ESPN’s Thursday-night LeBron-a-thon — aka “The Decision”— scored big ratings and sparked plenty of criticism of the cable network for blurring the line between news and advertising.
For days, commentators have chewed on the ethical implications of a sports-news network giving a star athlete an hour for self-promotional purposes. But as the special aired, the real-time Twitter critique focused on ESPN dragging out the inevitable decision for nearly 25 minutes. Viewers were forced to sit through Jim Gray — James’ hand-picked interviewer— tossing six minutes of softballs before asking what everyone wanted to hear.
Washington Post columnist Mike Wilbon, who interviewed James after Gray, suggests he would have done things differently.
“I didn’t like it,” Wilbon said Sunday on CNN. “I mean, just as a reporter, I didn’t like it. And I was saying to somebody at the time, there’s one question here.”
