Dave Sez

ESPN Hires Ombudsman

Well, ain't this something. ESPN has hired themselves an ombudsman.

What's that you say? You have no idea what that is? Go ahead then and look it up (I know I did). I'll wait a sec.

OK, now you know. An ombudsman serves to hear complaints from the people. Complaints from us.

Poor guy. George Soloman has been around a while, serving as the editor of the Washington Post's sports section for nearly 30 years, but he's probably not quite ready for this. The network needs help. There is plenty to complain about.

Back in the day, ESPN was much less polished and showed stuff like Australian rules football and snooker between repeats of last night's WAC basketball games. But while they may not have been big time, they understood that their focus was sports. Nowadays, they take the "E" part of their name a bit too seriously. They try to be entertaining and worse, cool. Well, they aren't cool. They can't be. Not anymore. They are part of the machine and the machine is never cool.

ESPN also has had an unfortunate tendency to learn from Fox News and CNN in their reporting. They tend toward the sensational, happily beating a dead, unimporant horse if that horse is young and blonde. At the same time, they might ignore and more important, but less sexy story.

So, I have high hopes. Any constructive criticism can help. All of us sports fans have become so addicted to ESPN that no matter how much it sucks or how many hours a day Stuart Scott appears, we'll watch. Solomon (good name for his job, huh?) earned my trust in this article, when he pointed out the network's tireless replays of Kenny Rogers' outburst and the infamous Detroit-Indiana brawl.

Keep it up man. And if I may make a suggestion - a little less Scott would be good for everyone.