sports experience. It's our right, right?

I wish women would stop propping up men's sports. If women didn't attend NFL games or NBA games, or even watch them on TV to help drive up ratings, they would be doing more to stop men from behaving badly than they could ever do otherwise. If they encouraged their sons to play sports instead of paying to watch other people play baseball or football or basketball or soccer, they would be sending the message that athleticism is good, but pro sports culture is bad. And it is, nothing but bad.

I am well aware this suggestion is the stuff of fantasy. That said, I never have understood why women participate in male sports culture, and then turn around and criticize it when something bad emanates from it. It's a waste of time, pure and simple.