Week 5 Blog

                As far as the Blackistone article goes, I think it is completely ridiculous and was a waste of my time to read what he deems as the “whitening” of sports media. If you ask anyone on the streets if black people are underrepresented in sports they would laugh in your face. Maybe they are “underrepresented” in the media industry because all of the black people who like sports are already playing.

 I don’t think that there is any “whitening” in the sports media sector. Maybe I am wrong, but since my major is broadcasting I am looking at the broadcasting side of things.  Blackistone is completely out of place to take this stance seeing as he is a well- known black sportscaster featuring on shows such as Around the Horn on ESPN. If you want to talk about the true problem in sports broadcasting let’s get real. How about the underrepresentation of women in the entire sports industry, not even just the media aspect? Female athletes are disrespected and laughed at. Take for instance the WNBA. No one takes them serious despite the fact that these females are insanely talented. Females who enjoy sports and are truly passionate about the game that they love are forced to subjugate themselves and partake in ridiculous teams such as the LFL (lingerie football league) to get any attention from their male counterparts. Even then women don’t get respect dispute the fact that those girls are pretty tough and can hit. Even in the broadcasting industry females are given miniscule roles being a host of a sports talk show but never really talking, rather stating questions for the men on the show to answer.

 I think Blackistone needs to get his head out of his ass and realize that maybe there are less black people in the sports media industry due to other factors than racism which is what he alludes to throughout his entire article. Maybe blacks aren’t as prevalent in sports media because they aren’t studying that in college or due to the fact that he states in his article that only 12 percent of the US population is African American.  Obviously if there are less black people in a country there will probably be less of them available for a particular industry such as sports.

The “Toy Department” article basically just reiterated everything that we are told in class. People don’t take sports journalism seriously because of the lack of credibility it gets from avoiding certain issue in the sports nation or boosting the home team. I agree with this to the extent that I believe that good sports writing should lack bias. When I read a game re-cap or an article about Mike Vick fighting dogs I do not want the journalist’s opinions, I want the cold hard facts. A lot of articles that I read give me what I want but there are some that are biased and laced with opinions that I would rather not have thrown on me. All-in-all, I feel as though sports journalism should not be looked at as a “toy department” in the news industry. Sports are a huge deal and people are very passionate about them. The fan factor just makes it that much harder for a sports journalist to get it right than it does for a news reporter or an entertainment writer.