PASADENA -- You know that horrified, twisted-up look Oregon running back LaMichael James had on his face this week,

, terrified? Well, I totally get it after looking at this Rose Bowl and seeing the way ESPN is leading it around on a leash.

The sight makes me want to hurl.

Have to give it to the self-proclaimed "worldwide leader" because just as you can buy a

or commemorative scarf in Pasadena today, you can apparently buy anything for the right price. The sports-television network has managed to buy exclusive access for a half-billion dollars.

Consider that Friday's practices for Oregon and Wisconsin were open to the media. Mandatory and customary by Bowl Championship Series standards, of course. Those who attended were treated to 15 minutes of players mostly goofing off and warming up. ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit brought his kids, who were adorable, and played a game of "keepaway" with some Ducks players, including James. And then, when the 15 minutes expired,

.

ESPN's people stayed on. And that's what $500 million buys in a bowl week.

Look. Make no mistake. Anyone paying attention to the exodus of talented, well-sourced journalists from

to other places in the last decade understands that a lot of the best talent on staff bolted long ago to places like Yahoo!, Fox Sports, CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated. Places that are still interested in more than air-brush journalism. The four-letter sports network has gravitated away from great reporting, and writing, and substance, and instead is in the business of buying up events and exclusivity and passing it off to the consumer as journalism.

So mission accomplished this week.

ESPN owns the entire BCS, turns out. Beginning this season, under a four-year agreement that feels a little too much pimp and prostitute for me, the cable network gets to do as it pleases with the BCS Championship game as well as the Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls. And something about that isn't right.

The events' broadcast rights were previously shared by Fox and ABC. Never felt heavy-handed when they were in charge. And as part of ESPN's exclusive deal, the personalities associated with the cable network get to hang out at practice, tweeting about the Ducks' practice music selection as Erin Andrews did this week. They're buying exclusive access to players and coaches before the bowls and exclusive rights during the games. Also, Herbstreit's cute children will apparently get access that a long line of trained journalists who cover the teams for readers and viewers on a daily basis do not.

Money talks. And journalism walks, see?

Sick stuff.

Not just because ESPN gets access to footage that it will package and feed to viewers like it did with that flimsy, but wildly profitable,

two summers ago. But because the agreement between cable network and bowl series has to make you wonder where the relationship between ESPN and the football it pretends to cover begins and ends. Are they partners? Is this a legitimate subject-reporter situation? Once ESPN buys access to an event don't they then turn from journalist to promoter?

Don't answer.

Everyone already knows.

When ESPN selectively covers stories, as it does during a college football season, and attempts to dictate what is news and what is not to the public, how can any of us not be left wondering if they're really reporting the news or simply protecting their bowl-week product? After all, they're in this thing together now. When they're slow to break a story, can we be sure why?

When the agreement was announced in 2008, ESPN president George Bodenheimer declared: "The BCS will thrive on ESPN."

They're vested, see?

ESPN isn't covering the Rose Bowl. They're broadcasting what they hope is the best game ever to 98 million households. The corporate giant is packaging the thing, prettying it up, and presenting it to viewers. But not covering it like journalists. Make no mistake. That's clear after seeing the way the network handled this college football season, promoting and packaging weekly BCS-ranking specials and bowl-game run-up in a manner normally reserved for the NCAA basketball tournament's "Selection Sunday."

Any idea of whether any of it mattered? Or was ESPN just selling a product and disguising it as journalism? And if there were a real story here, would ESPN cover it or wait for someone else to break it before acknowledging it?

I know a handful of good, talented people who still work for ESPN. They'll hate this column. But it needs to be written because this is exactly what's happening. The journalists are going one way, and the entertainers another. My ESPN friends insist there is a real aim internally at continuing to chase stories and break news.

Must have been what Herbstreit's kids were after when they were playing keepaway with the Ducks.

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Catch him on the radio on "The Bald-Faced Truth," 3-6 p.m. weekdays on KXTG (750).