ESPN offered two statements on the Frontline/League of Denial controversy between Thursday and Friday. Now, president of the network John Skipper has offered his own personal statement.
We have been leaders in reporting on the concussion issue, dating back to the mid-1990s. Most recently, we aired a lengthy, thorough, well-reported segment on Outside the Lines on Sunday, and re-aired it Tuesday.
I want to be clear about ESPN's commitment to journalism and the work of our award-winning enterprise team. We will continue to report this story and will continue to support the work of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru.
We have respect as well for the efforts of the people at Frontline.
League of Denial was slated to be a collaboration between Frontline and Outside the Lines. It was announced Thursday that ESPN would have no further involvement with the project, which premieres Oct. 8. The movie has a tie-in to a book by the aforementioned Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru, both investigative reporters for ESPN.