Examining privacy in a see-all, tell-all media environment (with Football!)

As you've probably figured out by now, I love sports. Sportsy-sports-sports.

Anyway, one might think that the elements in journalism wouldn't apply as much in the sports world. Truth is what happens on the field or the court. A sportswriter needs only to convey what went on at the game, along with some post-game interviews mixed in, right?

Well, just as news has become a 24-hour a day medium, sports has done the same, and more space needs to be filled on the tube and the web. As such, sports news has had to change and become a more sound form of journalism. Recently, sports networks and their websites have even hired ombudsmen to critique the journalistic quality of their programming.

This post sparks from an article by ESPN's ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber, formerly a sports editor for the New York Times. You can read it here.

The debate revolves around Vince Young, quarterback for the Tennessee Titans. He suffered an injury in this season's opening game on September 7. Happens all the time, right? Well, Young has had some on-the-field struggles during his brief pro career, and he has told the press that it has had a negative effect on him mentally, even to the point of considering retirement. This injury seemed to add to his mental strain.

On September 8, the day after Young's injury, he went to watch Monday Night Football at a friend's house. Trouble is, no one from the Titans knew that's where he was. Titans coach Jeff Fisher called Nashville police for help in finding where Young was, concerned about his state of mind. Young was later found to be no threat to himself or others.

Why would Fisher do this? ESPN obtained a copy of the police report the following Friday, September 12, which described that Young's therapist had coach Coach Fisher that Young had mentioned suicide and left the therapist's office with a gun. ESPN then published an article on their web site entitled "Fisher reached out to police because therapist said Young mentioned suicide". The story also was covered on various ESPN TV programs.

Schreiber writes, "There was a 36-hour period when viewers and readers, taking the story at face value, flooded my mailbox with serious questions about the journalistic ethics of publishing information from a therapist about a person's mental state."

The police report, as it turns out, happened to be very poorly worded. Coach Fisher later said in an interview with ESPN's Chris Mortensen that Young has no personal therapist, but visits with one that works for the team, Sheila Peters. He also said that Mike Mu, Young's local marketing manager, had called Peters on the Monday night in question and told her that Young had mentioned suicide.

So, even though it wasn't the therapist that released the information, it was still some serious privacy invasion by ESPN, right? Not so fast, says Schreiber. She explains that ESPN didn't break the story. The police report was first obtained legally by the local paper in Nashville, which then went on the AP wire. At that point, Schreiber says that ESPN "had an obligation to assess the information as best they could and present it responsibly to their audience."

Schreiber also describes how the executive editor of ESPN.com, Patrick Stiegman, did not want to rush the story, and warned his writers to not jump to conclusions. They needed to persist in corroborating the police report. Schreiber's final verdict was that "ESPN could not and should not have kept that information out of the news."

So, do you agree with Schreiber? Does any news organization have an obligation to publish a story that they obtained in such a way? Is this even really news?