On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote:
> Supposedly the reason they let Olbermann and some others go is because > they were going to focus on content and not personalities. And now > they're giving up content. Maybe they weren't getting the bang for the > buck they wanted. > > > Sports journalism is facing the same reality as actual journalism. Ignorant executives in charge think that news stories magically appear on the Internet and don't require people to actually investigate them (or write them), so they downsize and the remaining staff are reduced to aggregators of information... no verification, no actual reporting, just copy-and-paste. As all the news organizations will slowly realize that there still need to be boots on the ground (or in the field or stadium or court in the case of sports), one hopes that realization comes before the organizations can no longer structure such an arrangement. The one sport I follow is professional cycling, and coverage of it is reduced to a single camera team for every nation and team involved. Others may license the use of the footage (or the live feed), and others might have their own commentators, but that's a far cry from having your own cameras and personnel in place to cover the events and people that matter most to your specific audience. Dodger announcer Vin Scully is practically part of the team itself. He has a firsthand history of the players, the stats, the parks, the uniforms, even the hot dogs. He knows the past and present players and coaches, and he knows what the fans want. You don't just replace somebody like Scully with subcontracted announcers from out-of-town who call basic play-by-play with no real insight or interest in what is happening. And yet that is what sports networks will ultimately do because it is cost effective. Just as it is cheaper for CNN to report from Atlanta even though 99.99% of world news happens outside of Atlanta, that's the direction ESPN will take. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
