A Hit to the Head: Framing and News Coverage of the NFL’s Concussion Lawsuit in The

New York Times and ESPN

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A Thesis

Presented to the Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

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In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for Graduation from

The Honors Tutorial College with the degree of

Bachelor of Science in Journalism

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By

Kaitlin Coward

May 2018

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This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism

__________________________

Dr. Aimee Edmondson

Associate Professor, Journalism

Thesis Adviser

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Dr. Bernhard Debatin

Director of Studies, Journalism

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Cary Frith

Interim Dean, Honors Tutorial College

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would never have been possible without Dr. Aimee Edmondson and all the

guidance she provided throughout the past year. She worked to guide me through my research,

keep me calm when things got stressful and push me to make my writing the best it could be. I

truly do not know how this project would have to come to be without her.

Several other people have helped me along the process as well, including Dr. Bernhard

Debatin, who initially approved the idea behind this. I also want to give a special shoutout to

everyone in The Post newsroom for listening to me ramble about concussions and letting me talk

people’s ears off about social responsibility theory and more. You all made it so I was

consistently excited about my project and gave me the belief that I could actually do this. I also

want to thank those of you who took the time to read through and copy edit my chapters. That

meant more to me than you will ever know.

I want to thank all of my friends who have supported me throughout this process,

particularly my three other HTC roommates — Kelly, Catherine and Erica — whom I have been

able to go to for pretty much anything. And lastly, of course, a big thank you and love you to my

family who regularly asked how I was doing and pushed me to the finish line. Thank you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Troy Aikman and the list of others ..……………………………………………… 5

Review of the scholarly literature ….…………………………………………………………… 9

A culture of crushing blows: how concussions became a problem in the NFL ……….……….. 19

Method …………………………………………………………………………………………. 26

The New York Times findings ………………………………………………………………….. 32

ESPN findings ………………………………………………………………………………….. 43

Discussion and analysis ………………………………………………………………………... 52

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………....................... 64

References...…………………………………………………………………………………….. 68

Appendix A: Timeline …………………………………………………………......................... 75

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Introduction: Troy Aikman and the list of others

Troy Aikman sat in a dark hospital room at Baylor University Medical Center in

downtown Dallas, Texas, when his agent, Leigh Steinberg, walked in. Outside, the people of

Dallas were celebrating their team making it to the Super Bowl. Inside, the Dallas Cowboys’ star

quarterback asked his agent where he was. Aikman couldn’t remember. Nor could he recall

playing earlier that day against the San Francisco 49ers in the 1994 NFC Championship Game

that took his team to the Super Bowl. He still doesn’t.

When Steinberg entered the room, he explained to Aikman that he had suffered a

concussion during the game. With the Cowboys up 28-7, Aikman took a knee to the head on his

way to the ground. But he can’t remember that. Steinberg continued to outline what happened

throughout the rest of the game, telling Aikman who the Cowboys played, that they won, that

Aikman would play in the Super Bowl. The two celebrated. But a few minutes later, Aikman

asked the same questions. Steinberg responded with the same answers. They celebrated once

more. And then about 10 minutes passed. Aikman was asking again. Looking back at that day,

Steinberg said, “It terrified me to see how tender the bond was between sentient consciousness

and potential dementia and confusion was. I finally wrote down on a piece of paper the 10 most

commonly asked championship-night questions and answers so we could hold them in front of

him and stare at them” (Kirk, Gilmore & Wiser, 2013).

Though they were not all documented in National Football League paperwork, Aikman

estimated that he had six to eight concussions total throughout his career (Deitsch, 2015). He

cannot remember later playing the Super Bowl against the Buffalo Bills in 1994. It is hard to say

what other damage he might have acquired before he retired in 2001 because of health problems,

including concussions and back issues, though in 2013 he said he had not had symptoms since

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and he would play professional football again if he could do it all over (Cash, 2013). Aikman is

one of the more notable players to have had a serious head injury during a game. He elected not

to join a class-action lawsuit filed by thousands of former professional football players and their

families against the NFL, but his concussions mark just one of the many cases of such injuries

within the league. Mike Webster. Dave Duerson. Junior Seau. Those are just a few of the players

who fared worse because of concussions — all of them were eventually found to have chronic

traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a neurodegenerative disease that is the result of repeated hits

to the head.

Though in 2002 Webster was considered to be “patient zero” of the NFL’s concussion

crisis, the deaths of both Duerson and Seau years later made national headlines, too (Fainaru-

Wada & Fainaru, 2014a). Duerson committed suicide in February 2011, leaving behind a note

that instructed researchers to study his brain. That story opened a deeper conversation about the

severity of the concussion problem in the NFL, which later sparked dozens of former players to

sue the league. That spark later turned into a fire when a total of about 4,500 former players and

their families filed a class-action lawsuit in 2012 against the league, claiming that it knew or

should have known that playing professional football could lead to severe brain injuries.

Between mid-2011 and mid-2017, news outlets increased their coverage of concussions

to include information about the lawsuit. Reporters repeatedly framed the articles in terms of

how former players were affected by head injuries, legal background on the case, the science of

concussions and how the league should change in reaction to the lawsuit. Two outlets that had

extensive coverage during that time were The New York Times and ESPN, and this thesis seeks

to evaluate how those two outlets, with their widespread viewership and dedication to sports

coverage, used certain frames to tell the story of the NFL’s concussion lawsuit. The author

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selected those two media organizations to compare the newspaper of record with a sports outlet

of notable popularity for fans. In each outlet, the author compared types of articles and frames of

articles to identify patterns in coverage. Framing analysis helps evaluate how effectively each

outlet reported on all sides of the concussion lawsuit and not just the sensational parts, which

journalists sometimes focus on (Siebert, Peterson & Schramm, 1963). Additionally, it is

important for each media organization to cover all angles to accurately inform readers about the

relevant issues. Social responsibility theory suggests that readers have a right to know

information, and as a result, publications have an obligation to provide readers with enough

information to be educated on a specific topic. That theory states that giving the audience all it

needs to know to understand a topic is crucial to journalism and the public’s understanding of

society (Siebert et al., 1963). This thesis seeks to examine how each outlet covered all angles to

see if the two provided socially responsible coverage to readers following the story of the NFL

concussion lawsuit.

This thesis begins with a literature review of the relevant works that touch on reporting of

concussions in sport, framing analysis in health reporting and errors in science journalism. The

thesis then includes a chapter that focuses on the historical background of the NFL concussion

lawsuit. That includes the development of an NFL committee to study brain injury, how the NFL

and researchers disagreed over the potential consequences of concussions, what players have

been affected and how all of that built to culminate in the concussion lawsuit. In the next chapter,

the author explains how she chose The New York Times and ESPN as the two outlets of study

and how she selected the articles to study. In that methods chapter, she also details framing

analysis and social responsibility theory in relation to reporting on the lawsuit. The author then

uses a chapter apiece to evaluate The New York Times’ and ESPN’s reporting on the lawsuit with

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analysis of the most frequently used types of articles and frames, metaphors and corrections. In

the discussion section, the author compares how those two outlets differed in their coverage and

how they can continue to improve coverage in the future.

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Review of the scholarly literature

The author read a wide range of scholarly articles about concussion science, framing in

health journalism and reporting about concussions, and social responsibility theory. Each article

included different components that tie into the complexities of the NFL concussion lawsuit and

the reporting that came with it. Coverage of the suit consists of scientific, legal and emotional

angles in addition to themes of violence and change. Not many scholarly articles have addressed

coverage of the NFL concussion lawsuit specifically given that it just took place in recent years,

but many have touched on similar topics that include one or multiple aspects of the suit and those

angles.

Ahmed and Hall, in their article titled “ ‘It was only a mild concussion’: Exploring the

description of sports concussion in online news articles,” also focused on how reporters wrote

about concussions. They analyzed 153 articles, including reports about football, soccer, rugby

and hockey. Those articles were found using a Google news search for “sport + concussion.”

Head injury and brain injury were the most frequently used terms to describe the injuries that

players had. Additionally, about 10 percent of the articles used the wrong descriptors related to

concussions, and about 80 percent of those descriptors were created by journalists and not the

subjects they report on. That touches on the larger issue of errors in health-based stories and how

journalists sometimes get the science wrong. But despite that, the article drew the conclusion that

the sites still did a good job in coverage and of being informative (Ahmed & Hall, 2017).

Another scholarly article informing the research at hand did not focus specifically on

coverage of concussions, but rather examined framing and sourcing in stories about health news,

which is a subset of this thesis. The article, titled “Testing the Effect of Framing and Sourcing in

Health News Stories,” discussed how framing affects what readers think of health problems like

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diabetes and smoking. Though different from this thesis because that report was an audience

study, some of the same principles related to framing apply. The article outlines four functions of

frames: “to define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies”

(Coleman, Thorson & Wilkins, 2011). The study found that the way articles were framed did not

affect readers’ perceptions of the larger issue. It did, however, make people want policies to be

changed, and that framing made people want to change how they behaved in relation to health.

Overall, the article explained how framing in health and science articles affects the content and

the perception of them. It showed that different frames can have various effects on readers’

interpretations of stories. The article also pulled out what often serve as the main topics of those

health reports (Coleman et al., 2011).

In a more specific scholarly study, Cusimano and his colleagues looked at how

newspapers in North America reported on brain injuries in ice hockey. Researchers broke down

major themes within articles to help analyze how the injuries were reported. For example, the

major themes were “perceptions of brain injury, aggression, equipment, rules and regulations,

and youth hockey” (Cusimano et al., 2013). The authors used qualitative analysis to study

articles from The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Toronto Star and the Vancouver

Sun. The findings showed consistent reporting about an apparent lack of player safety rules in the

National Hockey League. Americans said hits were a part of hockey, but both American and

Canadian papers said brain injuries have long-term impacts and should be taken seriously. Both

countries’ newspapers said better equipment could make players think they were more

invincible, which could lead to more damaging hits and injuries. Additionally, scholars found

that publications from both countries emphasized how youth hockey should change as a result of

some of those injuries. Many of those themes are applicable to football and the way it was

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covered, especially the frame of change, whether that be rules or the culture of the sport. Though

the study did not have a legal angle to focus on, it did touch on many of the other key topics that

served as key elements in coverage of the NFL’s concussion lawsuit.

Another scholarly work the author examined was “Concussions and Other Headaches:

An Analysis of the Journalistic Coverage of the Concussion Crisis and Football-Related Brain

Trauma” by Jordan Brogley Webb (2014). She employed a variety of methods in her bachelor’s

thesis, including metaphor analysis, valence analysis and framing analysis, to study 489 articles

about concussions in football in ESPN and Sports Illustrated. She also looked at what sources

were most frequently cited in articles about concussions in the NFL. She evaluated some big

questions in her work: Which metaphors are used, and how often are they used? What are the

trends in topic valence for those articles? What is the prevailing tone valence in those articles?

What frames were used in that reporting? What sources did reporters talk to? How did coverage

differ between ESPN and Sports Illustrated? For metaphors, Brogley Webb pulled every

metaphor she read in the articles, which totaled 406. She then broke that down by whether

articles were opinion or non-opinion, with 179 found in opinion in articles and 227 in non-

opinion articles. Between the two outlets, ESPN accounted for 206 of the metaphors, and Sports

Illustrated accounted for the other 200. The most common metaphors referred to death, disorders

or sickness (Brogley Webb, 2014).

In terms of topic and tone valence, Brogley Webb used a five-point scale to talk about

how positive or negative each angle was in the articles. Most articles in ESPN and Sports

Illustrated leaned toward negative, or what was deemed a 4 or 5 on her valence scale. When

evaluating framing, Brogley Webb divided the larger sample of 489 articles into 12 subtopics by

nature of their themes and focuses. She then merged those 12 subtopics into five larger, more

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overarching frames. Those five frames were labor/management, race/gender, public perception,

scientific debate and opinion (Brogley Webb, 2014). In her limitations section, Brogley Webb

mentions how it would be interesting to expand the study to non-sports media outlets. She also

discusses how it’s important to continue following the issue over time, both of which the author

intends to do with this thesis.

The author built on this research by combining elements of the various scholarly articles,

each providing valuable insight about methods with which to study the reporting on the NFL

lawsuit. The author also studied methodologies utilized in the article, “Trends in North American

Newspaper Reporting of Brain Injury in Ice Hockey,” because it broke down different frames

used within hockey (Cusimano et al., 2013). That study was mostly qualitative, so the author also

decided to build on that research by adding a quantitative component to this thesis. The author

used broader research on different aspects of concussions, science reporting and framing analysis

in health stories to evaluate all elements of reporting on the NFL concussion lawsuit. In one

element, the author read about the description of concussions in news articles. In that research, it

discusses how journalists sometimes err in science reports because of the complex nature of the

subject. That is a component of this thesis, so the author can see how that idea relates specifically

to a more particular group of articles about concussions and that science. Cusimano and his

colleague’s work, the framing and sourcing in health articles report, details how framing affects

complex reporting on a subject that can be damaging to a person’s health. That article is an

audience study, which the author elected not to do given the scope of research, but it brought a

different perspective to that type of reporting. It also allowed the author to delve deeper into a

health-related subject and evaluate the journalistic work on it through the lens of social

responsibility theory in comparison to what the audience perceives. And lastly, the article that

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focuses on reporting of brain injuries in hockey allowed for a good foundation of how to format

frames and what information that can provide. Though it is not in the same sport, it created

insight for further study in a similar situation.

The study at hand addresses a lack of research in the journalistic-based study of framing

in a specific topic related to science. It also allows for a more thorough incorporation of

qualitative and quantitative methods to study framing in science-based articles. And finally, it

allows the author to tackle a complex, more recent subject in one thesis by examining framing

and its effects on reporting of a highlighted news event.

Scholarly scientific research on concussions

The author read several scholarly works on the science behind concussions, so she could

develop a solid understanding of what factors into those injuries. There is a plethora of scientific

research on the subject, and the number of works used in this thesis only scratches the surface of

the total research on the subject. Some works that were studied focus on brain injuries more

generally to contextualize concussions in terms of other brain trauma. Others focus more

specifically on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, brain damage in NFL players and the effects

of concussions. One book, titled Head and Neck Injuries in Sports, looks at the evolution of

brain injuries in sports, with a focus in football. The book details how the annual football fatality

report began in 1931, and by 1962, the American Medical Association appointed an expert to

host a convention on head protection for athletes (Hoerner, 1994). The book discusses several

rule changes that occurred in football over the years, including how certain types of tackles have

turned into penalties. The book describes how helmet technology has helped prevent some

injuries and how some of these injuries can be permanent. It also talks about some of the more

dangerous positions, such as defensive backs and linebackers because those are the most likely

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positions to have cervical spine injuries (Hoerner, 1994). That helped provide context for the

history of concussions and who they have affected in football.

Another work that focused more broadly on brain injuries from sports and how

concussions fit into that category was Sports Neurology. The book defines cerebral concussion as

“a posttraumatic state that results in loss of consciousness” and states that confusion is a

“hallmark of a concussion” (Jordan, Tsairis & Warren, 1998, p. 226). When people get

concussions, their memory, thought process and orientation can all be affected. As a result, there

are a few different scales that are used to determine the severity of a concussion. One such

example is from the Colorado Medical Society, which ranks concussions on a scale of 1 for mild

to 3 for severe. The most severe concussions on that scale require hospitalization and a CT scan,

while a 1 could allow a player to return to the game if he had no symptoms after 20 minutes. The

book discusses the myth that concussions exist only when a player is unconscious. It also

describes how the problem isn’t necessarily just one concussion but also the effect of multiple

hits to the head. After describing the symptoms and prevalence, the book breaks down two

improvements to help minimize concussions: rules to decrease of use of the player’s head in

football and improvement of helmet design (Jordan, 1998). This information provided historical

context for the author’s study, exploring how the game and our understanding of concussions has

changed over time.

The author also examined the basic concussion science established Matthew Dashnaw,

Anthony Petraglia and Julian Bailes. The authors talk about how the harder the mass and

velocity, the harder the hit. They also discuss how players receive the highest strain in the deep

midbrain level about 10 milliseconds after they take the hits. Those head injuries, if repeated,

could be a reason why some players have more long-term effects, the authors say. They report

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that it is more likely for a player to have season- or career-ending injuries than posttraumatic

chronic neurodegenerative disease, though they do acknowledge the severity of that, as well,

defining chronic traumatic encephalopathy as “a progressive neurodegenerative syndrome

caused by episodic and repetitive blunt force impacts to the head and transfer of acceleration-

deceleration forces to the brain” (Dashnaw, Petraglia & Bailes, 2012). They state that when the

article was published, there had been no animal model for CTE and that it can only be identified

after a person has died. CTE can play a large role in a person’s life, so doctors are working

toward MRI technology to help identify problems earlier (Dashnaw et al., 2012).

Another article touches on some of the problems that can come as a result of brain

damage. Written by Daniel Amen and colleagues, the work focuses on identifying strategies to

help players who have traumatic brain injuries and suffer from substance abuse. An NFL-

sponsored study found that retired players 30-49 got a dementia-related diagnosis at a 1.9 percent

rate, which was 20 times the normal for that age range (Amen et. al, 2011). The authors of the

Amen article studied 100 retired players from 27 teams and all positions. Some participants

received an intervention in which they were educated on a healthier lifestyle, proper nutrition

and actions of similar nature. Those retired players then took part in a follow-up interview and a

questionnaire. The results from that intervention improved functioning, and it offered a way to

help former players suffering from brain injuries as a result of the game (Amen et al., 2011).

Though the literature provides evidence and details of how concussions can affect a

person’s life, there is not always enough research to back up some of the findings, according to

one study the author read. The author of this thesis took this article and its findings into

consideration because it was one of the newer studies published, and it also offered a differing

viewpoint on concussion science. Gary Solomon breaks down the research about concussions in

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an extended review and discusses CTE studies, public opinion on CTE, a history of sports

concussions, and the correlation between concussions and depression. For most of those

categories, he states that the data does not necessarily reflect direct causation between the

variables, such as concussions and depression. The article, written by a team doctor for an NFL

and an NHL team, offered an interesting take on that, given that is discussed in some of the

emotion-based articles this thesis seeks to examine (Solomon, 2018).

Those works are just a few of the many out there on concussions. The author of this piece

read works about different subsections of concussion research to gather a basic understanding of

all parts of it, including concussions in terms of other brain injuries, the effects of concussions,

interventions for those suffering from the effects of concussions and a contrasting viewpoint to

the popular notion that concussions and CTE have direct causation on illnesses like depression.

That research informs an analysis of articles in The New York Times and ESPN to determine

whether journalists conveyed the full picture of the issue.

Social responsibility theory

This thesis also looks at journalistic coverage of the NFL concussion lawsuit from the

angle of social responsibility theory, which holds that journalists have an obligation to readers to

provide them with information they have the right to know (Siebert et al., 1963). The theory is

based on journalism’s libertarian theory, but social responsibility takes that foundation and

builds on it to focus more on the public’s right to know information. Social responsibility came

about as a result of the Hutchins Commission, officially called the Commission on the Freedom

of the Press, which was formed during World War II (Siebert et al., 1963). Several works

including A Free and Responsible Press from the whole commission and Freedom of the Press:

A Framework of Principle by William E. Hocking were both influential to the development of

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social responsibility theory. On the commission itself, members had varying viewpoints at the

time about how social responsibility theory should work and what its importance should be. The

idea for it came about because of a change in technology, an industrial revolution and criticism

of the press and its power. Additionally, staffs at several newspapers began to include codes of

ethics for their reporters, which now often include elements of social responsibility theory

(Siebert et al., 1963). But the press did not immediately take to the idea of social responsibility

theory, though those criticisms were not necessarily developed because of some of the report’s

assumptions. It did criticize the aspects related to press performance and concentration within

news media because the press thought the commission made it look worse than it actually was.

The commission also stated that though the codes of ethics are beneficial, they are not enough by

themselves because people rely so heavily on journalists and their work. As a result, the

commission published the report about importance of social responsibility (Siebert et al, 1963).

At its core, Theodore Peterson writes, the theory focuses on six pillars of responsibility

journalism has: providing information on the political system, helping make the public capable

of functioning on its own, being a watchdog, using advertising to bring together buyers and

sellers, providing entertainment and being financially self-sufficient (Siebert et al., 1963). Most

of those functions were also mentioned by the commission in its report. Edmund Lambeth built

on that and later discussed the notion of social responsibility in his book Committed Journalism.

He states that one of the downsides of the earlier concept of social responsibility is that it does

not provide guidance more individually to journalists. He poses several questions to address how

to help reporters in the practical sense: How should journalists make ethical judgments, and who

should journalists show the most loyalty to? (Lambeth, 1992). Those questions were not

necessarily part of the Hutchins Commission report, but he stresses that they are important to

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address. This thesis relies on such when trying to develop recommendations for how those

reporting on concussions can be more socially responsible in their work. For example, even if

people are not actively seeking information or if they are not as interested in certain topics, it is

still the media’s job to create informative work, to investigate and to serve as a source of

knowledge (Berry & Nerone, 1995). This thesis mostly focuses on the pillar that states

journalists have the responsibility of making the public capable of functioning on its own.

Though those are the main pillars, there are other points that are key to social

responsibility and are particularly applicable to this thesis. One is that news organizations need

to have a wide distribution of news and opinion, an idea that is tied to a code from the

Commission on Freedom of the Press (Siebert et al., 1963). This thesis examines the different

types of articles used by two news media outlets to see if they did just that. It also evaluates

frames to ensure that the outlets are covering the topic with a wide variety of angles.

Additionally, social responsibility theory suggests that news outlets should avoid straying toward

more sensational news and the more sensational aspects of a particular news event (Berry &

Nerone, 1995). This thesis seeks to evaluate how well the two outlets covered the topic in more

detail rather than just the news most readily accessible to them or the emotional stories that

former players have told them. Overall, this thesis and its methods seek to ensure that ESPN and

The New York Times are providing enough information to readers for them to be able to fully

understand the complex topic of the NFL concussion lawsuit.

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A culture of crushing blows: how concussions became a problem in the NFL

“Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.” Dave Duerson wrote those

words in a suicide note before shooting himself in the chest in the early hours of the morning on

Feb. 17, 2011. He was 50. Duerson, a former Chicago Bears safety who began his career in

1983, played 11 seasons in the NFL, partnering with linebacker Otis Wilson to become the hard-

hitting Junkyard Dogs (Fainaru-Wada & Wada, 2014). Duerson was known for his crushing

blows — his head took a beating, so much so that he received multiple concussions, his ex-wife,

Alicia, said. After his football career ended in 1993, the man who graduated with honors from

the University of Notre Dame with an economics degree found his life falling apart. In 2006, his

food distribution business, Duerson Foods, foreclosed, he and Alicia divorced, after which he

moved to a condo in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, on his own. Five months before he died, he

filed for bankruptcy. With his final note, he wanted his family to understand the changes in his

behavior and mental state. In a Feb. 19, 2011, New York Times article, Alan Schwarz writes that

a person close to Duerson said in his last months, he questioned whether he had a brain disease

from all the violent blows he had taken throughout his football career (Schwarz, 2011a).

Not long after his death, scientists confirmed what Duerson himself feared: He had brain

damage from all the hits to the head he had taken. He was diagnosed with chronic traumatic

encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE, which is a neurodegenerative disease that

comes as the result of repeated blunt hits to the head (Dashnaw, Petraglia & Bailes, 2012). CTE

does not necessarily come from a big, lights-out hit; it can come from repeated small hits. That

means it can sometimes be hard to determine the effects of football because players can develop

the disease without ever taking a big hit or having a recorded concussion, though it is

increasingly more common that players face a concussion protocol, which typically requires

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them to leave the field and be evaluated by a team physician and a neurotrauma consultant

(Laskas, 2015). Duerson wasn’t the first player — nor will he be the last — to be diagnosed with

the disease, which is almost exclusively diagnosed posthumously (Dashnaw et al., 2012). Bennet

Omalu, a forensic pathologist, first identified the disease in former Steelers center Mike Webster

in 2002. Broke and homeless, Webster spent the last years of his life slipping in and out of

coherent thought and memory. Some days, he would get angry. Some days, he would blow cash

on luxury items as if he had an endless supply of money. Some days, he couldn’t even remember

the turn he was supposed to make to get to the grocery store. Most days, he faced the painful

aftermath of a bruising football career. After Webster’s death in 2002, Omalu began work on

Webster’s brain. He noticed unusual patterns he wasn’t familiar with. He did his homework and

discovered tangles of a protein called tau in sections of Webster’s brain. Tau is healthy and

serves to lubricate parts of the brain. When there is too much, however, it can cause tangles.

Dark patches under the microscope show how tau can create groups of neurofibrillary tangles

(Laskas, 2015). Doctors had spotted it in boxers, but in football players? No.

Behind the CTE development were concussions, a form of mild traumatic brain injury

that had not been heavily defined for much of Duerson’s and Webster’s careers. Though some

saw concussions as a mere knock to be shaken off, in reality, a cumulative number of head

injuries could be why people suffer more long-term damage (Dashnaw et al., 2012). Researchers

estimated there were 250,000 concussions each year in football, according to Sports Neurology

(Jordan et al., 1998). Concussions used to be associated with loss of consciousness, and therefore

coaches would brush off some fuzziness as “dings.” There are, however, multiple different

gradation scales for concussions, with one of the most popular being the grades of severity scale

from Colorado Medical Society (Jordan et al., 1998). In that scale, there are three levels of

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severity: mild, moderate and severe. A mild concussion requires that a player be removed from

any sports activity, examined right away and every five minutes after that, and if there are no

symptoms after 20 minutes, the person can go back into the game. With that, there is no amnesia

and no loss of consciousness. For a moderate concussion, the designations are the same, but

instead of waiting 20 minutes, a player is supposed to hold off a week without symptoms before

returning to practice, and a player can experience amnesia but would remain conscious. The most

severe grade of concussion would require a player to be taken to the hospital, undergo a CT scan,

have a complete neurological assessment taken, and in some cases, be admitted overnight. That

player would have to be without symptoms for at least two weeks before returning to practice. A

severe concussion means the player lost consciousness (Jordan et al., 1998). Those levels of

severity can also lead to other health problems, including post-concussion syndrome, second-

impact syndrome and later on, CTE.

After studying Webster’s brain, Omalu became the first researcher to attach a name to

what is now known as CTE, which he discussed when he published a paper in 2005 about the

disease and its implications (Michael, 2014). In the years after Omalu’s work on Webster’s

brain, the NFL challenged the work of researchers who sought to prove that football led to

concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries, which can be seen in a detailed timeline in

Appendix A. After all, concussions were just dings, a brief moment of haze, right? Outside

researchers began to disagree. Created within the league to evaluate the effects of such injuries,

the NFL’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, or MTBI, committee published 16 papers, starting in

2004, which generally came to the same conclusion that concussions were not a problem in the

league (Michael, 2014). Other researchers, like Omalu, questioned the findings in those papers.

Robert Cantu, a Boston University researcher, was one of many who disputed some of the

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findings, which were published in the peer-reviewed journal Neurology. Despite the growing

amount of research into the effect of concussions on players, the NFL still refuted independent

researchers’ findings. In one case, according to an article titled “School of Hard Knocks — The

Impact of the NFL Concussion,” “As late as 2007, the NFL circulated a pamphlet to players,

team doctors and coaches that stated: “[c]urrent research with professional athletes has not

shown that having more than one or two concussions leads to permanent problems if each injury

is managed properly.” (Michael, 2014, p. 295). Because league commissioner Paul Tagliabue

and the MTBI committee chair Elliot Pellman, who was a rheumatologist, denied the effects of

concussions on players’ brains, the NFL’s published papers reflected that. But in that same

publication, other researchers, including Omalu, argued against the league’s findings, saying that

there was proof that playing football could lead to brain damage after repeated hits. The back-

and-forth would continue up until the lawsuit in 2011, with Cantu and other researchers such as

Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University School of Medicine who is an expert in

neurodegenerative disease, elevating the conversation (Fainaru-Wada & Wada, 2014a).

So when Duerson’s death made national headlines in 2011, it brought concussions, their

relation to football and the NFL’s involvement into a more glaring spotlight. The New York

Times published three articles about Duerson within a week after his death. In one, “A Suicide, a

Last Request, a Family’s Questions,” Alan Schwarz describes the bigger picture associated with

concussions, including the possibility of developing lasting brain damage, depression and

dementia (2011b). ESPN mostly ran wire stories about Duerson’s death, but one column by Roy

S. Johnson called Duerson’s death a warning and said too many players were being diagnosed

with brain injuries (2011). As those articles illustrate, concussions grabbed more attention in the

news. Though publications had begun covering concussions in professional football on a bigger

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scale in the years leading up to Duerson’s death, the topic had not yet garnered regular media

attention until 2011, after Duerson’s death, and again that summer when the first round of

players sued the NFL. It’s as if journalists needed a face, a name, a story, to humanize the bigger,

less tangible issue. Duerson gave them that.

With the death of a former player running in several headlines that year, dozens of former

players were beginning to realize that the game they loved could have heretofore untold

consequences. A group of about 75 former players pursued the issue further with the help of

legal counsel (Laskas, 2015). About five months after Duerson’s death, in an 86-page suit filed

by Pittsburgh attorney Jason Luckasevic, the first of what would become thousands of players

sued the NFL, claiming that the league knew or should have known that football could lead to

serious brain injuries (Laskas, 2015). Nearly a year later, about 4,500 former players filed a

class-action lawsuit against the league (Michael, 2014). The big question in the lawsuit was did

the NFL know that its practices could be harmful to players, and if so, did the NFL have a

responsibility to help change that and make the sport safer? (Michael, 2014). The NFL would

never have to fully answer that question. But until the settlement, it was one of the cruxes of the

lawsuit. The main argument those suing had to put forth was that playing in the NFL caused

unreasonable risk for players. Though the players’ lawyers had many points, that was the most

solid legal one, according to the article, “School of Hard Knocks — The Impact of the NFL

Concussion Litigation (Michael, 2014). As a result, “A strong argument can be made that the

NFL owes a duty of reasonable care to its players because the NFL knows that the players rely

on the NFL for their safety and benefit — and the NFL accepts the validity of that reliance by

being the rule-making body that controls the scope of acceptable conduct of play, and by hiring,

training, and managing the referees that enforces those rules” (Michael, 2014, p. 307).

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After much back and forth about those claims, it took nearly three years — and $765

million — for the NFL to agree to a settlement in the lawsuit. In the settlement, dated June 25,

2014, the league agreed to pay players affected by concussions and the health problems that

come with them. The NFL also agreed to donate $10 million — the league makes about $10

billion or more each year — to concussion research. In the settlement, the NFL did not have to

admit liability (Michael, 2014). In 2013 before the settlement was reached, Judge Anita Brody

ordered the parties into mediation before issuing a judgment on the motion to dismiss (Telis,

2014). Months later, when the lawyers came to her with an initial settlement, she dismissed it

because she wanted more information to make sure the money would adequately cover the

medical testing and other expenses related to concussions (Michael, 2014). In that initial

settlement, former players would receive compensation based on the severity of their injuries.

The breakdown of payments was as follows: $5 million would be given to those with

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease or “any other

severe cognitive impairment” (Michael, 2014, p. 290). Those with CTE would receive $4

million, and those with dementia would get $3 million. Brody approved the final settlement on

April 22, 2015, and in it, the average player would receive about $190,000 (Laskas, 2015).

During the 2015 season, the average salary for an NFL player totaled $2.1 million, according to

Forbes (2016).

But the settlement would not be the end of the conversation about concussions in the

NFL. Players debated appealing the decision, and others still hoped for a safer game. Throughout

and even before the legal process, the league took steps to improve player safety, such as

penalizing hits to the head and moving kickoffs from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line to help

reduce the number of kickoff returns and therefore the violent hits that sometimes occur during

25

them. Even with those measures and the settlement decision in place, the conversation continues

today, with articles published regularly about concussions in the NFL, in addition to those in a

variety of other sports. A big story from summer 2017 detailed how the brains of 110 of 111

former NFL players studied had CTE (Ward, Williams & Manchester, 2017). From mid-2011 to

2017, reporters grabbed onto the details and began writing numerous articles about the legal

process, the science behind concussions and the impact head injuries can have on former players.

The New York Times and ESPN were among several outlets that consistently covered those

issues. This thesis seeks to compare the coverage between the two and examines the

developments in the lawsuit and its aftermath.

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Method

This thesis presents a mix-method study, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis

of articles in The New York Times and ESPN. The author used descriptive statistics and

qualitative content analysis to examine articles from both publications and determine how

frequently reporters covered certain angles of the suit. Qualitative analysis is often best suited for

news media because it allows the researcher to examine the process of reporting and news

gathering and make evaluations of what can be improved (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991).

Qualitative content analysis can help do that because it helps deem what is news and how those

news articles were written. It also allows for the examination of a news organization as a whole

as opposed to focusing on an individual reporter (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991). It links the actual

process with the ideology and ethics of reporting, and therefore it can allow for thorough analysis

of journalists’ duties as reporters.

Using that analysis, the author performed a deep reading of articles from each outlet and

examined them for a variety of different elements that will be noted throughout this chapter.

Those two news outlets extensively covered the NFL’s concussion lawsuit and continue to do so

today. The author selected The New York Times because it has long been considered the

newspaper of record in the United States and one of the best newspapers in the world. In many

ways, it is considered the gold standard of journalism, the publication journalists aspire to write

for because it is often perceived to be one of the best. Additionally, The New York Times presents

continuous coverage of the newsier side of sports, which is held to the high standard of the rest

of its work. The author of this thesis interned as a copy editor for The New York Times for 10

weeks during summer 2017. For the second outlet, the author chose ESPN because of its

prominence in sports journalism and because it often serves as the outlet many people use to

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learn about sports news. As of February 2018, The New York Times had about 2.6 million digital-

only subscribers (Ember, 2018). ESPN averaged 1.91 million viewers in 2016, according to

Forbes (Berg, 2017).

Within each media outlet, the author read articles from July 2011, the month the first

players filed suit, until May 2017, when coverage tapered off a little and to allow for adequate

examination of follow-up coverage. For The New York Times, the author referenced articles

using the Boolean search “NFL AND concussion AND lawsuit” on the Times’ site to include all

articles in which those terms were used. The author did so to avoid limiting the search to articles

that did not consecutively use those three terms because the site includes more results and is

more thorough when using a Boolean search. The author cross-referenced articles with the

ProQuest historical newspapers database to ensure that none were missed. For ESPN, the site’s

search function yields a maximum of 10 pages of search results, so to confirm whether there

were more articles than just those included in the 10 pages, the author used an advanced Google

search for ESPN with the phrase “NFL concussion lawsuit.” That yielded 44 pages of results at

the time of the search, and subsequently, the author pulled those articles for reference and

analysis. The author used a total of 98 articles for The New York Times and 92 articles from

ESPN for frame analysis. The author omitted some because they did not directly reference the

NFL’s concussion lawsuit despite being presented in the searches. For example, an ESPN article

titled “Cam Newton sued for damage to rental mansion managed by husband of Stacy Keibler”

includes the words NFL, concussion and lawsuit, but it makes no reference to the concussion

lawsuit, just a mention of Cam Newton’s concussion and a lawsuit facing the NFL player. The

same was true of some New York Times articles, including one called “You Won’t Win, but the

Heat Probably Will” because it makes no mention of the concussion suit. Others that mentioned

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the lawsuit only in passing were used to show the scope the NFL lawsuit had on other sports as it

drew more media attention.

After the author found and pared down those articles by relevance, she created a

spreadsheet with a variety of information: publish date, headline, authors, section, type of article,

main focus, overall frame, metaphors, number of sources and type of sources in addition to

whether there was a correction, clarification or editor’s note attached to the story and if so, what

the text of it read. The focus was then narrowed to center mostly on publish date to evaluate how

frequently reporters wrote articles about the concussion lawsuit each year after players began to

sue; what type of article, whether news, blog, column, etc., was used in coverage of the lawsuit;

and what frames were used in each article. The author read through each article and looked for

an appended correction in each to determine if and where there were factual inaccuracies. Given

the current pace of the industry and how easily information can be erased or changed on the

internet, journalists have an extra layer of social responsibility when correcting errors in the

digital age (Joseph, 2011). As a result, the author looked into what was corrected, partially from

an angle of how frequently reporters err in science journalism but also from an angle of social

responsibility and transparency. Studying corrections allows for an understanding of both ethics

and how journalists can best maintain their reporting practices (Joseph, 2011). Publishing

corrections is an act of transparency, showing readers what errors have been made and holding

reporters accountable for their human errors.

In addition to studying corrections, the author also pulled out larger, more overarching

metaphors in articles. She did not pull out every individual metaphor but rather looked at the

more conceptual metaphors that were present throughout large portions of an article. That was

done to see how metaphors played a role in the frames and angles of the stories being evaluated.

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Larger metaphors can indicate the frame of an article (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991). This thesis

did not seek to examine every metaphor within articles because that was beyond the scope of

study, though it would provide for interesting analysis in a separate scholarly work.

From a methodology standpoint, framing analysis was the primary focus of this study. As

a qualitative research method, it helps reflect the process and ideologies journalists use when

writing news articles (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991). Gaye Tuchman refers to frames as

“condensing symbols” in qualitative analysis so that those overarching themes can be analyzed

and critiqued. Articles often have an “embedded meaning,” and that can come across through the

frames reporters use (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991). As a result, it is important that journalists do

not just sit passively and fail to think about the frames they use; they should consider those

frames and remain active in the understanding of how those frames will convey the news to their

readers (Jensen & Jankowski, 1991).

This thesis primarily seeks to focus on the framing of the articles using framing analysis

to identify patterns in coverage of the NFL’s concussion lawsuit and to evaluate how reporters

covered all sides of the suit to paint a full picture of what the suit entailed. This thesis uses the

frames of change, emotion, violence legal and science to examine the overall focus and lens

through which each article was told. In some cases, the NFL concussion lawsuit was mentioned

in the context of a news roundup or season preview, so some articles were labeled as having no

frame because they referenced multiple subjects in one article. Within the five frames, change

includes any articles that reference the need for football, the NFL or the culture to change to

become safer for players or articles that reference how those three items have changed. Emotion

refers to any articles that tell a story in such a way that they draw emotion from the readers or

that they place emphasis on how negatively concussions have affected some former players’

30

lives. Reporters often use anecdotes as a way to convey emotion and to put a face to a larger

issue that may be complicated for readers to understand. Violence refers to articles that focused

specifically on the harsh nature of the game. Legal is fairly straightforward and refers to the

articles that predominantly focus on the court actions and legal developments in the case.

Journalists often focus on spot news or current events in their coverage without as much

background or context provided, so the legal frame is especially important in this coverage

because the suit was the spot news at the time. And lastly, science refers to the articles that

discuss concussion science or the medical side of mild traumatic brain injuries and how the two

outlets were able to make some of the more complex scientific information digestible to the

layman.

Each article was tagged with one of those frames, and then those articles were examined

on a larger scale using basic frequencies for how often each frame was used. Framing analysis

was used because frames are common ways or angles that help people understand stories

(Coleman et al., 2011). Frames help explain why things happen and pose solutions for how to fix

them, and they also bring a certain aspect of a topic forward to make it more prominent (Entman,

1993). Additionally, frames establish the idea of what people should be aware of and as a result,

what matters (Rane, Ewart & Martinkus, 2014). A frame can display the heart of the issue, but it

also can be limiting in other ways, which is why this thesis seeks to examine them in news

coverage (Hickerson, Moy & Dunsmore, 2011). Frames can also create a bias in articles that

might not be immediately known to the reporter (Entman, 1993). That is one of many reasons

why the author sought to look into how frames affect the angles with which the NFL concussion

lawsuit were covered: to see if reports slanted toward one party or angle in the suit over another.

That would mean the publications might not be acting as socially responsible as possible.

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Additionally, framing analysis can sometimes put information into categories, which can leave

out definitions or the context that surrounds them. But defining items in frames also allows for a

way to indicate patterns and be concise in representing what is portrayed in articles (Reese,

2010). Framing, as it is used in this study, is defined as the lens through which a story is told and

what common theme emerges from the text. It is used as a way to quantify common patterns and

themes in the articles, so the way the NFL concussion lawsuit and its lasting effects can be

understood on a more detailed level.

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The New York Times findings

In 2007, an article titled “Expert Ties Ex-Player’s Suicide to Brain Damage” ran on the

front page of The New York Times outlining the results of brain damage and how concussions

from football can lead to it (Schwarz, 2007). The article was one of the Times’ first in detailing

how playing in the NFL can put athletes at risk for head trauma and brain disorders later in their

lives. The article’s author, Alan Schwarz, began his research into concussions in the mid-2000s,

after he met Chris Nowinski, the former professional wrestler turned concussion advocate

(Laskas, 2015). At the time, Schwarz was a freelance journalist, and the two began working

together. As their relationship developed, Nowinski presented Schwarz with the news that former

Philadelphia Eagles safety Andre Waters had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the brain

disease now diagnosed in more than 100 former NFL players (Ward et al., 2017). Schwarz

described those findings in the 2007 article before he became a sports reporter for The New York

Times and continued to dive into concussion science and the NFL’s role in it. Of that initial

article, Nowinski said, “Without the Times, it never moves. It cannot be overstated how

important it was” (Fainaru-Wada & Fainaru, 2014a, p. 204).

The New York Times pursued the NFL concussion story through Schwarz and other

reporters throughout the 2000s, reporting on former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson’s death

by suicide in February 2011. A few months later, the lawsuit sparked more coverage with a focus

on all the facets of concussions in football, and that has since resulted in the publication of

almost 100 articles specifically referencing the NFL’s concussion lawsuit. This thesis seeks to

examine 98 New York Times articles that referenced the NFL’s concussion lawsuit from July

2011, when players first began suing the league, until May 1, 2017. Those articles vary in type,

frame, author and main points, to name a few. This thesis specifically examines the type and

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frames of articles from both a macro and micro perspective to seek a broader view of how The

New York Times covered the NFL concussion lawsuit in addition to how a particular type of

frame can convey a story.

Types of articles

As illustrated in Table 1, the most commonly used type of article in The New York Times’

coverage of the NFL concussion lawsuit was the traditional news story. Of the 98 published

articles, 66, or about 67 percent of the articles, were news reports. The next most popular type of

article used was the opinion column, with 12 total articles written. After that, the remaining type

of articles, as outlined below, show a mix with fewer than 10 articles each.

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Table 1

Type of article Count of type of article

News 66

Column 12

Feature 8

Blog 4

Obituary 2

Op-Ed 2

Analysis 1

Editorial 1

Essay 1

Investigation 1

News articles most frequently described developments in the lawsuit, in other sports and

in studies detailing how head injuries in sports can lead to long-term brain damage. The first

news article published by The New York Times, “Concussion Treatment Cited in Suit Against

N.F.L.” in July 2011, discusses the lawsuit being filed and some background information about

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concussion research and the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee, which was a group of

people in the NFL tasked with studying the effects of hits and head injuries in the league (Belson

& Schwarz, 2011). Other articles with a news focus included follow-ups on the developments in

that initial report.

In addition to news coverage, The New York Times also produced several opinion pieces:

columns, an editorial and an op-ed. Most of the 14 total opinion pieces take similar stances

revolving around the need to change the culture of football to make it safer and a general

disapproval the dangers concussions pose to players. In “Reality Intrudes Before the Kickoff,”

the Times’ editorial board wrote about the NFL’s $765 settlement, saying “Far more precaution

and research are needed in the sport, not just on the professional level but down through the

ranks to the powerful National Collegiate Athletic Association machine, which controls college

ball, and to neighborhood leagues where three million children younger than 14 enthusiastically

suit up for tackle football, mimicking the pros” (2013).

Writers also used feature stories to profile different former players and their families.

Features and profiles connect readers to people who they may have never met before. They paint

a picture of a person’s life and put a face to a story about a larger problem. One focused on

former player Kevin Turner, who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 2010. An

article by Ken Belson quotes him as saying, “‘I can empathize with players’ who want a better

settlement, Turner said as he sat in his living room in Port St. Lucie, his arms and hands largely

inert, his neck stooped and his speech slurred. ‘But for me and people like me, time is a luxury

we don’t have’” (2014).

Reporters also used blogs to provide quick takes in recaps and previews. Rounding out

the remainder of the stories were the obituaries of former players Fred McNeil and Kevin Turner,

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an analysis piece on an NHL-related lawsuit that drew parallels to the NFL’s, an essay from a

former player and a large-scale investigation partnering sports and investigative reporters that

analyzed concussion tracking. That investigation reflects the need for the Times to fulfill its

social responsibility and provide readers with the fullest picture, including using its access to

information to write a larger-scale investigation of the NFL’s practices regarding concussions.

The press has a watchdog role in conjunction with social responsibility theory (Siebert et al.,

1963). The New York Times helped achieve that by delving deeper than just the initial reports and

using its resources as one of the country’s largest media organizations to shed light on some of

the NFL’s practices and operations.

Metaphors

Because sports writers sometimes use metaphors in their writing, this thesis also seeks to

examine metaphors in reporting on the NFL’s concussion lawsuit. Though less influential in the

overall portrayal of a topic in an article, metaphors affect how a story is told through

comparisons to other identifiable topics. Metaphors help to relate common themes, and they

offer a different way to grasp an issue. War metaphors see common usage in journalism because

they help personify ideas and make them more relatable to an audience (Steuter & Wills, 2009).

Though themes of brutality and violence are used in a handful of New York Times articles, the

war metaphor is partly extended to just one, though relation to battle was used in two articles.

Reporters used metaphors in just five of the 98 articles, with a comparison to boxing and

Big Tobacco being another popular metaphor in one article. In that article, the author, Michael

Sokolove poses a question, “Could this be the moment when things turn sour for the N.F.L., the

beginning of the end of its long dominance? Boxing, once hugely popular, has been pushed to

the margins of American culture.” In doing so, the article continues to discuss the parallels

37

between boxing and what could be the fate of the NFL, also evaluating how it could end up like

tobacco companies.

In another article, op-ed contributor and former Denver Broncos player Nate Jackson

uses refers to the mentality of professional football as “psychological warfare” (2011). The

article describes the league’s intensity and how the game values physical hits while not always

taking players’ safety into consideration. Later on in that article, Jackson uses another metaphor

and refers to the league as a machine. “The operators of the machine pull its levers more

frantically every season, pushing it past its breaking point. So the league has stockpiled

interchangeable spare parts. The broken ones are seamlessly replaced and the machine keeps

rolling. The old pieces are discarded and left to rust in a scrap heap” (Jackson, 2011). Those

metaphors help to emphasize a player’s view on the lack of safety and how he felt the players

were being treated more like robots and machines than people at risk of serious health

consequences. The metaphors can help get that point across in a different way than the examples

used in other articles. That is one way in which metaphors help certain subject matters be more

relatable and understandable, and that New York Times piece uses them to do just that (Steuter &

Wills, 2009).

Corrections

Science reporting can be one of the more complex topics for reporters to cover given the

difficult nature of the subject and the lack of widespread, in-depth understanding of it (Chang,

2015). Because a significant portion of the lawsuit and the conversations revolving around

concussions lies in science, the author included corrections and how errors in articles were

handled within the analysis of The New York Times articles. Ten articles had corrections,

clarifications or editors’ notes tacked onto them. A majority of those corrections were related to

38

incorrect titles, dollar amounts or other simple details in a story, rather than larger flaws in

understanding the science. In one, an article summary omitted the million after $765, so that it

read that the settlement was for $765 instead of $765 million, the actual value. Another article

identified the Baltimore Ravens as the Baltimore Colts, for example.

Though those errors could be caught with fact-checking, deeper issues in understanding

stem from larger problems that parts of the scientific community have with journalism. Errors,

omissions and misinterpretations are often the three biggest forms of inaccuracy in articles about

research and science (Chang, 2015). They typically arise from journalists not being deeply

familiar with the science on which they are reporting. As a result, one big mistake health and

science reporters make includes spending most of the story quoting sources instead of explaining

background information and context (Levi, 2001). Other mistakes include talking to specialists

about more general health issues and making too much of a study’s implications when they’re

difficult to put into practice (Levi, 2001). Because the articles lacked corrections based on those

aforementioned errors, it is a positive for The New York Times that few substantial corrections

were required in the publication’s articles. Continuing to be conscious of areas such as those,

though, can bring about improvements in medical and science journalism as a whole.

Frames

This thesis uses frame analysis of New York Times articles because frames establish the

idea of what people should be aware of and as a result, what matters (Rane et al., 2014). In

choosing which frames to use to write about relating to the NFL concussion lawsuit, reporters

pulled out information they found to be most relevant to audiences. It is important to examine the

frames of these articles because frames can make an article unbalanced even if the rest of the

writing is unbiased (Entman, 1993). Evaluating the frames The New York Times used creates the

39

opportunity to study with more detail how fleshed out and balanced articles were. Frames affect

the context in which a story is reported, and they can also both shed light on society and warp it

(Reese, 2010). For example, sometimes the news media focuses too much on one segment of a

population, such as terrorist groups in terms of covering the Muslim world, which can lead to a

lack of coverage of other people and a distorted view of an entire population (Rane et al., 2014).

Reporters want people to be able to relate to the story being told, so the use of the average person

can be beneficial in that respect (Johnson-Cartee, 2005). At the same time, reporters want to use

what are referred to as official sources to maintain credibility and to have a professional opinion

free of bias, as well. In New York Times articles, reporters generally balanced scientific and legal

sources with former players and their families in coverage so that all sides of the story were told.

A good balance of stories comes about through proportional reporting of science and legal

articles in addition to personal profiles about the players. It is important that The New York Times

does not rely too heavily on personal profiles driven by emotion given the subject is so complex

and multifaceted. And if they do write those articles, it is also important to include scientific

evidence and context about the lawsuit in those reports. That is why this thesis seeks to examine

which frames are used and the frequency of each one to make sure overall coverage is balanced

and readers are receiving a variety of different stories covering all angles of the lawsuit and the

concussion problem in the NFL.

Five frames encompassed all of the articles in addition to the category of none, for

articles such as recaps and previews that did not have a set focus or frame. In terms of those six

categories, reporters most frequently used legal frames in their articles. Legal frames made up 36

of the articles, or about 37 percent of them. Given the time period of the articles studied in this

thesis, the legal frame was expected to be commonly used because the entirety of the concussion

40

lawsuit took place within the six years of articles examined. News articles are often prompted by

a current event, and the main news event during the time period study was the lawsuit.

Table 2

Frame of article Count of frame of article

Legal 36

None 25

Emotion 21

Change 9

Science 5

Violence 2

In using frames focused mainly on legal and emotion, The New York Times emphasized

the effects on former players while at the same time providing updates on the legal proceedings.

The New York Times did not dedicate whole articles to the science behind concussions as

frequently as it did with legal aspects or stories of former players with concussion-related

medical problems. This is an area in which reporters could improve on in the future. Stories did

not always examine developments in concussion science in relation to the lawsuit, but such could

have strengthened coverage in terms of a key debate that surrounded the lawsuit — and even in

the years before the first players began suing. The focus on the legal aspect could largely be

attributed to the news cycle and the main news items during the times of the articles studied.

41

Sometimes frames are created naturally; in this case, that was seen when reporters learned of

developments in the lawsuit and as a result needed to write about them. Some articles focused on

the settlement, while others, for example, discussed key parts of the suit. In one, titled

“Concussion Case Nears Key Phase for N.F.L.,” Ken Belson writes “The N.F.L. has denied

accusations that it deliberately misled players about head injuries, saying that it relied on the best

science available at the time to create policies on concussions. The N.F.L. has also argued that

any disputes should be governed not by the courts but by the collective bargaining agreements

signed by the league and its players union” (Belson, 2013). Other times, stories came about as a

result of talking to those affected or scientists involved in research. One profile focused on

former New Orleans Saints player Mitch White, one of the former players who sued. White, who

was 34 at the time, could not work and sometimes could not take care of his two daughters

because he would get such bad migraines. In the article, White is quoted as saying, “I wasn’t

thinking clearly at all. I was severely depressed. I had suicidal thoughts, big time. It just kept

popping in my head. I was thinking of hanging myself with shoe string, or every time I was in a

car, I had an urge to jump out of the car on the freeway” (Battista, 2012). It is important to

balance those types of articles so as to not put too much emphasis on one side of the story, such

as the players’ physical effects, for example.

Using a variety of frames is important in terms of this particular coverage because it

involves a variety of complex subjects including law, science and in some cases deeply

emotional stories of the turn former players’ lives took because of these injuries. As a result,

frame analysis can be a positive way to analyze content and articles in particular. They help keep

researchers from reducing media to just numbers and basics when it’s much more complicated

than that (Reese, 2010). A con to such analysis can be that sometimes putting information into

42

categories can leave out definitions or the context that surrounds them (Reese, 2010). But

researchers also need something that can indicate patterns and offer concise representation of the

information (Reese, 2010).

The study of reporting on a large national issue from a broader perspective allows for a

better understanding of whether coverage of the NFL’s concussion lawsuit was balanced and

thorough. It targets room for improvement, highlights any potential gaps in coverage and

provides a large-scale view of what became a major headline for several years — and still has

not gone away. Using frame analysis to do so is effective because reporters will likely continue

to use those frames in coverage, and analyzing them can lead to reporters creating more balanced

and representative coverage. It also provides an opportunity to categorize a large number of

stories in a more tangible way. That allows for more objective analysis of coverage and pinpoints

areas of improvement. This thesis continues to examine the use of frames, among other selected

topics, in articles from ESPN, one of the largest sports-focused media outlets.

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ESPN findings

Brothers Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru were not always household names in

journalism — even if they grew up in the same household when they were younger. Both

investigative reporters, the two gained an increasing amount of visibility as their careers

developed, both separately and together, once they moved to ESPN. Before landing his job at

ESPN, Fainaru-Wada co-wrote “Game of Shadows — Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids

Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports” with journalist Lance Williams. Fainaru worked for

The Washington Post, covering the Iraq war and writing investigative pieces. His reporting on

the U.S. military and its need to work with private security contractors won him a Pulitzer Prize

for international reporting in 2008 (Fainaru-Wada & Fainaru, 2014a). Not long after, the two

would find themselves working together at ESPN. Though not the only reporters to write about

the lawsuit, the Fainaru brothers were the anchors of ESPN’s concussion coverage. ESPN’s first

coverage of the suit mostly consisted of running Associated Press wire stories until early 2012,

when reporters began writing blogs and columns about the suit, players’ reactions to it and their

own reactions to it. Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru produced their first piece later that year, focusing

specifically on three former players who received disability benefits because football was

determined to have caused their brain injuries (2012). The article mentions Mike Webster, the

former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer who would later serve as a key anecdote in Fainaru-

Wada and Fainaru’s book called League of Denial, published in 2013. Among a handful of other

reporters who would follow the lawsuit, the two would continue to pursue coverage of the suit

and the NFL’s concussion problem through investigative and longer pieces. That, in addition to

ESPN being one of the primary sports outlets that readers and viewers seek, led the author to

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study its articles, which were partnered with its video and broadcast online, in relation to the

NFL concussion lawsuit.

Types of articles

As visualized in Table 3, news was the most frequently used type of article in ESPN’s

coverage of the lawsuit. Of the 92 published articles in the time frame, 45 articles, or about 49

percent, of articles fell under the news category. Blogs were the next most popular type of

article, with 18, or about 20 percent of reports. The remaining articles were a mix of columns,

features, Q&As, essays and an analysis piece.

Table 3

Type of article Count of type of article

News 45

Blog 18

Column 13

Feature 8

Q&A 5

Essay 2

Analysis 1

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News articles centered on the progression of the lawsuit, reactions to the settlement,

scientific developments and players found to have developed CTE. Titled “Ex-FB: Medical care

trumps lawsuits,” the first news report published between July 2011 and May 2017 focused on a

former Dallas Cowboys fullback who did not want the lawsuit to overshadow the discussion of

medical care for retired players (MacMahon, 2012). Most of the articles in the two years

following that initial article from May 13, 2012, detailed the increasing number of players

joining the suit and other legal analysis before a settlement was reached. After that, articles

started to focus more on reports of scientific developments articles detailing what the former

players got out of the settlement and examinations of how the NFL had changed in response to

the suit.

In addition to those news articles, ESPN produced a number of blog posts that referenced

the lawsuit. The first article published after the filing of the 2011 suit was actually a blog rather

than a full-blown news article. With the headline “Jamal Lewis talks about concussions,” the

article gives a brief account of what the former NFL player said in an interview on the ESPN

program Outside the Lines about his concussions and his place in the lawsuit (Hensley, 2012).

Like that post, ESPN’s blog content is geared more toward specific audiences, occasionally

based on regions or specific NFL teams. For example, the blog post “Cliff Harris 'glad'

settlement will bring help” specifically discusses the reaction to the settlement from a former

Cowboys player who had been a part of the lawsuit. Pegged as a Dallas Cowboys blog, the post

consists of just seven graphs and does not require as extensive reporting as ESPN’s news

reporting does (Archer, 2013). Many other blog posts analyzed for this thesis reflect a similar

focus: tailoring content to specific audiences and providing brief reactions or snippets of

information related to a particular team or area.

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ESPN also had columnists present their opinions on how concussions affect the game, the

outcome of the lawsuit and what needs to be done to make football safer for players. As a whole,

all articles analyzed typically featured the video of the broadcast that was shown on television,

which often reflected the content of the articles in a different medium. Seven of the articles also

ran in ESPN The Magazine, while the rest of the content was purely for ESPN and its website.

Metaphors

ESPN reporters did not frequently use metaphors in their reports. Of the 92 articles

analyzed, just four used metaphors. All of those metaphors, though, did have similar

connotations in comparing the NFL to other violent acts, including war. One article, with the

headline “Painkillers suit exposes NFL culture,” refers to games as Sunday wars (Howard,

2014). The same article also mentions how players were expected to be warriors to tough

through hard times and continue to play. “The ‘warrior mentality’ that once moved All-Pro

safety Ronnie Lott to cut off the tip of a finger so he wouldn't miss a game,” Howard writes

(2014).

The other articles emphasized the harshness of the game and more generally drew

comparisons to violence in addition to using metaphors to describe the process of being

compensated for injuries as a result of the game. In an article by Peter Keating, he refers to the

steps as “procedural hoops and rings of fire” (2014). Those metaphors help to explain the

complex process in a few short words while emphasizing how much work it can be. Instead of

being a cliché, that metaphor stresses an opinion on an issue in a strong way that helps to show

what some former players were going through. That fulfills a larger duty of metaphors in that it

takes an issue that does not affect many people and makes it relatable to those it does not

immediately effect.

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Corrections

ESPN did not include corrections on any of its articles. Neither editor’s notes nor

clarifications were listed either. ESPN’s correction policy, according to its website, states that

“significant errors of fact will be corrected in a clear and timely manner, with appropriate

prominence” (ESPN, 2018). All major corrections are posted to the corrections page on ESPN’s

site. The policy does not include “inconsequential factual errors” like minor misidentifications,

minor errors in developing stories or minor statistical mistakes. The current corrections page

dates back to Aug. 24, 2015, and does not list corrections for any articles studied in this thesis.

Errors are part of human nature, and it is important for ESPN and all outlets to

acknowledge their mistakes and correct them in a transparent way. It is inevitable that

publications will have errors given the slew of information out there and the fast-paced nature of

the business. But in fulfillment of ESPN’s social responsibility as a news organization, it is

important for the outlet to indicate to readers when its reporters have erred. Readers have a right

to know information, according to the theory, and therefore, they have the right to know when

there was a mistake in an article (Berry & Nerone, 1995).

Frames

Using no frame at all was most popular among ESPN reporters covering the lawsuit; 37

of the 92 articles did not have a specific frame. Those articles included recaps, Q&As without a

specific focus, blogs about tangential information related to the lawsuit or stories that had

various angles like previews or league analyses. Because ESPN is tiered more toward the general

population with a focus on sports coverage and analysis, it was expected that the articles would

not be framed as frequently as in other publications or would be geared more toward emotion to

explain a complicated problem to a larger span.

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Table 4

Frame of article Count of frame of article

None 37

Legal 28

Change 13

Emotion 8

Science 6

When articles had a frame, the most popular one was legal, featured in 28, or about 30

percent, of articles. As stated in the previous chapter, it was expected that the legal frame would

be most popular given the news cycle and the news peg of the lawsuit and its developments.

News often revolves around finding relevant angles and more in-depth stories in relation to a

current event or recurring problem, which can lead to framing in one particular way (Reese,

2010). In this case, that was the lawsuit and the court proceedings that came with it. ESPN took

an deep dive into the legal elements of the case. For instance, Lester Munson, a lawyer who

serves as ESPN’s legal analyst, explained the technical legal parts of the case in full articles or in

Q&As. In one, he breaks down the numbers and costs associated with the lawsuit and what it

meant for an increasing number of players joining the suit (Munson, 2012). In addition to

Munson’s takes, the Fainaru brothers wrote more detailed pieces about segments of the suit,

including one detailing the conflict between one attorney for the players and others about the

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possibility of a settlement detail, which showed some division in the court proceedings (Fainaru-

Wada & Fainaru, 2014b). All of those articles hinged on the timeliness and prominence — news

values often discussed when establishing the news judgment and framing of a possible story —

of the case and its proceedings (Hickerson et al., 2011). That in turn led to a significant number

of articles using the legal frame.

In using the legal frame the most frequently, ESPN emphasized the importance of the

lawsuit. In doing so, reporters made it seem as if that was the most important and relevant part of

their reporting from mid-2011 to mid-2017 because frames can pinpoint what, in reporters’

opinions, is most important for readers to understand (Rane et al., 2014). ESPN reporters spent

the least amount of time writing articles focused on the science behind concussions and the

research element of the lawsuit. Almost all of the articles written using the science frame focused

on funding given to study concussions or the results of studies and their findings. The emotion-

driven articles, in turn, focused on a larger variety of types of articles; blogs, opinion columns,

news and features were all stories that conveyed emotion as their predominant focuses. One

leads with the news of Junior Seau’s brain testing positive for CTE and then uses emotion to

portray the story of his life leading up to this death (Fainaru-Wada, Avila & Fainaru, 2013). In

the article, Seau’s son Tyler is quoted as saying:

"I guess it makes it more real," he said. "It makes me realize that he wasn't invincible,

because I always thought of him as being that guy. Like a lot of sons do when they look

up to their dad. You know? You try to be like that man in your life. You try to mimic the

things that he does. Play the game the way he did. Work the way he did. And, you know,

now you look at it in a little bit different view. Is it worth it? I'm not sure. But it's not

worth it for me to not have a dad. So to me, it's not worth it" (Fainaru-Wada et al., 2013).

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Another article profiled George Visger, a former San Francisco 49ers player whose life severely

deteriorated because of concussions (Hruby, 2013). That article leads in with an anecdote about

Visger’s life after concussions, with the author writing:

“On a postcard-perfect Southern California morning, George Visger is pissing blood.

This comes as a relief. For me, mostly. But also for him. Things could be worse. He

could be having a seizure. Or slipping into a coma. Which means I could be jamming a

one-inch butterfly needle into a thumbnail-sized hole in the side of his skull, trying to

siphon off excess spinal fluid while avoiding what Visger calls ‘the white stuff.’

The white stuff being brain tissue” (Hruby, 2013).

Emotion and science frames accounted for 14 combined uses in articles, which is just half of the

number of articles rooted in the legal frame.

Writing more stories related to the emotional or scientific frames could have broadened

ESPN’s coverage. It would have provided further angles to include more articles focused on

former players and how concussions have affected their lives in addition to more stories pegged

to the scientific discussion revolving around concussions. More science-focused articles that did

not center exclusively on the spot news elements could have provided researchers with a chance

to discuss their findings more in-depth. Additionally, at times, it was harder to gather the impact

of concussions on former players because articles lacked an emotional frame about specific

players. Articles with a focus on former players often center on emotion and the effects

concussions took on their lives. Putting a face to articles is often how journalists can frame

stories in a relatable and digestible way; readers want to be able to connect to the topic they’re

reading about, and as a result, that can lead to anecdotal ledes and framing in terms of players

(Johnson-Cartee, 2005). One such example can be found in a 2012 article about 200 former

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Chicago Bears players joining the suit. “‘We all had dings,’ Baschnagel said. His ding,’

however, was more serious than most as he once woke up in the hospital the day after a game not

knowing why he was there,” reporter Melissa Isaacson wrote. She continued by quoting Brian

Baschnagel again, "I had complete amnesia of that (game) day," he said. "My wife, who I was

not married to at the time, tells me stories that I called her from the hospital every five minutes

because I didn't remember I had called" (Isaacson, 2012). Though present in that article, reports

based in the emotion frame were still not used as frequently as in New York Times articles.

Because of the lack of the emotional frame in articles, reporters did not always convey

the impact of the problems faced by many of the players suing, but it is also important to note

that those kind of articles did not dominate coverage, which could have also had negative effects.

ESPN covered a plethora of different sides of the legal details, and the change frame was also

featured prominently as a way to pose solutions, which led to sophisticated coverage. Reporters

could have improved by increasing the frames used to include more science and emotional

articles to create a fuller picture of the suit, including the intense battle among researchers and

the NFL, and the toll brain trauma took on the players.

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Discussion and analysis

The New York Times and ESPN combined for a total of nearly 200 articles written about

the NFL concussion lawsuit, as illustrated in previous chapters. Each outlet has a different

overall audience, but the way they told the story of the lawsuit allows for comparisons between

two predominant media outlets covering sports. The New York Times has a more niche audience

for sports that often includes readers who are college-educated with about 56 percent of readers

and have moderately high socioeconomic statuses, with 38 percent making $75,000 or more per

year (Pew Research Center, 2012). On the other hand, ESPN is one of the most widely known

sports media outlets, if not the most widely known. The site and its respective broadcast

programs, though on the decline in viewership, garner heavy traffic and could be considered the

sports media outlet for the masses, whereas The New York Times has a more tailored audience

for sports.

The New York Times is often seen as the gold standard of journalism, so it makes sense

that its reporting would reflect that. In its newsroom, the sports section works alongside several

other desks and often is not what The New York Times is known for, given the publication’s

extensive news coverage. Though the Times has an audience for sports, it also does not

necessarily function as other sports desks do. It does not frequently publish game recaps and

often focuses on features, in-depth reporting, columns and the newsier side of sports, among

other things. That is clearly not the case with ESPN, which almost exclusively covers sports and

has an audience that specifically seeks it out for that. ESPN could be seen as the sports outlet for

a larger, more general audience given its extensive coverage in all sports and daily broadcasts on

multiple channels and online. Of ESPN viewers, about 41 percent have a college degree, and the

median income is about $90,000, according to research from Altice Media Solutions. Those

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differences were not as evident in coverage as expected, but each outlet did vary in terms of the

most common types and frames of articles used.

Overall breakdown in terms of coverage

The New York Times began covering the NFL concussion lawsuit with original reporting

about eight months before ESPN did. ESPN led its coverage with AP reports about the suit and

waited to pick up original reporting, though it is not clear why the outlet chose to do so. That led

to New York Times reporters producing more articles than ESPN reporters: The New York Times

wrote 98 articles, and ESPN produced 92 between July 2011 and May 2017. How each outlet

dove into reporting about the lawsuit also differed, as The New York Times began reporting on

the lawsuit almost immediately after the first players filed suit, while ESPN reporters did not

take to the story until early 2012, when Jamison Hensley wrote a blog about former Baltimore

Ravens player Jamal Lewis.

In comparing errors, ESPN did not have any corrections, clarifications or editor’s notes

running alongside articles, partly because of its correction policy, while The New York Times had

10. In keeping with social responsibility, The New York Times had a more responsible policy in

terms of corrections, while ESPN, and other broadcast stations, would benefit from adding such

a policy. Additionally, each outlet used a similar number and percentage of metaphors. New York

Times reporters used metaphors in five of their articles, or about 5 percent of them. ESPN

reporters used metaphors in four of their articles, accounting for about 4 percent of all articles.

Those low percentages indicate that both New York Times and ESPN reporters preferred not to

draw comparisons to the violence of other acts, such as war, in their articles, possibly because

they can be tired and cliché. They instead decided to tell the story through examples of what

happened to players and through the details of the science and lawsuit to get across their

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messages. For the most part, metaphors are used to help personify ideas and make them more

relatable and understandable to an audience (Steuter & Wills, 2009). In this case, however, it

appeared that reporters from both outlets found it better to tell the story of the NFL concussion

lawsuit through the players’ stories and the humanistic aspects of the suit and the science.

Differences in types of articles

Though both outlets put an emphasis on traditional news articles, The New York Times

wrote more articles with a news focus than ESPN did. About 67 percent of all the articles written

by The New York Times were news focused, while about 49 percent of ESPN reports were news

articles. The types of articles used by the outlets were analysis, blog, opinion column, editorial,

essay, feature, investigation, news, obituary, op-ed and Q&A. In terms of overall coverage,

ESPN used fewer types of articles than The New York Times while writing about the lawsuit.

Because The New York Times is a major national news publication, its focus is not exclusively

limited to sports, of course. As a result, that allows for articles to bridge the boundaries into other

coverage, including the opinion and investigations departments, which led to more overall

variety in terms of the types of articles used when compared to ESPN. That was noted in the fact

that editorial, investigations and obituaries were the three different types of articles that The New

York Times wrote, but ESPN did not.

Though The New York Times employed a greater number of article types, with 10 total

compared with ESPN’s seven, the publication’s reporters generally wrote fewer articles per type

than ESPN did by type. The second most popular type of article at ESPN was blogs, compared

with columns at The New York Times even though both outlets had almost the same number of

columns related to the suit. ESPN, however, had four times the number of blogs that The New

York Times did. That could be because The New York Times does not prioritize blogs on its site

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as it appears that ESPN does. ESPN also has blogs tailored to specific audiences unlike The

Times, so that could contribute to more reporters writing blogs for specific regions and teams.

Table 5

Type of article Count of type of article —

ESPN

Count of type of article — The New

York Times

News 45 66

Blog 18 4

Column 13 12

Feature 8 8

Q&A 5 0

Essay 2 1

Analysis 1 1

Obituary 0 2

Op-ed 0 2

Editorial 0 1

Investigation 0 1

Those differences in types of articles allow for the story of the NFL concussion lawsuit to

be portrayed in a variety of ways. Readers of The New York Times may have been able to get

more of a sense of general consensus on the concussion lawsuit through the publication’s

editorial, but each outlet also offered a number of individual opinions on the suit, how it was

handled and what concussions mean to the NFL.

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Differences in frames

Though each outlet used a different number of types of articles, the author used the same

number of frames to compare coverage. The frames studied were none, legal, change, emotion,

science and violence. While The New York Times’ most commonly used frame was the legal

angle, ESPN reporters most frequently did not use a frame in their articles. That was at least

partly because ESPN mentioned the lawsuit more frequently in blog posts or news previews and

recaps that discussed multiple topics. The two outlets then traded on the second most popular

type of frame, with ESPN’s being legal, and The New York Times not using any. The order of the

frames between the two outlets was relatively similar, but ESPN had a more even balance

between all of the frames, excluding the violence frame, which the outlet did not use — The New

York Times used it just twice.

Table 6

Frame of article Count of frame of article

— ESPN

Count of frame of article — The New York

Times

None 37 25

Legal 28 36

Change 13 9

Emotion 8 21

Science 6 5

Violence 0 2

Beyond the two most commonly used frames, the main differences in frame usage lie in

emotion and change. The New York Times used the emotion frame almost three times as often as

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ESPN. In ESPN articles, reporters did not frequently use emotion as the dominant frame, and

when it was used, it was mostly used in features and news articles to describe the health of

former players and how concussions had changed their lives. The New York Times, though, used

the emotion frame in about one-fifth of its articles, varying by all different types. Those articles

also utilized a variety of number and type of sources. Some were reaction pieces, and others

conveyed the severity of injury the players faced by using anecdotal ledes or telling the story of

the concussion lawsuit through a player affected by it. The differences between the two outlets

show how ESPN rooted its coverage specifically in the lawsuit and the details of it, touching on

the other elements like history, scientific debate and change along the way, whereas The New

York Times spanned the emotional side much more frequently in an effort to show a more human

side of the suit. There were also slight differences in terms of the change frame, with ESPN

producing four more articles than The New York Times in that category. That was mostly because

ESPN’s columns took that angle more frequently than The New York Times’. All in all, these

frames in particular examine how effectively each outlet diversified their content.

Framing is especially important in terms of concussion coverage because the topic is a

multifaceted issue. Though coverage was often pegged to the legal side of the suit, the other

elements, including science and player impact, also make up a large part of the story. Breaking

down each article by its key focus and lens helps to create a clean-cut picture of the overall

coverage and what was most talked about from a media standpoint. For example, framing helps

quantify a large number of stories — in this case nearly 200. It can do that because coverage

picked up once players began suing and the story started to take off in 2012, when the class-

action suit was filed, which continued to expand coverage and angles in the five years after that.

With that expanded coverage, framing allows for analysis of whether there might have been any

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inadvertent media bias in terms of what was covered and how often it was covered. Frames

generally have some sort of effect on the audience but not necessarily on every person. Given

that there are multiple layers to frames and different perceptions from varying sides on what is

most important versus what takes on that role, that leaves room for unintentional bias in the

articles. The NFL concussion lawsuit did not have a particularly positive effect on the NFL, so

the nature of frames focusing mostly on what was wrong could be seen as an unintentional bias.

Reporters are often seen as bearers of bad news, and because the lawsuit was about a serious

topic with many former players coming forward and sharing their negative stories, that opened

up room for more bias just by the nature of the stories that were covered or the sources that were

used. The author of this thesis sought to use frames in particular because there are many areas in

which unintentional bias could have trickled into the reporting. Frames, on the other hand,

allowed for a quantitative delineation that would show more apparent biases (Entman, 1993). For

example, if one of the outlets had put a significant emphasis on the player impact and did not

address the science or legal aspect of it, that would create a bias because not all sides or angles of

the story would have been told. In terms of ESPN and The New York Times, though, both outlets

balanced well the lawsuit with the player impact, sometimes tying the two stories together as the

suit progressed. From a larger perspective, though, reporters could be seen as being

unintentionally biased against the NFL because both outlets focused a majority of articles on the

fallout and effects of concussions as opposed to changes in the game to make it safer. More

articles of that nature could have created a fuller, more unbiased picture of the lawsuit, especially

as the NFL never had to admit fault for player injuries. Framing was specifically used to contrast

these two outlets because it allows for comparison between different outlets that have different

focuses but write about the same kinds of articles.

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It makes sense why the focus was so heavily geared toward the legal frame since that was

the main form of news at the time. It is important, however, for news outlets to delve beyond the

news that is most readily accessible to them (Berry & Nerone, 1995). ESPN particularly dove

deep into the technical elements of the lawsuit to give readers consistent coverage about all the

happenings and debates related to the NFL and what the players could get out of the suit. The

New York Times, on the other hand, talked to former players and shared their stories, using the

emotion frame more frequently than ESPN. Each outlet had its own special focus during the

lawsuit, which is evident from both reading all of the articles in that six-year time frame and

evaluating the frames attached to each one.

The frames themselves and the analysis of them show how much of a focus is placed on

the lawsuit. The results of this thesis also reflect a larger trend in journalism: It shows how

frequently reporters use a newsy event to frame articles. That was apparent in these articles

because one of the most common frames for both outlets was legal, based off the news values of

the lawsuit. Sometimes reporters fail to go deeper than basic event coverage or reaction pieces,

which can lead to a lack of coverage of nuances related to other, deeper topics.

With those frames, reporters at both outlets also have a social responsibility to give a full

and complete picture of the NFL concussion lawsuit. Social responsibility theory states that the

news media has a responsibility to readers to provide them what they need to know to understand

the world and make judgments (Siebert et al., 1963). If the outlets did not balance their frames in

concussion coverage, they would not have been fulfilling that responsibility to readers, and

therefore, that would have created a gap in coverage. Though each publication did not

necessarily balance all sides equally — with good reason given the news peg of the lawsuit — it

is important for them to consider all sides, in this case the frames, of it, so readers have a full

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representation of what happened (Berry & Nerone, 1995). News outlets have a lot of power over

what people learn and how they learn it, and because of that, they must make sure their reporting

benefits readers by giving them all of the information from all angles possible. Responsibility

can only exist with power, which is why two powerful news outlets were selected for this thesis

(Siebert et al., 1963). That responsibility also holds powerful entities, like the government or in

this case the NFL, accountable for their actions, so that the public has an understanding of what

may be happening, for example, behind closed doors (Berry & Nerone, 1995).

Additionally, social responsibility theory states that journalists have an obligation to dig

deeper than just the sensational aspects of news (Siebert et al., 1963). In the case of this thesis,

the sensational aspect would be the damage done to former NFL players and how that has shaped

their lives because it can create strong feelings and draw people in with some of the problems

and sentiments of former players. Though each publication used that emotion as a frame, it was

not the dominant focus, which was positive particularly because of all the complexities of the

science but also the legal proceedings. With social responsibility theory, it is crucial that the

news media go beyond the initial information they are presented with (Berry & Nerone, 1995).

The outlets peeled back the surface to report on scientific developments, legal arguments and

what former players were really going through to analyze deeper parts of the lawsuit. Though

they could have expanded coverage more into the science side, they overall hit each part of the

lawsuit on a deeper level to meet the social responsibility they have. It is important for these two

outlets to continue to keep in mind social responsibility while writing their articles so readers

receive details about all sides of the NFL’s concussion problem and the lawsuit that came with it.

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Recommendations

Examining and evaluating the content, particularly frames and types of articles, allowed

for the author to pinpoint some areas of improvement for both outlets going forward. First of all,

given the complex nature of the concussion lawsuit and the importance of maintaining

transparency when writers err in reporting the story, ESPN should make an effort to correct all

errors in its articles, not just those deemed major. Any errors in journalism wear away at a

publication’s credibility, meaning that corrections should not be distinguished between major

and minor. All corrections should be noted in articles because otherwise readers would not know

if they had previously read an article with incorrect information if that is not noted in the article.

This is especially relevant to articles about the concussion lawsuit because of all the complexities

of the situation. Errors, omissions and misinterpretations are the three biggest forms of

inaccuracy in articles about research, which is a category several ESPN articles could fall into

(Chang, 2015). It’s important to be transparent about those issues and label any changed

information on the site as The New York Times does with a correction, clarification or editor’s

note tacked on to the bottom of the articles. Being transparent about those changes falls in line

with social responsibility and the ethics journalists have to remain open and honest with readers.

All of the articles ran online, and as a result, it is much easier to consider automatically fixing the

error without indicating that was done because it is an option many journalists did not have

before the development of digital media (Joseph, 2011). Running corrections shows that

journalists are accountable themselves and not just those who hold others accountable.

Corrections reflect human error and should be written as a way to show journalists can be trusted

rather than serving as an act of public shaming. Joseph reflects on this notion, saying “They

ensure that news consumers receive the correct or updated facts, and they allow news

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organizations to demonstrate their acknowledgement of a gaffe — showing that they are, in other

words, accountable for their mistakes” (Joseph, 2011, p. 708-09). That accountability fits into

social responsibility theory because readers are owed that sense of honesty by those from whom

they get their news.

Another change that could be made applies to both ESPN and The New York Times. Both

could expand coverage of research and do more extensive reporting on the science related to

concussions so their articles are not just based on recently released studies. About 5 percent of

New York Times articles used the science frame, and just over 6 percent of ESPN articles used it.

Given so much of the conversation surrounding the lawsuit and the scientific debates ensued in

the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the author expected to see more of a focus on the back-and-

forth of the debate and developments in concussion science as the years went by. That was not

the case, though, with the focus of most scientific articles being based on a news peg of a

donation to concussion studies or basic information about a new concussion study. Fainaru-

Wada and Fainaru’s League of Denial details the concussion science debate that occurred over

many years, but in the science-based articles, that is not always something that is clearly

mentioned. It could have benefitted readers to know why the case became such a huge fight with

the NFL. It would have provided more detail about the complicated history between researchers

such as Bennet Omalu and the NFL’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee and how the

league for so long denied that concussions were a problem in the sport. Taking more time to talk

to researchers on a deeper level could also allow for a clearer explanation of the science, which

can at times be complicated for the layperson to understand.

Expanding on that coverage also allows for less room for unintentional bias. Frame

analysis helps evaluate whether bias crept into any articles or a series of articles if the overall

63

those articles have similar angles (Entman, 1993). As mentioned earlier in this section, writing

more article about what steps the NFL was taking to address the problem or what scientific

developments could help the concussion crisis would have been one way to avoid any potential

for inadvertent media bias. All in all, each outlet provided a mostly thorough picture of the

lawsuit, though each had some areas in need of improvement. The suit has been settled, but the

story is not going away, so it is important to keep these findings in mind in future concussion

reporting, especially if other sports ever go down a similar legal path as professional football.

64

Conclusion

It started with Mike Webster. The former Pittsburgh Steeler served as the first person to

be diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy after he died at 50 years old in 2002

(Fainaru-Wada & Fainaru, 2014a). Several other former NFL players would follow, culminating

in a lawsuit that included about 4,500 former players and their families suing the league. They

claimed league officials knew or should have known about the damage that concussions and

head trauma could cause. Years of legal debate ensued, and the two parties agreed to settle,

though the NFL did not have to admit fault for anything. The news of the lawsuit made headlines

in major publications throughout the United States, with two prominent outlets being ESPN and

The New York Times. The author selected those two organizations so she could assess coverage

of all the different parts of the lawsuit, including the science, legal and emotional angles of both.

The author decided to examine the types of articles — news, opinion columns, features, etc. —

and frames of articles — emotion, science, legal, change, violence and none — to understand

what topics were most frequently written about, how that relates to the typical cycle of news and

how that tells the story of the concussion lawsuit.

The two publications have different audiences but have a responsibility to maintain high

journalistic standards. The New York Times is referred to as the newspaper of record, while

ESPN is many people’s go-to outlet for sports information. Readers of The New York Times tend

to be higher in educational standing and socioeconomic class, with the publication’s limited

number of free articles and the usage of more advanced language, while ESPN is attainable

through a variety of platforms and offers sports news seemingly for free online (Pew Research

Center, 2012). Regardless of their differences, both outlets have an obligation to their readers to

provide the most accurate and thorough information possible (Berry & Nerone, 1995). That

65

involves going beyond the more sensational aspects of news, in this case the emotional angle for

players because it sparks intense emotion in some cases, and delving into the more complex

issues, such as the legal tension and complex science.

Upon reading and evaluating articles written just before the lawsuit and in the six years

after, the author was able to understand how clear of a picture each outlet painted. Between July

2011 and May 2017, the two outlets published about 200 articles related to the NFL concussion

lawsuit. New York Times reporters wrote 98 articles, and ESPN reporters produced 92 articles. In

terms of the most commonly used type of article, both most frequently opted for the typical news

report, though The New York Times used that type in 67 percent of reporters’ articles, and ESPN

used it almost 20 percent less frequently, or in about 49 percent of articles. The New York Times

used a wider variety of article types given its focus in other areas, while ESPN focuses almost

exclusively on sports.

The author also evaluated frames and their roles in reporting about the NFL concussion

lawsuit. Frames allow for the analysis of a large number of articles because they can be broken

down into smaller categories to paint a more complete picture of a topic (Reese, 2010).

Additionally, frames tell readers what they should know through what reporters choose to focus

on (Rane et al., 2014). Using framing analysis can identify whether an article or set of articles

has a bias, whether intentional or not (Entman, 1993). Examining which frames both outlets used

allowed the author to understand how well-rounded their coverage was and where they have

room for improvement. If not used relatively equally to tell all sides of a story, frames can distort

the whole picture and all of the angles of the lawsuit (Reese, 2010). When used fully, they can

help the author tell a complete picture and offer readers all that they could need to know.

66

As previously mentioned, the author identified six frames to evaluate how effectively The

New York Times and ESPN wrote about the lawsuit. The two most frequently used the legal

frame and none, though that order differed between the outlets. ESPN more frequently did not

use a frame in articles because reporters wrote more recaps and previews that touched on the suit

but did not go into too much detail. Beyond those two, the main differences are found in the

emotion and change frames. New York Times reporters used the emotion frame more frequently

to describe how concussions affected former players when compared to ESPN reporters, who

used the change frame more frequently than the emotion one. Both put the least emphasis on

violence and then just slightly more emphasis on articles that focused on the science side of the

suit. That is an area that they both could improve in because the lawsuit has so many different

angles, and it is important to cover all of those, so readers can not only understand the legal

ramifications but also the science of how it affects players’ brains and what that does to their

lives from a more emotional angle.

Overall, the frames of articles showed how dependent news organizations often are on

current events. Legal was the most common frame, and that was because the lawsuit was the

current event at the time. But it is also important for reporters to go beyond just the news that is

most readily available to them (Berry & Nerone, 1995). For the most part reporters did that,

though they could have put more focus on science. It is important to keep that in mind going

forward because concussions are prevalent in many sports, the aftermath of the NFL’s suit is not

going away, and articles are still being reported to this day about that.

In addition to this thesis’ findings, there were also some limitations of the research. The

author was limited by the method she had to use to find all of the ESPN articles; that included

using an advanced Google search because the website limited searches to 10 pages of results. In

67

using the Google search, that could have limited articles on the website because the author had to

use an indirect way of searching the site, and some articles could have been missed. Another

limitation could be the time frame in terms of the NFL’s overall concussion problem. The

conversations about the severity of concussions and head injuries began back in the 1990s, but

this thesis focused only on the years of the lawsuit. More information could be gained from a

future study of all coverage of concussions in the NFL. More could also be learned from a study

that examines reader impact and how the frames used by each publication affected readers’

understanding of the lawsuit. That was a limitation of this study because its scope was much

narrower than that and would have required further resources. A broader focus with and beyond

social responsibility theory could have yielded richer results.

Despite those limitations and room for future study, this thesis helped understand

journalists’ patterns in reporting a complicated topic. Concussions are not going away in

professional sports, and it will be important for outlets to continue to assess their own coverage

to ensure they are meeting the highest journalistic standards that they can. This reporting is

important because it affects one of the largest sports organizations and is a sport many children

grow up playing. This is a sport steeped in American culture. Because of that, it is important that

journalists do their best to fully cover the issue, including the legal battle, the scientific

developments, how the game is changing to become safer and what the settlement is doing for

former players. In doing so, they will also provide readers with the fullest picture possible, which

is the goal of reporting. And in doing so, those reporters can help inform and incite change, so if

stories like Webster’s, Duerson’s or Seau’s continue to happen, they will be told in the best way

possible.

68

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Appendix A: Timeline

1992

● The conversation about concussions begins in the NFL after former New York Jets wide

receiver Al Toon retires because of brain injury.

1994

● NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue develops the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, or MTBI,

committee. He names Elliot Pellman, a rheumatologist, the chair of the committee.

● January — Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman is kneed in the head during the

NFC Championship game. A week later, he played in the Super Bowl, which the

Cowboys won 30-13 over the Buffalo Bills, but he has since said he does not remember

playing in the game.

● October — Chicago Bears fullback Merrill Hoge retires from the NFL as a result of

concussions.

● October — Three quarterbacks — Troy Aikman, Chris Miller and Vinny Testaverde —

get concussions on one Sunday. Some sportswriters call the year the “season of the

concussion.”

● December — Tagliabue calls concussions a “pack journalism issue” and says they are not

a problem for the league.

1995

● February — Leigh Steinberg, an NFL agent whose clients include Troy Aikman and

Steve Young, hosts a concussion seminar in California.

1997

● March — The American Academy of Neurology says repeated concussions can lead to

brain damage. It states that players should leave the game if they have symptoms more

than 15 minutes after the initial hit.

1999

● April — Former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster says football led to his

dementia.

● September — San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young is knocked out during what

would become the last game he ever played.

● October — The NFL Retirement Board determines that Webster became permanently

disabled from football injuries.

● December — Pellman says brain injuries are rare in the NFL.

2000

● May — Neurologist Dr. Barry Jordan and neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes put out

research that shows concussions could result in neurological problems.

● May — The MTBI committee says the 1997 guidelines from the American Academy of

Neurology reflect a lack of research.

● A confidential message sent to Riddell, the sports equipment company that manufactures

helmets for the NFL, says no helmet can stop concussions.

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2001

● Listing concussions as one reason, Aikman retires from football.

2002

● Sept. 24 — Mike Webster dies at age 50.

● Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist then based in Pittsburgh, does the autopsy for

Webster. He requests the brain be fixed for examination, and he studies it, finds a buildup

of tau protein and determines the brain has chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a

type of neurodegenerative disease.

2003

● October — The NFL publishes the first of 16 papers in Neurosurgery, a peer-reviewed

medical journal.

2004

● January — The MTBI committee says concussion recovery is typically fairly quick for

players.

2005

● June — Terry Long, a former offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers, commits

suicide.

● July — Omalu publishes his first paper on CTE in Neurosurgery.

2006

● May — The MTBI committee asks Neurosurgery to retract Omalu’s paper.

● July — Paul Tagliabue steps down as NFL commissioner.

● August — Roger Goodell assumes the role of NFL commissioner.

● November — Omalu publishes his second paper on CTE in Neurosurgery.

● November — Andre Waters, a former safety for the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona

Cardinals, commits suicide.

2007

● February — Ted Johnson, a former New England Patriots linebacker, tells The New York

Times that he has memory loss and became addicted to drugs, which he says stem from

his concussions in football. Goodell says he was concerned about that in his “State of the

League” address later in the month.

● Feb. 27 — Elliot Pellman resigns as the chair of the MTBI committee. Neurologist Dr.

Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano, the director of the Sports Biomechanics Lab at Wayne

State University, become co-chairs.

● May — Bailes and neuroscientist Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz publish research about players

being at risk for depression. The MTBI committee criticizes it.

● May 14 — Casson gains the label “Dr. No” after his interview on HBO Real Sports.

● June — The NFL holds its first concussion summit.

● September — The NFL presents a “What is a concussion?” pamphlet that says there are

no conclusive long-term effects of concussions.

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2009

● January — Neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, former professional wrestler turned

advocate Chris Nowinski and other researchers speak about the dangers of concussions at

a news conference before the Super Bowl in Tampa.

● May — McKee goes to New York to discuss her research with the MTBI committee.

● September — A study is released that states NFL players are 19 times more likely than

the average population to develop dementia. The NFL scrutinizes the study.

● October — Researchers speak at a congressional hearing on concussions. Rep. Linda

Sanchez (D-California) compares the NFL to tobacco companies, and Goodell avoids

questions about the dangers of concussions by saying scientists are more equipped to

answer those questions.

● November — Casson and Viano step down from the MTBI committee.

● December — NFL spokesman Greg Aiello says in an interview with Alan Schwarz of

The New York Times that concussions have long-term effects.

● December — The rules change so that players with concussion symptoms can longer

return to the game.

2010

● January — Boston University becomes the NFL’s preferred brain bank.

● March — Neurological surgeons Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard G. Ellenbogen

become co-chairs of the committee, whose name was changed to the Head, Neck and

Spine Committee. Guskiewicz becomes a member.

● July — The NFL puts up posters about the effects of concussions.

● September — McKee finds CTE in Owen Thomas, a 21-year-old college football player

from the University of Pennsylvania.

● September — The NFL donates $30 million to the National Institutes of Health for brain

injury research.

2011

● Feb. 17 — Dave Duerson, a former Chicago Bears safety, commits suicide at age 50.

● March — The NFL moves up kickoffs to the 35-yard line, or five yards up the field.

● July 19 — Lawyer Jason Luckasevic files an 86-page lawsuit on behalf of 75 former NFL

players.

● Oct. 19 — The Senate Commerce committee meets to talk about concussions and the

marketing of sports equipment.

2012

● A Super Bowl ad promotes the evolution of the NFL.

● Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis does a commercial about NFL rule

changes.

● April — Ray Easterling, a former Atlanta Falcons safety, commits suicide at 62.

● May 2 — Junior Seau, a former San Diego Chargers linebacker, commits suicide at age

43. He was later found to have CTE.

● June 7 — About 4,500 players file a class-action lawsuit against the league.

● Aug. 30 — The NFL files a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

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● November — Riddell is ordered to stop saying its helmets reduce concussions.

2013

● January — The NFL Players Association gives $100 million to Harvard Medical School

for football-related health problems, including head trauma.

● January — The NFL announces changes to concussion protocol, which include adding an

independent neurologist on the sidelines.

● April — In a news conference, an NFL lawyer says the NFL did not withhold

information about concussions.

● August — The NFL bans “crown of helmet” hits.

● August — The league agrees to a $765 million settlement with the former players. In the

deal, the NFL does not have to admit any wrongdoing.

○ The initial settlement was denied by judge Anita Brody.

2015

● April 22 — Brody approves the final settlement.

Information compiled from League of Denial, both the documentary and the book; NFL

concussion lawsuit records; Concussion; and School OF Hard Knocks — The Impact of the NFL

Concussion Litigation.