Media Feud! ESPN Bans NYPost Over Erin Andrews Peep Video

By TheImproper.com
SheenMueller

A full-blown media feud is underway between the New York Post and sports network ESPN, over a fuzzy Internet video of a nude woman primping in front of a hotel room mirror. The woman, it turns out, is ESPN sportscaster Erin Andews.

After the Post ran some images from the video (see them here), ESPN banned Post reporters from appearing on the network. Now the whole episode has become a major debate over journalism ethics. But the ever-feisty Post isn’t taking the ban lying down. Offending NYPost article

Its PageSix gossip column today (July 23) says that ESPN was the culprit who first identified Andrews as the woman in the video. Before it started making noise about it, the woman’s identity was unknown and indiscernible from the video. Take that ESPN!

But wait the brouhaha doesn’t end there. Andrews plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the person who shot the video and anyone who publishes the material, her attorney Marshall Grossman said. So much for freedom of the press.

The Post was one of several TV networks and newspapers that aired or published images from the video, according to the AP. Andrews' attorney says the footage was shot without her knowledge.

Andrews, 31, has covered hockey, college football, college basketball and Major League Baseball for the network since 2004, often as a sideline reporter during games. Her looks have been a major part of her success in the macho world of sports broadcasting.

A former dance team member at the University of Florida, she was an Internet sensation even before the video's circulation. She has been referred to as "Erin Pageviews" because of the traffic that video clips and photos of her generate, and Playboy magazine named her "sexiest sportscaster" in both 2008 and 2009. Erin Andrews

How she came to be videotaped in the nude is a matter of some mystery. The blurry, five-minute video shows Andrews standing in front of a hotel room mirror, fixing her hair in the nude. It's unknown when or where it was shot and looks like it was filmed through a peephole.

It is not clear when the video first appeared on the Internet. Most of the links to it had been removed by Tuesday, according to several reports. Here’s where the Post starts pointing fingers.

It claims ESPN outed Andrews by sending out threatening letters demanding that several web sites remove the video.

“NO one would have known that a sick voyeur had secretly videotaped ESPN reporter Erin Andrews nude in her hotel room, if the Mickey Mouse sports network hadn't sent a letter to an obscure Web site demanding that it take down its link to a fuzzy video of an unidentified blonde,” PageSix trumpeted.

In fact, the video may have been posted as early as February and had largely gone unnoticed until ESPN kicked up a stink about it, according to some reports. Since then, it’s become an Internet sensation, and Andrews’ name is virtually a household word. Hmmmm? Who benefits from that?

The video shows a woman spending more than five minutes totally nude in front of a mirror, putting on makeup and arranging her hair.

ESPN rep Chris LaPlaca refused to admit the network had outed its own employee with its legal letter, but told PageSix, "Any action we have or will undertake in this matter is in concert with Erin and her team," according to the column.

The Post published three images from the blurry video Tuesday, and provoked this response from the sports network:

"While we understand the Post's decision to cover this as a news story, their running photos obtained in such a fashion went well beyond the boundaries of common decency in the interest of sensationalism," LaPlaca said in a statement Wednesday (July 22) night.

For the record, most states have laws against publishing this kind of material. Kelly McBride, a journalism ethics expert with the Florida-based Poynter Institute, told the Associated Press it was unethical for news organizations to show images from the Andrews video.

Looks like Uncle Rupert will be shelling out some more dough to settle this matter. But in the meantime, the Post will make the most of it because publicity – even if it’s negative -- is priceless. Just ask Erin.