In 1983, 50 companies controlled media in the United States. By 2012, that number had dropped significantly due to mergers and acquisitions. The six corporations that now control 90 percent of the media in this country are:
Time Warner Cable
CBS
Viacom
Disney
Newscorp
GE
According to this piece, that means 232 executives control the media diet of 277 million Americans. That's a truly scary thought.
The same is true of ESPN in the sports world: it controls most of the media in that sphere. That's why their stuff gets tweeted by the NCAA, the WNBA and many of the teams therein.
And this is why you are best to actively seek out independent WBB media, too. Obviously, if you're reading this, you already do. But pass it along, and check out other independent WBB news sites and twitter accounts. Because as the news machine is currently saturating the public with Donald Trump, the mainstream sports media is snowing us with Breanna Stewart, and a few other select story lines.
Seek a wide variety of news sources to be as informed as you possibly can. Women's basketball is full of fascinating people all around the country. The more news outlets you read, the more knowledgeable you will be about the WBB community, and all the issues surrounding it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Seeking varied resources is good practice for WBB, et.al. Critical thinking is so important for life. Thank you for your active seeking of nuggets and sharing.
Yeesh. So today I learned that Breanna Stewart is the Donald Trump of women's basketball. Quite the rich comparison. Why not just go ahead and put her likeness up with some devil's horns drawn in. Maybe then everyone will finally get the picture.
It's cool that you're still around, Paul C, but your deductive reasoning skills/understanding connections could use some serious work.
Here's a tweet I posted Sunday after the game about your beloved player:
https://twitter.com/hoopism/status/731994103064322049
She's a great kid.
The hype machine around her is not.
"...the mainstream sports media is snowing us with Breanna Stewart."
Love your verb choice, Sue. There are other players, after all.
Scampy!!! Nice to see you again. Hope all is well.
I'm so old (70) when it comes to this Internet stuff that I was reading your comment-less green and blue blog by mistake. As to "all," I'm good enough, hope you are, too.
Will Niya Butts still be such a dapper dresser at Kentucky?
Thanks Sue. I appreciate your honesty. I really like Stewie, but she isn't the be all and end all of the WNBA to most of us.
This is why we have you Sue! You do the hard work for us...Thanks as always!
Sue, I get that you probably didn't mean it that way, and your larger point about media pluralism is a valuable one, but the association with a highly divisive (and, for many, repulsive) political figure was at best puzzling.
As for the hype machine: The attention paid to Stewart this year has been mild, in my opinion, compared to the hype that surrounded Brittney Griner's debut three years ago. And anyway, is it really that much different than what happens in the men's game, albeit at a different scale? A few years ago Lebron James's mere tweets routinely made ESPN's news feed. And many fans of the college game this past year were complaining bitterly about the media hype surrounding Ben Simmons. This "glomming-on" effect is just something that the mainstream media does, for better or worse. I'm not disputing that Stewart has received disproportionate media attention compared to her peers, but let's not ignore the fact that plenty of well-deserved media attention has also been given to Tamika Catchings's final year.
1. No association, just a parallel comparison between the political world and the women's sports world.
2. The Stewart hype is equal to the Griner hype, which was also annoying. I commented last week on twitter, after ESPN ran a story about Stewart being the savior of the league: Already a new savior? I thought EDD was the savior of the league.
3. Yes, the hype on the men's side is equally annoying.
4. Noise around Catchings' last season has been appropriate: not too much and not too little. Kobe Bryant got a fair amount of hype his last year, and I hope Catchings gets the same. She really deserves it.
Scamp: I think she will!
Ray: Thanks!
Post a Comment