A few readers have noticed a curious discrepancy between the manner in which ESPN has covered the allegations that former USC basketball player O.J. Mayo received benefits in violation of NCAA rules and the manner in which ESPN “covered” those same allegations against former USC football player Reggie Bush.

With Mayo, ESPN made a big splash.  With Bush, ESPN has at times pretended not to notice.  Our buddy who runs The Big Lead pointed out earlier this year that ESPN generally was ignoring the publication of a book that makes the case in convincing fashion that Bush lost his eligibility (and thus should lose his Heisman) via the receipt of cash and other benefits while playing college football.  Our own independent research (i.e., we Googled “usc bush espn,” which showed on the first page of search results only one item on ESPN.com about the scandal, which was merely the pasting of an AP story from October 2007) seems to confirm this.

So why the discrepancy?  Our guess is that ESPN is making a bigger deal out of the Mayo mess because ESPN “broke” it.  As to Bush, Yahoo! Sports was at the cutting edge of the story.

But should a media organization make editorial decisions about which stories are and aren’t “big” based on whether the organization in question broke the story?  The answer is, clearly, no — but unless and until such nuances of journalism ever impact ESPN’s audience, we don’t expect such practices to change.

And with ESPN apparently attempting to appeal to the least common denominator of sports fans (evidenced by, for example, the hiring of and stubborn refusal to fire the dreadfully inept Emmitt Smith), we doubt that good journalism will ever get in the way of good business.