I was watching SportsCentre today and there was an E:60 special on the increase in paparazzi attention on professional athletes. I found it particularly interesting given my last two posts have been focused on sensationalism and its prevalence in today’s media.
The segment offered a lot of insight into just how much time, money and man power is involved. During the Tiger Woods debacle celebrity news blog Splash had a team of 50 photographers and reporters on the Tiger Woods story. This team, in pursuit of Tiger, was flown all around the world at an estimated expense of $10,000-$20,000 a day. As ridiculous as those figures are when you consider that photos of Tiger were generating upwards of $500,000 in sales you can see how those expenses are justified.
But I ask again what does this say about our society?
When Tiger Woods stood in front of the media at a press release and made the plea “please leave my wife and kids alone” no one cared. An Interviewed photographer in response to that plea dismissed it entirely saying that it was Tigers fault that his wife and kids were being hunted by paparazzi, he should have been faithful. The public reacted in the same way, sales didn’t fall, interest didn’t waiver. Everyone still wanted to see how his wife was handling it. They wanted the latest up to date “news”.
Website TMZ is at the foreground of all of this and they are the ones who are looking to set up TMSsports.com a website dedicated to flowing professional athletes and documenting their every move. I went onto their website to have a look at what this new so-called “sports” site might look like. This is what I found (watch the 04/16/10 clip):
http://www.tmz.com/tmz-live/
Now I want you to look at the ESPN site and their story about this increased paparazzi presence.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5081018
I'll let that comparison speak for itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment