For my extra credit assignment I chose to contribute to the Wikipedia page of Rick Reilly. Rick Reilly is a sportswriter who is most commonly for his writing on the back page of sports illustrated from 1985-2007. I chose to contribute to his page because he is my favorite Sportswriter and I love the style with which he writes.
At First I struggled with this assignment. The first two contributions I made were taken down within a day. After contacting the sitemaster at Wikipedia I learned that I needed to be less opinionated with my contribution so I decided to take one last shot. In my final attempt I made a cobntribution that was based on fact and I used examples from his writing to backup everything I said. I posted my final contribution recently and it has not yet been taken down. Although I did not make it the full 7 days I am still very happy with what I did. I think my contribution gives readers an in depth view of the way Rick writes and feels. It is for this reason that I am proud of my post and am confident that it will remain on the site forever.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Sports Journalism
The topic I chose to discuss in my final blog post is sports journalism and broadcasting. I am a huge sports fan and therefore, spend a good amount of my time reading and watching espn writers and analysts.
It is my opinion that the world of sports Journalism is becoming more and more outrageous. I can remember a time when ESPN had 5 anchors and maybe 1 roundtable sports talk show. If you watch ESPN nowadays you'll notice that they have over 30 sportscenter anchors and nearly 10 roundtable discussion shows such as, Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, The Sports Reporters, and Cold Pizza. All these shows have created a somewhat hectic atmosphere when it comes to reporting sports news. It used to be when something happened in Sports you could read the newspaper or watch ESPN and get 1 or 2 stories about what happened. When something happens today sports journalists beat the issue to death and cover it from every possible angle.
One example of this is the latest situation with Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg at a New York City nightclub. This issue received more coverage in the press than any issue I can remember. ESPN covered it from every possible angle. If I watched ESPN for 1 hour I would end up getting 20 different opinions on what happened and up to 10 conflciting stories between the newspapers, television, and magazines. It's this type of guerrilla journalism that ruins people's perceptions of the media. All I wanted to do was last week was tune into ESPN and not have to hear about Burress, unfortunately it was near impossible.
The media expends so much effort in covering these negative articles that they end up blowing issues out of proportion and ruining people's lives. I believe the world of sports Journalism would be much more well received if journalists would cover an issue and let it rest; without discussing it every 5 minutes.
I believe the media is mostly responsible for these issues being blown out of proportion. The agenda setting theory states the media doesn't tell us what to think but what to think about. This definitely holds true for issues in the world of sports. When ESPN writers and anchors discuss these issues over and over it puts pressure on people like NFL officials and the NYC District Attorney to act quickly and harshly. In essence the media is making the sentencing process swifter and harsher with their nonstop coverage.
Another medium that ruins the field of sports journalism is the radio. Station like am 660 The Fan in New York discuss these issues over and over until people are repeating themselves for hours. These radio talk shows have hours and hours of broadcasting time to fill and very little to talk about. What ends up happening is that the hosts end up fielding hours of calls from angry callers who do nothing but slander these athletes and offer up amateur opinions using the biased opinions they have received from other mediums.
All in all the world of Sports Journalism has reached a crisis point. Journalists need to loosen up on their coverage and worry more about making quality broadcasts than making 10 differing broadcasts a day.
1.Sports writers from USA Today and The Washington Times answer the question, "What is Sports Journalism?" A program hosted by ResearchChannel
2. Scott, David (2008-04-01). "Jackie Mack Taking Latest Globe Buyout", Boston Sports Media Watch. Retrieved on 3 April 2008.
3.How objective is our sports journalism?
It is my opinion that the world of sports Journalism is becoming more and more outrageous. I can remember a time when ESPN had 5 anchors and maybe 1 roundtable sports talk show. If you watch ESPN nowadays you'll notice that they have over 30 sportscenter anchors and nearly 10 roundtable discussion shows such as, Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, The Sports Reporters, and Cold Pizza. All these shows have created a somewhat hectic atmosphere when it comes to reporting sports news. It used to be when something happened in Sports you could read the newspaper or watch ESPN and get 1 or 2 stories about what happened. When something happens today sports journalists beat the issue to death and cover it from every possible angle.
One example of this is the latest situation with Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg at a New York City nightclub. This issue received more coverage in the press than any issue I can remember. ESPN covered it from every possible angle. If I watched ESPN for 1 hour I would end up getting 20 different opinions on what happened and up to 10 conflciting stories between the newspapers, television, and magazines. It's this type of guerrilla journalism that ruins people's perceptions of the media. All I wanted to do was last week was tune into ESPN and not have to hear about Burress, unfortunately it was near impossible.
The media expends so much effort in covering these negative articles that they end up blowing issues out of proportion and ruining people's lives. I believe the world of sports Journalism would be much more well received if journalists would cover an issue and let it rest; without discussing it every 5 minutes.
I believe the media is mostly responsible for these issues being blown out of proportion. The agenda setting theory states the media doesn't tell us what to think but what to think about. This definitely holds true for issues in the world of sports. When ESPN writers and anchors discuss these issues over and over it puts pressure on people like NFL officials and the NYC District Attorney to act quickly and harshly. In essence the media is making the sentencing process swifter and harsher with their nonstop coverage.
Another medium that ruins the field of sports journalism is the radio. Station like am 660 The Fan in New York discuss these issues over and over until people are repeating themselves for hours. These radio talk shows have hours and hours of broadcasting time to fill and very little to talk about. What ends up happening is that the hosts end up fielding hours of calls from angry callers who do nothing but slander these athletes and offer up amateur opinions using the biased opinions they have received from other mediums.
All in all the world of Sports Journalism has reached a crisis point. Journalists need to loosen up on their coverage and worry more about making quality broadcasts than making 10 differing broadcasts a day.
1.Sports writers from USA Today and The Washington Times answer the question, "What is Sports Journalism?" A program hosted by ResearchChannel
2. Scott, David (2008-04-01). "Jackie Mack Taking Latest Globe Buyout", Boston Sports Media Watch. Retrieved on 3 April 2008.
3.How objective is our sports journalism?
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