Courtesy Miami Herald

(June 12, 2009) ESPN celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and we will report this summer on programming to commemorate the occasion. But for all that ESPN does well, there's still room for improvement. Here are eight places to start:

• Add more news and ''insider'' reports on the studio shows -- especially NFL Live and College Football Live -- and spend less time debating forced, manufactured topics. Among this week's subjects discussed by Mark Schlereth and Marcellus Wiley: Which offseason NFL story would make the best movie? But at least that was more entertaining than ESPN spending four minutes in November having analysts debate whether Chris Johnson or Matt Forte would have the better game when Tennessee played Chicago. Yawn. . . . Meanwhile, on the 11 p.m. SportsCenter, there should be more newsy information segments -- from Chris Mortensen, John Clayton, Peter Gammons, etc. -- and less pedestrian analysis from former players, unless the event warrants (such as the NBA Finals).

• Give viewers an explanation when reports, quoting anonymous sources, are disputed. This week, coach Brad Childress shot down Ed Werder's and Mortensen's story that the Vikings set a Friday deadline for Brett Favre to decide whether he would play for them. Whether Childress was telling the truth, it puts the onus on ESPN to explain why it believes its story was accurate and why viewers should believe it. ESPN, in this case, did not.

Instead, the broadcasters lashed out at Childress -- Werder accusing him of being ''totally disingenuous'' and Schlereth going overboard by saying Childress has put himself in position for players ``to question his integrity and character.''

• Bring back the Chris Berman/ Tom Jackson-hosted NFL PrimeTime. And start the show as soon as NBC's Sunday night broadcast ends (the earliest it can begin under terms of NBC's contract), instead of having Berman and Jackson appear on several segments of SportsCenter.

• Shorten the ponderous Monday Night Football postgame show on SportsCenter, where Steve Young apparently believes he's being paid by the word.

If ESPN wants to justify sending three studio members on the road (Young, Stuart Scott and now Matt Millen), give them their own postgame show on ESPN2, or move SportsCenter to ESPN2. In September, I will want baseball highlights shortly after Monday Night Football ends, not Young's soliloquy on the Bills' quarterback play.

• Stop telling us -- 15 times in a row -- that SportsCenter is next when a game is running long. We know. And everybody else knows, too, assuming they did not just arrive from the Amazon rain forest.

• Stop the ''interactive'' Tuesdays, when fans sign on espn.com and post generally worthless comments like ''Go Wildcats!'' that appear on ESPN2's college football and basketball games. If viewers want to be heard, let them exchange cellphone numbers and annoy each other with text messages.

• Be more judicious with how ''the bottom-line'' scroll is used.

Such as: Stop running predicted statistics for NFL players before games, as ESPN did at times last season. It's all pointless guesswork.

• Stop weaving your reporters' names into stories that aren't ESPN exclusives. If the Podunk Post reports that X player is signing with a team, we don't need to see the words: ''Ed Werder confirms.'' If we put a man on Mars, I'm expecting ESPN's crawl to tell us ``Man on Mars, Buster Olney confirms.''