Blog #3

“The Sports Beat: A Digital Reporting Mix—With Exhaustion Built In”

“So journalists know what they must do. Build the brand. Drive traffic. Draw an audience. And hope that someone figures out how to make the money that makes it possible to again do real journalism.”  -- Dave Kindred

With this quote, Kindred points directly at his argument throughout the entire article. His argument is that journalism has taken a whole new pathway with the emergence and popularity of blogging, Twitter, and various other media outlets. Discussed in the article, the crowds of fanatics that are constantly checking these outlets have a “lust for information.” A long time reporter, Wally Matthews states, “It matters if we get the lineup posted first by 45 seconds,” as he discusses the importance of tweeting constant news to fans and viewers. This new form of journalism is seen as revolutionary, however, many reporters find this new way to be lacking “real journalism.” Lisa Olson, a columnist for AOL Fanhouse explains that “For reporters whose skills have been shaped by years of newsgathering, this work must be as much fun as playing Scrabble with a poodle.” The process has become “awkward” as conversations and random thoughts are shared between “boys-at-the-bar” and reporters through Twitter. Lastly, Kindred expresses the idea that this new form of journalism “records everything with little regard for context, perspective or narrative.”  By the statements of these various journalists and Kindred’s last point, the hope is that “real journalism” emerges again.

“It’s a Brand-New Ballgame—For Sports Reporters”

Malcolm Moran emphasizes the lack of quality represented in past generations of journalism in his article by addressing the process of new journalism in the technology age. Similar to Kindred, Moran discusses that students seeking to become journalists are “being asked to produce more content and do so more quickly than any generation before them.” Journalists are not just simply watching games, taking detailed notes, interviewing players, and compiling a story, they are simultaneously doing this while blogging, tweeting, and carrying on conversations with fans through these outlets. Moran best describes this idea when he writes, “Today’s sports beat reporting seems more about producing fragments of information than in shining a light on core issues of our time.” Later in his article, Moran gives the reader two deficiencies among beat reporters: “a lack of discernment  and a reluctance to engage.” With the ease of access to create, send, and converse about sports through different types of technology, reporters are beginning to leave behind the idea of getting to games early, staying late, and making the extra phone call to get the best information possible. These reporters merely depend on their technology and abundance of media connection to get prevalent information needed to finish stories, blogs, or tweets. New reporters have moved passed the old model of passing along sensitive information to be looked over throughout a day by various editors to a new model that seems to believe in 80 percent accuracy rate and getting information out quickly and constantly.