Past The Press Box : Colin O'Keefe of The American Sportswriter : On Sportswriting, Social Media, Sports Blogging, Journalism, Sports Marketing

• ESPN does not care, whatsoever, about journalistic integrity. This is nothing new. tWWL takes care of its business interests first and foremost. ESPN and ABC are the leading broadcasters for the NBA. LeBron James is the biggest star in the NBA. Dancing on top of James' already-trounced image doesn't help them. However, does this go deeper than that? We've already seen LeBron take over ESPN's airwaves for an hour, does his camp have a say in what's printed as well? It'll be interesting to see if the folks at LRMR had enough sway to pull this article down.
• LeBron and his camp are big babies, completely out of touch with reality. Again, nothing new. We saw what happened with the LeBron-getting-dunked-on/Jordan Crawford controversy. If his camp did pull the story from ESPN, it doesn't have any effect other than once again letting everyone know he's outrageously self conscious and cannot deal with any amount of criticism.

Now, to a couple highlights:

Bottle after bottle of "Ace of Spades" champagne is delivered to the table by waiter flying down from above the dance flore like some overgrown Peter Pan on a wire. One time he's dressed like a King, another time as Indiana Jones and another time in a replica of James' No. 6 Miami Heat Jersey.

James, who can hardly see the flying figure through his tinted glasses, almost gets kicked in the head on the waiter's last trip down. He looks at the girls around him and says "I wish they'd have one of these girls with no panties do that instead of the guy.

Toward the end of the night, Boston Celtics forward Glen Davis walks past James' party and looks at the scen up and down several times like a painting in a museum, soaking in the images of the go-go dancers, the "King" sign and the ostumed man delivering bottles of champagne.

Davis shakes his head and walks on.

Another NBA star with a similar reaction:

[Lamar] Odom, smoking a cigar, can't quite keep up. James celebrates by crossing himself and taking a shot of Patron. Moments later, a handful of girls dressed as cheerleaders walk toward his table with someone dressed in a James' Heat uniform. Someone throws talcum powder in the air as James does before every game, while his new unofficial song, "I'm in MIami," plays,

Odom casts a glance James' way before looking in the opposite direction and raising his glass at a couple on the dance floor who point to their rings and smile.

Ridiculous stuff. Pulling the article does much more damage to both LeBron and ESPN than publishing it ever would.

UPDATE: LeBron's camp says it wasn't them. Riiiight.

UPDATE II: Darren Rovell with more insight:

ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz tells us why the LeBron Vegas story was pulled: "The story should have never been published. The draft was inadvertently put on the server before going through the usual editorial process. We are in the midst of looking into the matter.”

Like others are already saying, that's tough to believe.

Also, on the subject, we have some fantastic dramatizations from the hilarious team at The Basketball Jones.

TBJ Dramatization: ESPN's 'LeBron in Vegas' story from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

Dramatization: ESPN's 'LeBron in Vegas' story, Act II from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

Photo credit: Mario_d

Before going into CoverItLive and Section 140, here's a few reason why I believe live blogging is dying, and should.

• It's ridiculously tedious. I've done it before and always get frustrated having to go back and constantly save the same post, adding a bullet as the game progresses. Eventually you have one post that goes on for pages, looking ridiculous.
• It's isolated. You have to navigate to the post and constantly refresh in order to get the most recent copy. Unless you're a frequenter of the blog or a diehard fan of the team, you're probably not going to see it.
• There's very little communication. While the author of the blog should certainly be presented as an authority on the subject, being the only one speaking during a game can place yourself above the audience.

Now, onto  ESPN's Section 140/Virtual Pressbox and CoverItLive: it's a glorified commenting system and chatroom. When I first heard about ESPN's service, I had high hopes, hoping tWWL would bring in content from Twitter and making it more readable to those who didn't use the service. In reality, the Virtual Pressbox is almost identical to CoverItLive, which provides a chatroom running througout the game, presenting the writers' updates set aside from the rest. It enables polls of readers as well. These two services do have their advantages though. Here's are a few CoverItLive's positives:

• It's easily accessible. You know exactly where to go to find discussion on the game from those who are interested. You know that the discussion will revolve around the game you're looking for insight on.
• It's very convenient. It updates easily and all the technical aspects are completely taken care of.
• It's conversational. Even if the comments from readers are slightly downplayed, they are there. Writers can quickly interact, answering questions and commenting on any polls that are conducted.
• Great set of features. You can bring in images and live video (via UStream). You can pull in up to 12 Twitter accounts (while limited, this is huge). Check out the complete list.

One of the big downsides on a service like this: it costs money. Not to read, but to host on your own blog.

And Twitter; why I'd use it for live blogging:

• It's free. Pretty simple, it's easy for the writer to get on there, nothing barring a reader to do the same.
• It isn't a 'walled garden'. It spreads very easily. If you want people to be able to read your Twitter feed on your blog, they can. If they want to read the comments on the web, they can. If they want to put it on their desktop and in a column it alongside others with entertaining commentary on the game.
• It's mobile. If you want to live blog from a game, you can. I've done it before and with the use of services like Twitpic and Twitvid, provides content you're not going to find anywhere else.
• Easy to update. Like CoverItLive, all the technical aspects are taken care of and it's easy to update immediately . You don't have to wait for the post to update and the formatting is easy.
• Lists. At first, I wasn't big on lists. I wasn't going to go on Twitter and relist my followers after I'd already broken them down on Tweetdeck. Well, now I can export those lists. I really need to do it further, but right now I have a column/list for the 350 sportswriters, sports bloggers, sports marketers, athletes and follow on Twitter. It was simple to create and I can share it with whoever. Say I were operating a Portland Trailblazers blog, I can quickly create list of sportswriters, bloggers and fans who I know are also watching the Cavs/Blazers game tonight and share that with my blog's readers.

While Shel Israel is hesitant to accept services like Twitter as a superior alternative to traditional live blogging, I am not. It's more conversational, it's more accessible, updateable and—at least in the realm of sports—the updates on live blogs weren't any more in-depth than the tweets most people are providing.