ESPN is supposed to be the end all, be all when it comes to sports news.
Lately they’ve done a good job of being involved in absolutely embarrassing situations.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger injured his shoulder pretty bad during last nights game.
Big Ben left the game with the injury, and media types spent the rest of the evening speculating on the severity.
Last night during the postgame wrap up from Pittsburgh, the four analyst doing the broadcast were doing a little bit of chit chatting.
Stuart Scott was doing the lead, Steve Young and Trent Dilfer provided the football insight, and high paid journalist Rick Reilly was on board to add his journalistic insight.
The crew was seconds from returning back to live broadcast, except their was one problem.
ESPN’s producers and camera crew had already started rolling again.
In the video, Reilly is caught begging Stuart Scott to give him credit for breaking the Roethlisberger injury story on twitter.
That’s right, Reilly wanted credit for being the first to tell everyone the severity of Roethlisberger’s injury.
Scott obviously shocked by the request, gave Reilly the credit.
Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young can be seen in the video, giving Reilly the Kobe death stare for such an arrogant request.
The breaking story was pretty simple for most people to be aware of.
Roethlisberger left the game with a shoulder injury, his prognosis would be given the next day probably.
Today hell broke loose once, no pun intended, the news broke about Reilly’s gaff.
Even one of his own cohorts at ESPN jumped into the fray.
ESPN’s Ed Werder jumped on Twitter, and threw a subtle jab at the well paid Reilly.
Reilly is a journalism legend, whether deserving or not.
I’m not understanding how he got so caught up in the new age of journalism where credibility is earned off of having the most sources, and breaking the story first.
Some stories that are as simple as Roethlisberger’s shoulder, break on their own.
Again, no pun intended.
Video courtesy of The Big Lead