Howard Cosell's Departure Leaves Unfilled Role In Today's Media

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Telling It Like It Isn't
Cosell's Departure Leaves Unfilled Role In Today's Media
But Is That Television's Fault Or The Fans?

By George Stahl

NEW YORK (AQB)--As HBO's riveting documentary Cosell: Telling It Like It is was ending Monday night, ABC's Al Michaels made a statement that got me thinking.

"He [Cosell] was the omniscient, all-knowing, all-seeing eye of the viewer," the Monday Night Football announcer said. "He really carved out a role that had not existed in this business and I'm not sure even exists to this day."

After hearing that, I began to wonder: Is there no voice of truth in today's sports broadcasting? Is there anybody who will take that lonesome walk out on a limb and proclaim his or her beliefs, without concern of infuriating viewers, television executives or sports officials?

To put it bluntly, which is how Howard liked it, no.

Think about it. When was the last time a television network investigated a truly controversial topic or broke a sports scandal? And I'm not talking about easy-to-criticize topics, such as instant replay. I mean hard-hitting, potentially embarrassing issues for league officials - drug policy, gambling, alcoholism and so on.

For example, every Sunday, 7 1/2 hours of NFL pregame shows litter the airwaves. When has any one of those seven shows seriously investigated an NFL topic that could be deemed controversial? I can't remember one such instance. Each week, it's this team's hot, this team's not, this player's good, this player's hurt.

Television networks, afraid of insulting their sports partners, follow the print media on controversial issues. The New York Times recently examined the NFL's drug policy, Sports Illustrated investigated the pervasive paternity problems in the NBA and the St. Paul Pioneer Press broke the story on the academic scandal at the University of Minnesota's basketball team.

I find it interesting that networks spend so much time, money and energy investigating scandals involving politicians, entertainers and business executives but do not carry that same fervor to sports reporting.

Cosell saw this lack of bite on sports television, when he discussed the "unholy alliances" rising between the broadcast media and sports in his final book, What's Wrong With Sports:

Reporters too often are the buddies, the mouthpieces, for the sports owners and operators they are covering; too often they function as worshiping handmaidens of the athletes they interview.

And still too many reporters accept favors in the form of lodging, travel, tickets, meals, drinks, and other gratuities from clubs, leagues, and operators. It is a field rife with conflict of interest, with favoritism, and with ties to local teams by local reporters.

Scandals that can't be ignored are reported, then quickly forgotten. Too often they are treated like aberrations. Surely it does not take a genius to detect a pattern in the increasing number of scandals and unpleasant incidents in sports.

The plain, hard truth is that there are few voices left in sports in America willing to buck the powerful establishment and speak the truth. It does not have to be this way, and it should not be this way.

Don't get me wrong - Cosell's way is not the ideal. Many of his rants were as much self-serving as they were public-serving.

Also, some legitimate purveyors of the truth remain. NBC's Bob Costas isn't afraid to question Major League Baseball's actions on air and HBO's Real Sports consistently probes some of sports hidden secrets.

The problem is both are silent on issues close to home. I rarely have heard Costas speak out on sports controversies not involving baseball, such as NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol's beloved Olympics, and I have never seen Real Sports investigate the serious problems of boxing, a sport closely associated with HBO.

Yet, sports fans don't seem perturbed by this obvious need for better reporting. They don't seem to be clamoring for the truth in sports. Rather, it's just the opposite - they get upset when somebody tries to damage their idyllic notion of sports and those who play it, such as the public's overblown reaction last week to Jim Gray's tough but fair interview with Pete Rose.

Gray got lambasted by fans for asking tough questions to a person that most viewers probably suspect was lying and has been lying for more than a decade. But, because Rose is a sports hero, fans took the liar's side instead of the person who was simply doing his job.

Television officials, after seeing last week's reaction, no doubt are less inclined than ever to disturb, in any way, fans' romanticized notion of players and sports. And that's a tremendous loss for those of us who want to hear as it is.

By the way, Cosell's opinion on Rose: "Pete Rose is a compulsive gambler, who I believe does not belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame," Cosell said in his final book in 1991. "Simply stated, I believe the man is a liar. And there is much evidence to support that opinion."

Ah, more than four years after his death, Howard is still telling it like it is. I just wish more were.

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