A lot of people like sport. If no one liked it it wouldn’t be there.
Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#72At that rate, why is politics in the news?
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that’s a political story, almost anything involving both a politician and a celebrity is a “political story.” Think of all of the times that Trump tweeted something about a celebrity, or that celebrities tweeted about Trump. I don’t think it can be right to say that these were all newsworthy events. But suppose that we restrict consideration to only those cases in which Trump tweets something about a celebrity (ra…
In this case, what was being tweeted about was politics. It's the content that makes it political, not who tweets it. The President was directly rebuking athletes for taking political positions that the President did not like, and they were responding to that criticism.
Yes: the content was political. The president was directly rebuking celebrities for taking positions that he didn't like, and one of them was responding directly. But that sort of thing happened almost every day in the Trump administration. On average, it happened more than once per day. And it generally happened via the shallowest of forums: Twitter.
It shouldn't be front-page news if it happens so frequently and through such shallow exchanges. Really newsworthy events are happening every day, but instead of covering them, the Times chose to put a Twitter squabble on its front page. I don't think that we can justify its decision just by noting that the content was political and that the parties to the dispute were prominent.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#74If you look at the traditional ‘news’ shows you see at 10am or noon you’d see much less sports and much more ‘lifestyle’ news. This is largely a historical oddity based on work norms and who had free time to watch when.
In the modern world with 24 hour dedicated channels for effectively everything this is just tradition now.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sportsing a ball across a patch of grass into a special area isn't really much of a victory. All but the most historic games are forgotten almost instantly, and even the most historic games have a very limited cultural life. How many people care what happened in baseball in 1971 - never mind 1921? Meanwhile those people are still reliant on applications of quantum theory, which was first described in 1900, even if th…
How much relevance would ANYTHING on local tv (or even national) have in 100 years? That’s a weird bar to hit.
The weird bar is "on local TV". Keystone sports are mostly on national TV anyway.
But it just highlights that team sports are light entertainment dressed up as something more admirable.
If the media wanted to skew the balance they could concentrate more on individual amateurs.
Someone who goes from barely being able to run to a marathon is going to have an interesting and inspiring story. I'd be more interested in hearing about that kind of victory than the weekly/annual filler round of Famous Team A vs Famous Teams B-Z.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much relevance would ANYTHING on local tv (or even national) have in 100 years? That’s a weird bar to hit.
The weird bar is "on local TV". Keystone sports are mostly on national TV anyway. But it just highlights that team sports are light entertainment dressed up as something more admirable. If the media wanted to skew the balance they could concentrate more on individual amateurs. Someone who goes from barely being able to run to a marathon is going to have an interesting and inspiring story. I'd be more interested in he…
Not in the states, national TV almost never has sports. It's entirely politics.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#77Earl Warren, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, said that he always turned to the sports pages of the newspapers first: the sports pages were about humanity's victories, the front page mostly about its failures.
Sportsing a ball across a patch of grass into a special area isn't really much of a victory. All but the most historic games are forgotten almost instantly, and even the most historic games have a very limited cultural life. How many people care what happened in baseball in 1971 - never mind 1921? Meanwhile those people are still reliant on applications of quantum theory, which was first described in 1900, even if th…
> Sportsing a ball across a patch of grass into a special area isn't really much of a victory.
Wrong scale. Think smaller by several orders of magnitude. Think the daily life of someone with a dead end job, a wife they hate, and two awful kids. If their local team wins, that's a great victory by proxy. A victory to crow about with mates, a victory to tolerate a kid's failing grades, a victory to stoke the old love machine. We're tribal pack hunting monkeys. If our tribe wins, we win. And winning, of any kind, feels great.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?
#78Daily news needs easy reliable filler material, and sports provide that. Another commenter mentioned the stock market report. Again, easy reliable filler material. Despite the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has a tenuous effect at best for the vast majority of people, and despite the fact that it's not a great overall economic indicator, the news media report it because it's easy, and it changes daily. Tr…
I agree with your general point. I would just add that I personally feel too much of the blame is placed on the media companies. They should get some blame, but ultimately they are providing what the consumer wants.
I feel the consumers deserve a large part of the responsibility. Too few people want to pay for quality news, or even simply give their attention to quality news.