ESPN has banned reporters from the New York Post from appearing on any of their programming after the Post published still pictures from the now infamous Erin Andrews peephole video. The video, shot by a still unidentified voyeur, shows ESPN reporter Erin Andrews strolling naked around a hotel room. The New York Post published several photo screenshots from the video tape on Tuesday.
Most copies of the peephole video have now been removed from the web. Some sites still claiming to host the video are instead infecting eager downloaders with malicious viruses. However, still pictures from the Erin Andrews video have printed by several media outlets over the past few days, including the New York Post - the first major publication to release the photos.
On Wednesday, ESPN announced that all New York Post staffers would be blacklisted from appearing on the network, according to DeadSpin.com. Reporters from the Post have frequently guested on ESPN shows in the past. “While we understand the Post’s decision to cover this as a news story, their running photos obtained in such a fashion went well beyond the boundaries of common decency in the interest of sensationalism,” ESPN Senior Vice President of Communications Chris LaPlaca said in a statement to the press.
In response, the New York Post claims that it is all ESPN’s fault that the Erin Andrews peephole video became an Internet sensation in the first place. According to the Post, when ESPN’s lawyers sent a message to a web site hosting the video download, they confirmed that the video was indeed of Andrews – causing the peephole video to become an almost overnight Internet sensation.
Meanwhile, conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly is being accused of stepping over the line as well by airing a portion of the Erin Andrews peephole video on his show on the Fox News Network.
Andrews released a statement via her attorney on July 17th verifying that the peephole video footage was indeed of her and was made without her “knowledge or consent.†According to her attorney, Marshall B. Grossman, Andrews intends to file both criminal and civil charges against the creator of the video as soon as they have been positively identified.
Erin Andrews is currently on leave and scheduled to resume her broadcasting duties on ESPN in September.
