Media Manipulation Through Sports

Abbey Kron

036:065:SCA

November 21, 2013

Media Manipulation Through Sports

In the beginning of the fall season each year, it seems as if the main thing being talked about is football. Friday nights are dedicated to high school football, Saturday’s are college football, and Sunday’s, Monday’s and even Thursday’s are dedicated to the NFL. Aside from high school football and the NFL, college football seems to take up much more of the TV coverage due to many more conferences and many more college teams. So, not only is that five nights a week dedicated to live football, it also leaves for that much more coverage of football through the media. To get more coverage it seems as if media outlets focus their attention on controversial issues involving well-known athletes who are portrayed to have committed alleged crimes before they are sentenced or even charged.  

 To start off, in recent news, Jameis Winston, the quarterback for Florida State, who has a great chance of being in the national championship, is in the news for allegedly sexually assaulting someone. However, he has not been charged for anything, yet the media has put it out as if he has degraded his name and image. Another example, a few years back Cam Newton, the quarterback for Florida followed by Auburn, was in the news twice. Once for purportedly stealing and another time for allegedly earning money to go to certain schools, all the while both schools were in the running to be in the national championship both years these issues occurred (Ioselevich). Not only were these teams in the potential running for the national championship, both of the men being accused were/are quarterbacks in the running for the Heisman Trophy as well.

Since the beginning of broadcast history broadcast networks have focused on stories that will generate more attention to their network. The media decides what they want their viewers to focus on as they manipulate their minds. According to Forbes “media manipulation currently shapes everything you read, hear and watch online. Everything” (Holiday). This ensures the quality or lack of quality exposed through media outlets, the fact is they are not telling the full story, they are telling what will sell and shape their network. Forbes also noted “today, with our blog and web driven media cycle, nothing can escape exaggeration, distortion, fabrication and simplification” (Holiday). With that being said, with a click of a button, or the click of a remote we are inclined to focus our attention to current news. However, we only want to focus on what interests us, whether that is whom Kim Kardashian is engaged to once again, what bill Obama passed today, who won the game last night, or what star athlete is under scrutiny. In this case, sports news is the focus.

With 24-hour sports networks there are only so many games they can cover before viewers get bored and want to hear more interesting things. Along with that, when people become fans of a certain team or sport, they focus their attention to a favorite player on that team. Once they become a fan of them they want to follow their lives whether it is on social media, blogs, or the Internet. Sports media outlets obviously focus on what teams are getting the most attention, once one bit of information comes out on any popular team, the media spirals out of control. They then focus on how much coverage they can produce from that particular situation. According to class discussion the major news networks do not care as much about who is watching, but more about how many eyes they can get to watch (Mittell, Week 10). Currently, that is Jameis Winston, and a few years ago that were Cam Newton. Since neither of these athletes were convicted before their stories got released and reproduced by the media, many believe there should not be this much coverage on issues that have yet to be concrete. However, once the media hears of these issues with controversial topics, star athletes, highly anticipated teams, and taboo topics it does not matter to them whether the athlete is convicted or not, if they can get publicity off of the topic, the more the merrier for them.

To start off with Jameis Winston, in his current situation of supposed sexual assault, the situation allegedly happened nearly a year ago, in December of 2012 (Anderson). Nearly a year ago when football season was practically over and when Winston was not a starting quarterback in the running for the Heisman, nothing came out in the media about the case.  However, suddenly as Florida State is currently undefeated and ranked number two in the NCAA football rankings, the case reopened and is circulating enormously throughout sports media. In similar news, Cam Newton’s situation spiraled out of control right before both of his teams were in the national championships and as he was in the running for the Heisman. Not only does this spark the interest of viewers because of the national championship or the Heisman, but could it also have to do with the fact these are successful black quarterbacks, a position that is predominantly filled by whites. Could it also be the fact that African Americans have a much higher crime rate than whites?  Or also the fact that both of these African American quarterbacks are playing for teams in the South, where there is clearly a racial history down South. All of those factors most likely generated through the minds of the reporters producing these stories, as a way to reel in more viewers. Even more so, it could be that the news wants to manipulate these thoughts into our minds; they want us to think that only an all-star black athlete would commit these crimes, although neither of these athletes were convicted when the stories spread.

On whether or not race is an issue with the current Winston situation, according to Michael Allan, a TV sports producer for ESPN, “take it from a TV guy who has covered these things for years, who is half black and white, played the game and been called things from both sides, and has been labeled by everyone, at some point. In the end, the racial thing is so taboo still, it definitely has to start somewhere and that very well could be the fault of mass media” (Allan). Allan went on to state that he has covered similar topics and the ones that seem to be featured headlines are the stories that are focused on taboo topics with star athletes or teams (Allan). In this case, although Allan did not blatantly state the Winston and Newton cases were headlined just because both are controversial topics, it was definitely implied. Both situations are taboo topics, black athletes, black criminals, ranked teams, etc. Clearly, these are very controversial topics as well.

Although our country passed bills years ago for equal rights, our country will never fully be equally. Even as close as a few years ago, in 2010 black men were six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men (Drake). In relation to news, media and sports, the news seems to focus mostly on crime, and throughout the fall sports media is focused primarily on football. What better way for sports networks to generate more viewers by mixing in not only football and crime, but Heisman frontrunners, national championship prospects, and well-known football programs. Media manipulation has only gotten worse throughout the years as more and more media outlets have surfaced from blogs, social media, and news networks. The media will always decide what the public will focus on, and the media will always know the right timing to produce their information so their ratings and publicity go up. Whether it is fair or fabricated, they have figured out the way to run the system.

Works Cited

Allan, Michael. Telephone Interview. 20 Nov. 2013.

Anderson, Joel. "BuzzFeed." BuzzFeed. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.   

<http://www.buzzfeed.com/joelanderson/everything-thats-happened-so-far-in-the-sexual-assault-

inves>.

Drake, Bruce. "Incarceration Gap Widens between Whites and Blacks." Pew Research       Center RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-   tank/2013/09/06/incarceration-gap-between-whites-and-blacks-widens/>.

Fowler, Jeremy. "Jameis Winston Case: State Attorney in Contact with Alleged Victim." CBSSports.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.             <http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jeremy-  fowler/24250957/jameis-winston-case-state-attorney-in-contact-with-alleged-            victims-camp>.

Holiday, Ryan. "What Is Media Manipulation?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 16 July 2012.            Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/07/16/what-          is-media-manipulation-a-definition-and-explanation/>.

Ioselevich, Dmitriy. "Auburn Tigers." Bleacher Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.      <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/522685-cam-newton-controversy-is-auburn-           qbs-ncaa-violation-actually-justified>.

Mittell, Jason. Television and American Culture. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2010.                      Print.

N.p., n.d. Web. <http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings>.