There's news, and then there's sports
So your plan is to go home, watch the Olympics and enjoy the wonders of sports that grab our attention only once every four years. And then what happens? The News & Record's e-mailed news alert ruins it for you. We tell you who won. We got this note from one e-mail subscriber Monday.
I refer to your e-mail everyday, and appreciate its timeliness and the information provided. However, I am very disappointed that I now know that Joey Cheek won the gold medal. I would hope there would be some sort of media courtesy, knowing that it is not televised until this evening. You are obviously not the only media outlet reporting this, but I wish I had known not to look.
It's no secret that Torino is 6 hours ahead of us, if I did my math correctly. That means that what NBC shows on television at night isn't live. They just dramatize it as if it were. The Today Show advises viewers to look away from their televisions when they were going to show results. Should we do the same thing on our e-mail alerts? Or is the purpose of the alert to tell you the headlines of the day, whatever they may be?
Comments (3)
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The fact that you reported the WIN in a timely fashion should be commended. The reality that NBC withholds the "news" so they can get better ratings is another matter.
"Our" coverage of these world games is horrible according to a friend of mine from Hong Kong. We are filtered to see an Americanized version. If the games were so all important, they would show them REAL TIME and the real fans of the Olympics would watch them in real time.
Today, it's nothing more than American Idol on athlethics.
Posted on February 16, 2006 7:33 AM
@Don: I'm mildly offended that you think anyone who is not willing to take days off from work to view the Olympics live is not a real fan. I absolutely love the Olympics and I've watched them every night for the past week, but I sure as heck wouldn't take two weeks of vacation to see them.
Also, of course the version we see is Americanized, just like the news we read in the N&R is "Greensboro-ized" or the announcers at Carolina Panthers games are "Panthers-ized." I don't want to see the last-place French hockey team play a game against the second-to-last-place Spanish hockey team. I want to see the top teams play each other. And, I want to see the Americans play, even if they are at or near the bottom.
Posted on February 16, 2006 9:07 AM
Boy, I agree with Don re: coverage of the Olympics- well said!
Posted on February 23, 2006 8:59 AM