My initial thoughts on seeing this headline were somewhat negative, wondering who controlled the decision on flag-bearers. I felt a little better after reading the actual article, learning that Lebron "has been voted by his fellow Olympians to be the Team USA flag-bearer at the opening ceremony on the River Seine on Friday in Paris." I still have questions about how the process works, though. Was any other male athlete nominated? I really wonder if Steph's nomination of Lebron chilled the process. Does each Olympian get one vote? How many Olympians actually voted? How is the winner selected after the vote - highest vote total?

Come on, ESPN. Sports journalism needs to do better.

tags: sports olympics journalism

posted by matt in Monday, July 22, 2024

The potential ban of Marcano comes in the wake of the NBA handing down a ban to Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for disclosing confidential information to bettors, limiting his participation in at least one game and betting on NBA games while playing in the G League.

Lifetime Ban.

It was only a matter of time, in this current environment where in-game announcers report on current odds for games, until we heard those words again.

Lifetime Ban for betting on baseball.

This story is both shocking and unsurprising.

It will be important to keep track of this and other stories relating to athletes gambling on their sports because I think MLB and the sports media industry will do everything in their power to downplay them. Indeed, ESPN kind of checked its swing in its reporting, so far, on the story about Tucupita Marcano – the linked article doesn't link to the original report from the Wall Street Journal about Marcano and, perhaps more interestingly, links to the ESPN team page for the Toronto Raptors in the text above about the NBA ban for Jontay Porter instead of linking to an ESPN story about that ban. At least it doesn't link to a page showing the current odds on Thursday's opening game in the NBA Finals.

Despite their efforts to downplay it, fans – and gamblers – can't ignore it.

I think we can at least rely on ESPN to announce the presence of sports betting every time it takes the field. Completely ignoring a story like this would destory any bit of news credibility the network has left. It still fashions itself as a news outlet on some level. Make no mistake, though, ESPN will not give us detailed, in-depth reporting as individual gambling stories appear in the coming years. That would be actual journalism, something the entertainment network abandoned a long time ago.

And if there's any doubt about that, consider this – SportsCenter ran a segment on the Marcano story below the fold this morning. Think about that. SportsCenter, the flagship current news program on the leading sports media network made a programming decision to push a report on a potential lifetime ban in Major League Baseball, something that hasn't been an issue in decades, to the back half of the show the day after the story broke. And this when the NBA and NHL playoffs, the two major sports events in the United States right now, are paused for a few days before the respective finals get underway later this week. There's literally nothing happening in either playoffs right now.

Journalists would pursue the Marcano story vigorously and give it the proper spotlight on the front page and as a lead story on SportsCenter. ESPN, of course, views it differently. After all, it operates ESPN Bet, its "official sportsbook." The network clearly stands to benefit from starving this story, and any story about problems arising from sports gambling, of oxygen. The problem for us, as news-hungry sports fans, is that the network, as the 800-pound gorilla of sports news, has its hand tightly gripped on the valve controlling flow.

Maybe we'll get a 30 for 30 documentary on the whole thing in a few years.

Surely that will save face.

tags: sports journalism espn mlb nba gambling

posted by matt in Tuesday, June 4, 2024

In the days and weeks immediately afterward, an overwhelming majority of Americans understood that the former president had incited it, for the purpose of staying in the White House. Two years of Trump lies and lukewarm media pushback later, that percentage is far lower, and an increasing number of Republicans now believe Trump was not responsible for his own coup attempt.

How much deeper into the looking glass are we going to fall if journalists fail to provide the most basic of context to our audience?

In an age when most journalism is produced and consumed online, with no physical "column inch" limit like with print, there is simply zero excuse not to include just a sentence or two of context about Trump's Jan. 6 conduct in every news account about him. The relative clause "who attempted a coup to remain in power" adds precisely eight words to a story.

Journalism is broken in many ways, the "horse race" nature of political journalism being just one of them.

tags: politics journalism

posted by matt in Sunday, May 7, 2023

How does this happen? Blame for these "race to publish" errors seems to usually fall on the writer. Not here, though, where it seems Mr. Dow's "management team" had the itchy finger.

CNN previously reported an obituary on Tony Dow, after receiving a statement from his management team confirming his death. That statement has since been rescinded and a family friend has confirmed to CNN that Dow is in hospice care.

tags: news journalism

posted by matt in Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Fox News doesn't even try to hide its bias anymore. They actively embrace it these days. Case in point - they're launching a new personality (I can't remember the name, but it really doesn't matter…it's just the next one). In one of the promo spots for his forthcoming show, he reads a text while sitting at the news desk. It's from his mother, who offered him this motherly advice: "sit up straight, you're leaning to the right."

It's funny because it's true. And I'm fine with that, because it feels like a jump the shark moment for the network. It's not a news network, and everyone knows it. Even them.

But it's also sad because it's true. Fox isn't a news network. It's news-fueled entertainment. And so is CNN, and most of the others.

We really need a news network. Something that just presents good old-fashioned who, what, when, where, and why journalism. I think people want that, and I think there's room to innovate there, too. Integrate tv delivery with social media, show the pulse of comments from the left and right as the reporters just report the facts.

I'd watch it. I'm pretty sure my mom wouldn't, though.

tags: news journalism

postposted by matt in Saturday, January 22, 2022

Yes, we need to teach digital literacy to our kids. Everyone is ignoring the reality, though, that we really need to teach it to our parents.

tags: tech misinformation journalism

posted by matt in Sunday, November 14, 2021

'Within the U.S., 19.9% of bitcoin’s hashrate – that is, the collective computing power of miners – is in New York, 18.7% in Kentucky, 17.3% is in Georgia, and 14% in Texas, according to Foundry USA, which is the biggest mining pool in North America and the fifth-largest globally.'

What a crappy headline. Texas is in fourth place according to the source cited in the article. Why is the fourth place state headline worthy, while the second (Kentucky) and third (Georgia) place states are not? Eyeballs and clicks, Texas apparently brings (or has the potential to bring) more of each.

And this is really sad when you consider that so many people "only read the headlines" these days. They don't walk away with only part of the story, as you would expect of someone only reading the headline. They actually walk away with a completely different story.

That's sad. And dangerous.

And it's not journalism. It's clickbaiting.

tags: journalism web bitcoin

posted by matt in Sunday, October 10, 2021

People confuse journalism and entertainment all the time. Understandably so, the line is blurry and getting blurrier. Oprah Winfrey is no journalist. That interview was entertainment, pure and simple. Holding it out as journalism and reporting of actual news should be an embarrassment for CBS.

tags: journalism news

posted by matt in Sunday, March 14, 2021

If the BBC's vetting process can't identify an impostor of a U.S. Senator, how will they deal with deepfakes? Trust in content is growing in importance, and will become more valuable as technology advances. Major publishers with brands that signify trust are in a great position to take advantage of this...until they aren't.

tags: deepfake news journalism

posted by matt in Thursday, March 4, 2021