ESPN Tour May Swing Into D.C. After All

Jackson learned about the issue yesterday, when Plotkin asked him about it at a news conference on an unrelated matter at the John A. Wilson Building.

Jackson, in an interview later, said he telephoned Mark Shapiro, an ESPN programming executive based at the network's Connecticut headquarters, to tell him that this "was a matter of grave concern in Washington."

"It has its own territorial integrity, and it must be in the mix," Jackson said, adding that Shapiro told him that the network was trying to find a venue from which to host the show.

Jackson said he told Shapiro to contact the mayor's office.

"D.C. becomes to too many people an afterthought," Jackson said. "It's not just where congresspeople work. It's where people live."

Plotkin heaped praise on Jackson for picking up the phone, as opposed to Williams, who wrote a letter to which ESPN did not respond.

"You pick up the phone, you talk to the person in charge and you make it happen, and that's what Jesse Jackson did," Plotkin said.

He described ESPN's snub as "serious and substantive, and every time something like this happens, we should get very angry."