PressEthic

Philadelphians have something of a love-hate relationship with Terrell Owens. He’s a good player, no question, and the Eagles did make it to the Super Bowl last year after two years of near misses.

But Owens (or TO, if you prefer) has had some trouble with the franchise. Trouble that’s magnified by the fact that he plays side-by-side with Donovan McNabb, who is both a better player and a nicer guy.

I’m constantly hearing about this from my friends from back home, and it’s Philadelphia’s local news is obsessed (TO was both the front and back cover story of yesterday’s Daily News, Philadelphia’s major daily tabloid).

So I started wondering: is the Philadelphia media, well, overly invested in the story? I don’t want to go so far as to say biased, but perhaps too close to the situation.

(Let me say here that I do not follow football and have very little emotional attachment to the Eagles myself. In fact, I can’t tell you the difference between a wide receiver and a tight end. I’m glad we made the Super Bowl, but I couldn’t tell you who played in it beyond TO and McNabb.)

The Daily News coverage included an article on fans and merchants who are getting rid of TO memorabilia such as jerseys and bobble-heads. Its lede:

FRUSTRATED Eagles fans have a message for Terrell Owens: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Many have taken their crumpled T.O. jerseys back to sporting-goods stores, demanding a refund. And one store owner is literally kicking the wide receiver's memorabilia to the curb.

The other Daily News piece was an opinion column that painted TO as arrogant and somewhat scheming, especially considering his apology. From the column:

So what was yesterday's performance really about? It's possible that Owens really can't accept that he won't play again this season, can't fathom that the Eagles have decided they don't need him enough to continue putting up with his attitude. As he said yesterday, he didn't accept it when many people, including his ankle surgeon, told him he shouldn't play in the Super Bowl; he's used to bending events to his will.

More likely, especially from Rosenhaus' end, yesterday's message was aimed at possible future Owens employers. When the Eagles presumably decline to pick up an option on $7.5 million of bonus money next March, and T.O. becomes a free agent, Rosenhaus probably wants to be able to argue that Owens apologized fully and sincerely, and that the Eagles were unreasonable.

So a fair representation of an reaction and an opinion column. That seems reasonable. Though I usually consider the Inquirer to be the better paper in Philadelphia, the first article I found didn’t seem as good, at least form a bias point of view. Now, this article may well have been a column, but it’s not labeled as such. I hope it is, because otherwise, a single sentence kills all its supposed objectivity:

It was all a waste of time.

An article on the Eagles players’ reactions was better. All the conclusions drawn are credited to the players. This quote shows how the two articles came to the same conclusion, but the second much more appropriately than the first:

In the team's eyes, Owens gave a half-hearted apology on Friday that was supposed to include a direct apology to McNabb. And then on Saturday, he refused to comply after they asked him to apologize again.

[cut]

None of the players, however, questioned the sincerity of Owens' apology that he delivered yesterday from outside his Moorestown, N.J. home.

Fair and balanced with all conclusions credited to the subjects, not the reporter. In other words, much better. Local broadcasts offered their coverage online. The NBC affiliate has pretty complete coverage, and with its story it has links to the press conferences, televised stories, and some haiku written to TO. It, too, is pretty fair, though I have a problem with the first sentence:

Donovan McNabb will talk about Terrell Owens' exile at 11:30 a.m. today, in what will be another media circus involving the Eagles.

It may be accurate, but it’s a pretty loaded phrase – especially since the media has been mostly good in their coverage. Obsessed, maybe, but fair – and obsession is understandable when a news source is trying to sell to a city full of Eagles fans. The CBS and ABC affiliates relied on AP coverage, which surprised me given what I just said about local obsession, and what NBC10 said about the media circus. KYW Newsradio 1060’s coverage, though mostly just like that of the other news sources, hit one area the television didn’t. They featured a piece on Mayor John Street’s reactions:

A die-hard Eagles fan who just happens to be the mayor of Philadelphia is now weighing in on the Terrell Owens situation. "This is an employer and an employee -- they should resolve their differences."

Nationally, as of yesterday, ESPN had TO listed as its number 2 search, after “cheerleaders.”

Their coverage focused less on the local politics, which makes sense because non-Philadelphians are less likely to care (congratulations if you got this far, by the way).

The ESPN article focused more on the league than the team:

The NFL Players Association wants the Philadelphia Eagles to cut Terrell Owens if they're not going to reinstate him after his four-game suspension is over.

A column at ESPN discusses the situation, concluding:

T.O. needs more than a hug, cheesesteak, statue, soup can, or mediator. He needs a new act. This one isn't worth saving. And now, it likely won't be.

It seems the Philadelphian coverage and national coverage are pretty similar, with Philadelphia just being understandably more obsessed – though perhaps only marginally more, if the search feature is any indication. So, finally, I checked the New York Times. Philadelphia has had its struggles with the Giants (and back when people cared about hockey, the Rangers), so perhaps the attitude might be slightly different. Well, it is, but only slightly. The Times seems to put responsibility for the situation on the team than on TO. The headline even compares TO to a “Good Neighbor,” which is probably the first such comparison I’ve heard. Most of the sentences about the conflict make the team the subject of the sentence, and TO the object. A grammatical quirk, maybe, but consider the following example:

The relationship between Owens and the Eagles has been fragile for months, ever since the team refused to renegotiate his seven-year, $48.97 million contract, a deal that has six seasons remaining.

“The team refused to renegotiate.” They could as easily have said that Owens demanded renegotiation in order to raise his salary. The subject is the actor, and in a case like this, the implied responsible party. And, of course, we can’t forget that troublesome word, “admit”:

Owens admitted Tuesday that he had made mistakes.

Overall, then, I have to congratulate the Philadelphian media. I started out with the suspicion that they might be too emotionally involved to cover the conflict fairly, but they do so at least as well as the national media. I would even venture that the Inquirer, often referred to as “once great,” did a better job than the Times.

Now, I hope you’ll permit me a brief “Go Eagles.” Thank you.