To atone for missing class last Thursday, I decided to visit the Dan Le Batard show when I was in Miami and report to you what I saw.

I got the invitation to the show from a University of Missouri grad and Miami Herald writer who arranged a time to meet Le Batard through the Herald. He claimed he had a plus-one that allowed me access to the show.

Le Batard, as many of you know, runs a daily ESPN radio show and TV show. He’s worked as a sports columnist at the Miami Herald and is a University of Miami grad with a bachelor’s in journalism.

Looking at the entire Le Batard show through the lens of this class, I found Le Batard to operate in an ethical landfill. When we were there, it seemed Le Batard made a living creating journalism trash on his radio and TV show.

First off, his show is located on the second floor of the Clevelander Hotel, which lounges along Ocean Drive in Miami. Before you walk into the show, you must wade through an outdoor club filled waist-deep in half-naked dancers, $15-dollar drinks and headache-inducing music. Le Batard took pride in telling me that ESPN didn’t know much about the show’s location and for good reason. Disney would probably not like the hoopla around the show.

“As long as we stay out of trouble, they leave us alone,” Le Batard told me.

I wanted to ask Le Batard how anyone could take anything he said seriously in the environment that he surrounds his show. Trust me, that Clevelander is a great time. But can respected journalism operate in a place that begs you to buy another tequila shot? The shows environment seems to spit in the face of people who try to take journalism seriously.

Arriving on set, the first thing I noticed was a suit, tie and pants crumpled on the desk of Highly Questionable. For the radio show, Le Batard and his co-hosts opted to wear shorts and T-shirts while on air. Now, this attire maybe doesn’t break any ethical rule but perhaps lends itself to the lack of professionalism Le Batard exhibits.

The radio show itself didn’t impress me at all. Le Batard and his hosts produced dribble that any of the well-oiled hunks on Ocean Drive could say. They debated how great Drew Brees was. They talked about how lame it was for the Heat to take on the Bucks. I didn’t feel like the show was informing or entertaining. Truly, anyone with some amount of sports knowledge could make a show like that.

On his co-host side, having a guy like “Stugotz” on air is just silly. His name comes from the Sopranos and means something like “this cock.” Again, how are we supposed to take journalism seriously from someone named Stugotz? Also, Le Batard brings his father on “Highly Questionable” which seems to break the rule we talked about with Julie Tristan and not bringing friends or family on the any journalism venture.

I could go on and on complaining about how rotten these Le Batard shows are for sports journalism. As you know, Le Batard has created many ethical sports journalism moments including letting others vote on his Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and putting up LeBron James billboards.

Many of you might argue that Le Batard’s show is purely entertainment and should not be considered sports journalism. Like Greg has pointed out, can we be sure that all of Le Batard’s audience sees this show as entertainment? Is Le Batard hurting sports journalism as a crossover journalist-entertainer?

Upon leaving the show, we found Le Batard banging on a door and asking to be let back inside. He had accidentally locked himself out after he got upset and walked out of his own show. Personally, it was hard to take Le Batard seriously in the field of journalism. I hope we could potentially talk about some of the issues surrounding his show and other shows like this one as we try to better ourselves as sports journalists.