There have been plenty of controversies over how Fox Sports has covered the UFC and plenty of allegations that they’re too close to that organization, especially around their March decision to part ways with Ariel Helwani. Those critics now have more ammunition thanks to MMA journalist Elias Cepeda, who had a column published at FoxSports.com that criticized the UFC and the USADA over the delay between Brock Lesnar’s potential doping policy violation (11 days before his UFC 200 fight) and the announcement of that (six days after the fight). On Friday, Cepeda wrote on Facebook that the column was pulled over concerns “it would offend the UFC”:
My column published earlier tonight (“UFC’s dangerous drug-testing inconsistency and hypocrisy demands answers”) at FOXSports has been taken down because, I’m told, there is concern that it would offend the UFC. This is the second time this has happened in the past couple months. The merits of the story, to my knowledge, have not been called into question this time or the previous time. I stand by both stories. This most recent one is most certainly a strong opinion piece, but I believe it is well-supported. More than anything, the discussion needs to be happening. I will post the entire column as it was published, above, in case anyone wants to read it or share.
Deadspin’s Kevin Draper wrote about the move Monday and criticized Fox for it, and since then, Cepeda has removed the column from his Facebook page, instead inserting this:
**I have taken down the text from this story because FOXSports has claimed intellectual property rights to it and requested that it be removed from this page. I have respected their request**
Fox is probably within their legal rights to request Cepeda take that column down (many contracts for online writing transfer all rights associated with that writing to the publisher, regardless of if the publisher decides to use it or not), but it’s not a move that looks terribly good. Pulling this column from their own site was bad enough, but knocking it off the internet entirely really suggests they want to stifle UFC criticism (and in a way they probably don’t need to; once it was off their site, why should they worry about it?). Add this to Fox’s decision to part ways with Helwani, who’s been a frequent target of UFC president Dana White for his reporting, and their ability to cover the UFC with any sort of journalistic rigor comes into question.
Plenty of networks have been criticized for how they cover their business partners, of course, including ESPN and the NFL, but ESPN has shown much more backbone in reporting on that league than Fox has with the UFC. Fox seems less and less interested in reporting or news overall, though, something which was very evident around the Jon Jones positive drug test ahead of UFC 200: ESPN covered it heavily live on SportsCenter, while Fox Sports Live was pulled for a clip show because the scheduled pre-taped interview with Jones and Daniel Cormier to promote the fight no longer made sense.
A key question coming out of this is if fight fans will still be interested in Fox’s UFC coverage (and especially their studio coverage) if it can’t be critical? If fans keep watching anyway and the UFC stays happy with Fox ahead of their 2018 contract expiration, they’ll be fine. If going away from criticism hurts audience for their product, they might need to rethink things.
Update: Fox later sent this statement to Deadspin:
The article was removed because the author circumvented our editorial process by publishing the story directly to the site without first submitting to an editor for review. Furthermore, the author made unsubstantiated allegations that compromised the integrity of the report.
The cached post can be read here, and yes, there are some allegations in there that aren’t supported and could be legally problematic to publish (specifically, calling the arrangement between the USADA and the UFC “outright corrupt” and suggesting the UFC knew of Lesnar’s test before the fight: neither of those accusations has been proven yet). So, that’s a point in Fox’s defense that backs up their statement this was about a circumvention of the editorial process and problematic allegations rather than keeping the UFC happy.
Cepeda has now resigned from Fox, citing philosophical differences. Here’s the key part of his comments:
My reasons for leaving have nothing to do with my staff writer colleagues or my editors. I’ve resigned because, speaking broadly, it has become clear to me that there are philosophical differences between myself and the executive leadership there on important issues of journalism ethics.
We can’t ever know for certain if we’re in the right when we take stands on issues, but we can be ourselves and do our best to do our work in the way we believe it should be done.
As far as I am concerned, the split with FOXSports is amicable. Even though I have disagreements with executives on issues that matter a great deal to me, I am grateful that they listened to my concerns and spoke with me openly.
[Elias Cepeda on Facebook]
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