Sportsfrog.com

First, my apologies for this post not being a timely rebuttal to the post concerning the other side of this issue. I digress…

Sportsfrog.com used to have the tagline, “dissecting sports and media while battling a dirty gambling habit.” Trust me, I have the t-shirt. I guess it is now my turn to jump into the media dissection pool.

Not only has TMZ not made inroads into “sports coverage,” they are not “covering sports” at all. They are taking the elements of what makes gossip appealing to their audience and widening the net of people who fall into that arena.

The two stories Brontoburglar cited that TMZ reported ahead of the mainstream media were the death of Angels’ pitcher Nick Adenhart and the Tiger Woods car accident. However, both stories involve the “sin” aspects that make news or gossip, respectively. In Adenhart’s case, it is his death, as evidenced particularly well by the newsroom cliché “if it bleeds, it leads,” and in Woods’ case, sex (just like how Alex Rodriguez previously made gossip sheets for being spotted with a woman who was not his wife). If Woods had been in the exact same car accident without the prior reports of his infidelity, would TMZ have been beating down doors to get information? I think not.

Saying TMZ is showing “legitimate newsgathering chops” loses all credibility when, in the next paragraph, it is cited that TMZ pays for scoops. People who know they will not be named as sources have no reason to be honest. Think about this for a second. If some gossip outlet came to you, asked if you had any information about a person you did not actually know (or maybe even knew, but did not like) and offered a substantial amount of money for that information plus a guarantee of anonymity, what reason would you have to not make something up? Before you say, “well, I wouldn’t do that, I have no reason to lie,” you should probably consider if that is true when there is a check made out to you valued at $10,000 ready to be put in your hand. How about $25,000? $50,000? Really? No one knows you’re the person making these statements. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Think about the current state of the human race for a little while if you still think honesty matters in the face of money.

I also have a different answer to this question and answer posed in the other post:

“Was the reluctance to use TMZ information in newspaper stories more related to fears that it wasn’t factually correct, or the fact that it came from TMZ? I lean strongly towards the latter.”

Reluctance to use TMZ information in a newspaper story is due to fears that it is factually incorrect because it came from TMZ. TMZ is a source for gossip, not news. A newspaper that reports false information risks losing the trust of its readership, not to mention the threat of lawsuit. The reporting of “facts” without confirmation is a huge sin in the world of news reporting. It is called independent confirmation.

I doubt readers care about how the information is gathered or who reports it as long as the outlet reporting the news is trustworthy. Then again, looking at the political climate in our country, maybe this is not the case.