The Whole EA Thing

I feel oddly compelled to comment on the current Erin Andrews debacle. If you haven't heard, she was videotaped through a hotel peephole, walking around her room, wearing nothing but her cell phone earbud (I like to think she was doing a radio appearance in the buff).

Well, a blonde was, anyway. And it was kind of grainy. So the best course of action, I would have thought, would be to simply deny it, laugh it off, etc. And then put tape over all future hotel peepholes. However, ESPN (and maybe EA herself) felt differently, and confirmed it was everyone's favorite sideline reporter in the altogether. The only reason I see for confirming this is because they want to go after not only the videographer but the hotel as well. Which they should, because I'm fairly certain peepholes aren't supposed to work that way.

What's more interesting to me is how multiple leading sports sites have been muzzled and, it appears, scared. Perhaps for the first time, I might add. I know AJ Daulerio at Deadspin has crossed lines before and it's always served to underscore how cutting edge Deadspin was, and how they were beholden to nobody. However, now AJ has been compelled (either with legal threats or his own conscience) to put up the most humble, serious, tail-between-the-legs post I've ever seen on Deadspin. And all he did was follow the story for us, as Deadspin is expected to do. What were sports blogs supposed to do when news broke that there was a potential video of EA naked? Pretend it hadn't happened? Of course it's an invasion of privacy. But unless you took the video, you're simply saying "Hey, look at this!" Sure, sure, that's wrong, too, because it further violates privacy, but we're getting a little further down the line of who's really doing anything wrong. Either we are all ready to be a part of this new media world where everyone Twitters and videos go viral immediately, or we're not ready and we need to go back to everything being edited and proofed and re-read and vetted, etc., over and over.

I think it's kind of sickening that someone would stand outside EA's hotel room and video her in the buff. However, many sports blogs/sites out there have commented on EA's hotness and she's virtually admitted in interviews that if she gets more access thanks to her looks, so be it. And we all loved her for that. And yet now we're all expected to get all moral and, as AJ at Deadspin does, say "please don't get out of control in the comments." If he's really going to curttail coverage and commentary of something like this, then what's left of Deadspin?

And what the hell did ESPN threaten him with, anyway?