Media Critic--On Harold Reynolds

So the latest is that the reason for Reynolds' firing is indeed an accusation of sexual harassment.  Which is unfortunate, for some obvious reasons and some not-so-obvious ones.  Among the latter, it's unfortunate because it means it the firing is not due to the ESPN programming director waking the hell up and realizing what his once-proud station has turned into.  

I used to love ESPN highlight shows, and my only complaint was that there weren't enough of them.  If my unspoken complaint somehow wished the current mess into existence, I regret it profoundly.  The highlight shows are too long, and to fill the time, too many uninteresting ex-jocks are stuffed into suits and prodded into yapping at us like contestants in a junior-high debate.  It used to be that when I thought about ESPN, I thought of the smart-and-polished anchors:  Patrick, Olbermann, and Kilborn at the top of the list.  But now, the anchors on SportsCenter are overshadowed by the dozen talking-heads per show that are brought on to provide so-called analysis.  

There's nothing inherently wrong with analysis.  A couple of analysts named Kornheiser and Wilbon bring us ESPN's one good half-hour of programming per day.  I'm waiting for ESPN to ruin that.  In the meantime, I'd have to say that the number of clearly-inept ESPN anchors I've seen or heard (on ESPN Radio) is probably now over 100.  And Harold Reynolds was, for me,  the first.  Hard to say whether this speaks to my getting old enough to notice, or ESPN actually moving down the road it has.  But it was HR who first made me do a double-take and think, "He just talked for 45 seconds, but he didn't say anything."  Now, with 100 Reynolds clones onboard at ESPN (and, in my imagination, living together in a dorm across the street from Bristol headquarters like 12-year-old boys at a summer camp); the original dimwit analyst can be dismissed--100 potential replacements are available, and they all suck pretty much equally.