My favorite media story was 20+ years ago, I saw an interview with a former NY Yankee journalist that used to travel with the team back when Babe Ruth was still playing. I think he was around 90 years old, maybe 100.
He was asked how the media has changed from his time and he told this story…He and a fellow journalist were having dinner on a train in the dining room car. The door to the car opened and Babe Ruth came running through the car butt naked. In hot pursuit was a woman chasing him with a knife. When they ran into the next car the journalist he was having dinner with said, “Did you see that?” to which he replied, “Nope, or I would have to write about it in the paper tomorrow.” The story never got reported.
I have heard the big shift from being sports reporters to drama reporters was OJ Simpson. Before OJ there were a few of the cable networks that would show up to cover the dramatic events. With OJ the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) all jumped in and it has been that way ever since.
I missed the days as a kid calling in to the local newspaper that did phone recordings to give score updates throughout the day and then pouring over the box scores in the newspaper the next day and a piece recapping the game.
Back then it was about the love of the sport. Today it seems the game is secondary to the “drama” around the players and the game. I don’t blame the media. If people did not feed into the drama it would stop being reported so much. For the most part, people are drama-whores.
He was asked how the media has changed from his time and he told this story…He and a fellow journalist were having dinner on a train in the dining room car. The door to the car opened and Babe Ruth came running through the car butt naked. In hot pursuit was a woman chasing him with a knife. When they ran into the next car the journalist he was having dinner with said, “Did you see that?” to which he replied, “Nope, or I would have to write about it in the paper tomorrow.” The story never got reported.
I have heard the big shift from being sports reporters to drama reporters was OJ Simpson. Before OJ there were a few of the cable networks that would show up to cover the dramatic events. With OJ the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) all jumped in and it has been that way ever since.
I missed the days as a kid calling in to the local newspaper that did phone recordings to give score updates throughout the day and then pouring over the box scores in the newspaper the next day and a piece recapping the game.
Back then it was about the love of the sport. Today it seems the game is secondary to the “drama” around the players and the game. I don’t blame the media. If people did not feed into the drama it would stop being reported so much. For the most part, people are drama-whores.
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