Braun: You Knew It Was Coming Part 1

You Knew It Was Coming: Braun Is Innocent

If you have been sitting in a cave over the last 48 hours, Ryan Braun won his appeal and will not serve the prescribed 50-game suspension for a violation of MLB’s drug policy.

Since the announcement on Thursday afternoon, there has been a pretty stark dichotomy of answers from the two camps of so-called “experts” on the issue. There is the reaction from players, a reaction that is nearly unanimous in supporting both the decision and Braun’s innocence. Then there is the reaction from the media, a reaction that is somewhat varied in nature but almost universally ignorant in its substance.

The players seem most concerned by the breach of confidentiality that is responsible for this story becoming a story in the first place. Often forgotten by those at ESPN and other media outlets is the fact that without a breach of the collective bargaining agreement, Braun’s name would never have been dragged through the mud and his indictment and successful appeal would never have been the public drama that it ultimately was. Braun would have reported to spring training yesterday as planned and would have done so as the undisputed NL MVP.

Given the confidentiality that is at the heart of these proceedings, we have no idea how many players have successfully appealed positive tests before, a fact that has been completely misreported by nearly every relevant media outlet.

If nothing else, the Braun saga is proof that the media in our modern society is no longer the bastion of objectivity it once was and still claims to be. Amongst the so-called reporters providing coverage of this story, the vast majority lack any expertise in drug policy, lack any knowledge of testing science, and most importantly, have already staked their reputation on columns written prior to the appeal, columns that were almost always operating under the assumption that Braun was guilty as charged.

As a result of this pre-emptive opining, the coverage of Braun’s victory was absurdly slanted. Seemingly each and every one of the journalists charged with objectively reporting the facts of the situation instead decided to report only those facts that served to rationalize their now-irrational condemnations of an innocent man.

While they are by no means the only guilty party (trust me, listening to Andrew Siciliano on Jim Rome’s radio show yesterday was painful), ESPN is the clear “worldwide leader” in biased reporting of the Braun story.

The cable sports network broke the story, staking their reputation on the validity of an accusation that was supposed to remain confidential until it was upheld on appeal, if upheld at all. ESPN ignored the rights of Braun, rights that were supposed to be protected by the CBA, and instead reported the story prematurely, filling in (at least through insinuation) the many facts that were yet unknown.

And lets be clear: I doubt that ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada and TJ Quinn were the first media types to find out about the positive test. There are so many writers that are far more imbedded in the baseball world than these two and I have to believe that at least one of those writers was aware of the ongoing situation. The difference is that the ESPN crew did not consider either the importance of protecting Braun’s legally backed rights nor the importance of upholding their duties as journalists by waiting for the facts to truly come forth before reporting a story that was not yet ready for public consumption.

Quinn and Fainaru-Wada didn’t consider anything but their own interests as investigative “journalists” and staked their journalistic reputations on Braun ultimately being suspended come Opening Day.

Now that the suspension has been overturned and Braun has been exonerated, the story spun by ESPN (across the board) is just about as far from grounded in fact as the initial report. Instead of apologizing for their jump to conclusions, ESPN has resorted to doing everything in their vast array of powers in order to rationalize their breaking of the story and maintain their reputation as a viable source of factual information.

So ESPN is digging a deeper hole for itself, in the process trying to bring Braun’s reputation down with them. Among the various accusations and insinuations that ESPN has reported since Braun was vindicated are the notion that Braun refused a DNA test, that he admitted to taking PED’s, that he may in fact still have herpes, that MLB is considering action in Federal Court to restore the suspension (“restore” a key word considering their was never technically a suspension to begin with), and that Braun is just getting away with his drug use because of a technicality.

At best, these accusations are a slanted distortion of the currently known facts. At their worst, these are flat out lies that in my opinion open ESPN up to significant liability for libel.

Taking a break from my attack on ESPN, let me tell you what I feel happened with the Braun case: Braun pees in cup. Urine goes home with collector. Collector didn’t like Braun for whatever reason (perhaps anti-semitism but it could be something else). Collector added testosterone to the sample. Collector sent the sample in. Positive test was extremely high (thanks to injection of pure testosterone into the sample). Braun was accused.

Exactly why a collector would do that is beyond my level of knowledge concerning the situation. But to say that such action is beyond the realm of possibility is simply ignorant.

Much of the post-announcement media coverage has tried to put forth this notion that while Braun may have been found “not guilty”, that does not mean he is innocent. This is the very epitome of what I am talking about when I say that there is way too much rationalization going on in the reporting of the past 48 hours. After jumping to the conclusion that Braun was no better than the Sosa’s and McGwire’s of the world and that his MVP award was a fraud, it was a much easier leap to the island of “not guilty” than it would be to admit a mistake and see Braun as innocent of the crimes of which he was accused.

Ryan Braun may never be able to regain his reputation as a clean athlete, as a role model for any young baseball fan to emulate. But that is for the public to decide. The so-called “court of public opinion” is not one in which there is a role for the media to play and yet too often writers and broadcasters pretend to be both judge and jury in this fantasy tribunal.

If the public wants to hold Braun accountable despite his successful appeal, that is for them to decide. In the meantime, those who have a pulpit have no right to lead a charge for which they have a clear but sometimes overlooked personal stake in making.

Given the reaction by many fans, not only in Wisconsin, but across the country, I think this charge would never come to fruition if the story were to be given truly objective coverage moving forward.

Now back to ESPN. It is about time that the “worldwide leader” pick a side.

Either they are truly a news organization specializing in sports coverage or they are a media outlet for sports promotion and marketing.

If they are to be considered as the latter, then they need to stop pretending to play the part of objective news source.

If they are to be considered among the former, then there are rules by which they need to begin playing. Journalists have a set of ethics by which they must abide and filling in holes by reporting facts from sources that are unconfirmed and many times contradictory would definitely constitute a violation. Journalists also must disclose and work to prevent conflicts of interest. ESPN, with its broadcast contracts and other working relationships, has a multitude of conflicts that come into play and yet go almost unanimously undisclosed.

What conflict does ESPN have here? While perhaps not direct, the stakes for ESPN are fairly clear. Braun plays in Milwaukee. Not in New York, not in Los Angeles, not even in Chicago. Milwaukee.

ESPN is a coastal station. They cover the coasts, show games on the coasts, and only when they are forced to do they venture into the middle of the country. Braun is one of the game’s best and as long as he is in Milwaukee, ESPN is going to have to keep its eye on the heartland, taking precious airtime away from their beloved Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Giants.

Without Braun in the picture, or even with Braun having to play with a tainted reputation, ESPN is able to focus on those teams that it knows will provide for more financially advantageous coverage.