There’s a lot of outrage right now over ESPN’s failure to report in 2003 that there were sexual abuse allegations against Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine.We’re hearing it from fans through the Poynter Review Project mailbag. And a handful of critics have called out the network via blogs and Twitter, suggesting that if ESPN was not confident enough to publish, it should have at least gone to law enforcement with its information.Eight years ago, ESPN journalists spent significant time and energy over roughly a six-month period interviewing one alleged victim, Bobby Davis; listening to the now-infamous recording between Davis and Bernie Fine’s wife, Laurie; and trying to get other possible victims to talk.Based on what Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, told us this week, it’s clear that the network didn’t have enough information to publish a story at that time. Going public would have been journalistically irresponsible.

In the wake of the recent indictment of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State, Mike Lang came forward as the second alleged victim to accuse Fine. But in 2003, according to Doria, Lang was denying that he had been molested. Along with Lang, who is Davis’ stepbrother, another man ESPN interviewed in 2003 denied he was a victim, and another potential victim refused to talk. The Fines both refused to talk as well.

Fine was fired Sunday after the 10-year-old voice recording of his wife, Laurie, emerged in which she discusses her husband’s alleged abuse of Davis, and after the accusations of another alleged victim, Zachary Tomaselli, came to light.

Many critics have suggested that the tape of Laurie Fine should have been enough for ESPN to go public. It’s not. Nowhere on the tape does she describe firsthand knowledge of her husband abusing children. She says that she thinks there were other victims, and disturbingly acknowledges that she believes Davis was abused by her husband. But she doesn’t describe why she believes that to be true or say she witnessed abuse herself. (ESPN also couldn’t prove until recently the woman on the tape was actually Laurie Fine.)