Our annual celebration of football, chicken wings and squandered ad dollars brought one of the most distressing examples of “inauthentic authenticity” I’ve seen in a while. In the name of television sports, cross-promotion, news and network muscle flexing CBS brought us a programming segment that was as weird as it was disingenuous.
Early on Super Bowl morning CBS’ marquee public affairs program Face the Nation sought to benefit from its network’s broadcast of the game for the Vincent T. Lombardi trophy. Seemingly wanting to delve into some of the real, growing and troubling trends within American professional football Face…, assembled a “crack” panel of respondents to be interviewed by the respected, but vanilla, Bob Schieffer. The panel included National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell as well as three CBS sportscasters affiliated with the game. Evidently the panel had no room for a medical researcher to discuss head injuries, an economist or other relevant social scientist or even a different shill outside of the NFL or host network. To put it kindly the panel was weak and littered with more conflicts of interest than a Don King fight. And then it got worse.
Answering Schieffer, Goodell said his league must “wait for the science” to inform whether there is a link between contemporary professional football and chronic head and brain injuries. Of course CBS didn’t bother to ask a medical researcher working on that very topic what he thought. Then CBS sportscaster turned medical guru Jim Nantz declared he thought there “is a connection”—creating a momentary awkwardness—and then proceeded to bootlick Goodell on how “great” of a job he’s doing in determining whether such a link exists. What?
Then in borrowing a page from the NRA by changing the subject on whim, Nantz proceeded to “cite” research finding the number two contributor to sports head and brain injuries was women’s college soccer. Then the next guy chimed in with similar ambiguous fluff and the broadcast embellishment by the “jockocracy” (popularized by the late Howard Cosell some 30 years ago) was in full swing. By the end of the segment Pinocchio had nothing on these guys. All the while Schieffer sat mostly silent, rosy-cheeked and smiling. It was not Face’s… finest hour.
Don’t get me wrong I am not lamenting a sportscaster’s inability to critically evaluate an issue related to the game that pays him. Nor do I criticize the NFL for not wanting to pull back the curtain on the trends troubling its own game that not only includes frightening brain injuries, but also the weak policing of performance enhancing drugs and downright tawdry treatment of its aged pensioners.
But I have a serious problem with CBS and Face… in wanting to present this panel as representing something genuine to merit Sunday morning discussion. The issues affecting the NFL are real. Real issues demand real coverage, analysis and discussion. CBS News did a disservice to itself, its legendary public affairs program and the notion that great storytelling can inform, enlighten and even empower.
Next time CBS if you want to present an issue as “real”? Do it. If you want to take a week off and join the party to celebrate? No problem. But stop blending the two—it makes you and us the worse for it.
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
