Sports and the emergance of the internet

The debate is newsrooms across the country used to center around whether to use a photo or not and which story they wanted to lead with. Now, the debate involves how long traditional newsroom will last in the Web 2.0 era.

While both sides of journalism can moved toward the center, taking ideas from each other along the way, online and print still are two distinct fields. This is especially true in the coverage of sports, where it hasn’t been either or but rather a joint effort.

Sports, like others beats, used to be localized in that what happened with your favorite teams pretty much stayed in that area. New York Yankees’ outfielder Mickey Mantle’s passion for drinking and partying stayed in New York for the most part, as did the extracurricular activities of New York Jets’ quarterback Joe Namath.

There was a trust between journalist and subject that information would be past along in exchange for the journalist to be a filter before it hit the presses. It was more about how many points somebody scored and not how many bars they hit. However, once the Internet exploded, veteran journalists in the print business were at a crossroads.

Start dishing the dirt with new internet writers and message board junkies or start shoveling dirt on their careers. The decision was pretty easy and today, the dirt is flying at a record pace.

Now, it isn’t up to beat writers what information gets out, but what message boards and talk show listeners want and can get a hold of. That is why a story about a drunk Joe Namath stayed in the news for so long and ultimately called for a more in-depth look at Namath’s life on 60 minutes.

The same can be said in the case of Mantle, whose exploits were brought to a full national spotlight after a cover story in Sports Illustrated.

Stories that also took off in the Web 2.0 era were the unceremonious firing of football coach Mike Price and the drinking and eventual firing of basketball coach Larry Eustachy. In the past, these stories would have been big news in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Ames, Iowa, but now, they became national headline sports stories.

This follows the theory of David Weinberger when he says that the new media is controlled by us and we have taken the power from the authority or, “dictatorship of experts.” The general masses for the most part decide what can get covered and in this model, the consumer would control what gets coverage and what gets pushed inside and especially with the Internet, the readers have been heard.

Will there ever be a day when either the Internet or print is no more? Of course not because the Internet brings in too many readers with its interactivity, while print brings some credibility to the news. It is an unceremonious marriage that will take journalism into the next phase of development together.