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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?

#51
post #21

The job of the news is to inform people (or more cynically, keep them watching to show ads). Sports are a major topic that a huge number of people want to be informed about. Why wouldn't they be in the news? There are lots of things in the news that some people don't care about - they report on traffic (or at least they used to) even though many people don't commute. They report on the stock market even though many p…

I disagree that the job of news is to inform people. I think that it’s just a possible side effect that they champion in order to keep you engaged.

This feels like an incredibly cynical viewpoint. Nevertheless, would you say this also applies to non-profit news organizations like Propublica or forms of public media?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#52

Not really. Sports are a fundamental part of every day life for arguably the majority of the population. I do think there is a hang over from the past though as arguably gaming or social media could be considered as such too. What does grind my gears, however, is how the British media (including BBC News) think that the results of TV shows or the things that happen on soap operas are news. The fact that a person dres…

That seems to be an extrapolation from sports news... It's all in the category of "reporting on entertainment."

I did think that after I posted the comment and have struggled to put my finger on just why it feels different to me. I am no sports fan, but a significant sports result nonetheless feels more like national news to me than the plot line of a TV show. This will give me some fun food for thought this evening :-)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#53
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that the job of news is to inform people. I think that it’s just a possible side effect that they champion in order to keep you engaged.

This feels like an incredibly cynical viewpoint. Nevertheless, would you say this also applies to non-profit news organizations like Propublica or forms of public media?

This may not apply to non-profit oriented media, and I also believe that in larger outfits you can find individuals that have a genuine goal of informing people but their views happen to be divorced from the true goals of the organisation. However even if they aren't looking for profits they will still have to compete for eyeballs, which might skew their behaviour. It's hard to find media that doesn't resort to clickbait.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#54

It would be stranger if TV news or newspapers led with sports coverage. But they almost never do. What is stranger by far, and more alarming, is the creep of soft news -- celebrity news and other "lifestyle" news -- from the end of the newspaper to the front page. Here is an example: "Trump Attacks Warriors’ Curry. LeBron James’s Retort: ‘U Bum’" [1]. In 2017, that article was front–page news in the New York Times [2…

That wasn't a sports story. It was a political story. A political story should not be relegated to People or the lifestyle section just because it happens to involve famous athletes.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#55
post #27

You’re not alone. I think it’s strange too. There are a lot of strange things other folks find entertaining though. Also for the record, I love playing sports. I’ve just never really understood sports spectators, nor those fans that rabidly follow sports stats. The caveat being I can understand parents watching their kids play, just not this whole watching strangers called “professional athletes” play sports.

Contrary to many other comment assumptions that I do not like sports, I do, but just struck me that it is similar like any other entertainment, movies, music, radio, internet ... but they do not have dedicated block each day.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#56
post #54

It would be stranger if TV news or newspapers led with sports coverage. But they almost never do. What is stranger by far, and more alarming, is the creep of soft news -- celebrity news and other "lifestyle" news -- from the end of the newspaper to the front page. Here is an example: "Trump Attacks Warriors’ Curry. LeBron James’s Retort: ‘U Bum’" [1]. In 2017, that article was front–page news in the New York Times [2…

That wasn't a sports story. It was a political story. A political story should not be relegated to People or the lifestyle section just because it happens to involve famous athletes.

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 (rather than a celebrity tweeting something about Trump). I think that even this more limited set of cases is rarely news – and almost never news worthy of the front page.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#58
As stated by another herein the "news" is just another business existing for profit. When you realize this you may reconsider the sources you digest as this partisanship received significant attention during the political escalation in the last years. What you consider news another in charge of publishing that content may not as how it relates to the business and their objectives. A very personal experience recently occurred where a local person was missing for over a week and the news covered the "missing" part. I participated in the search party and later that afternoon after searching a body washed up behind my house and of course such an event would be local front page news one would be led to believe correct? No, the "news" was not updated that a body was recovered for nearly one weeks time which to me should have been "news" the day of given that so many were aware and searching. Suspense sells and at the conclusion everyone loses interest.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#59
post #9

News is entertainment and always has been. Since many people find sport entertaining, it makes sense to include sport in the daily news.

Ok, it is fine in papers, internet, but I am talking about prime time TV...

There's a movie you should see. It's called Network[1] and it was made in 1976. It deals with prime time TV news and how it is used to exploit people.

[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

> Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone find it strange that sport is part of daily news?

#60
post #39

Earlier 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.

1918 flu pandemic would be kinda relevant, don't you think
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