Today, the idea of sports journalism has deteriorated; a lot of people are faulting social media/networks. Normally, when journalist report stories, news articles to be exact, after the story is printed, it is not followed up with any new updates right away. It is much more costly to print several of the same story more than once just to keep posting updated news. News changes so much in so little time, that no published story is absolute when first received; there are always follow ups.
Here is where social networks, and the athletes themselves keep you updated.
It is popular now to "tweet" or to post pictures and status' on networks such as FaceBook and Instagram. A vast majority of society today has some sort of social networking profile. When it comes to celebrities, they use social media to make fans feel closely connected to their lives and the things they do daily. As for professional sports athletes, in todays social media updates, they keep fans posted on daily activities like training, practice, and the latest sports news relating to them. It is possible to update every second on a social network if one wanted to.
It seems as if everyone has a smartphone and practically receives news "on the go". When speaking from a time aspect, it takes much less time to read a 140 character tweet versus a long detailed article. Since the Twitter status limit is so short, people find ways to say so much in so little time making these social networks seem so convenient. It is like receiving the entire "so what" in a few seconds.
Social networking profiles give the athletes the ability to put their "personal twist" on things versus staying overly professional because that is what is expected for celebrities in front of a journalist (being interviewed or recorded). For example, Terps native, Torrey Smith lost his younger brother in a motorcycle accident this past season; NE Patriots fans used that to taunt Smith. Journalists posted a full article on the event that Smith later tweeted about. The article gave more detail than Smith's tweet, as far as who was involved, it mentioned other related news such as a post on Ray Lewis' Facebook wall. Torrey Smith's tweet was as short as "played a lot of games since my brothers death and I've never received as many rude tweets after a win than Sunday...yet NE fans cry about class". Such short statement gave his followers a sense of the emotion Smith was feeling, that was his "personal twist" on the situation.While comparing reports from sports journalists and tweets or posts from the athlete themselves, there are many similarities but absolutely many differences.
Tweets and personal accounts tend to be less formal, while journalist tend to report credible information and often try to avoid personal opinion. When it comes to personal accounts on twitter or other social networks, if a post "goes the wrong way" perhaps, the person can easily erase whereas a journalists cannot easily remove an article from the newspaper that has already been published. As for similarities, both personal posts and journalism try to keep people updated on the most current events. If an event is occurring that is cover by journalists, the athlete (or any person) is more than likely to tweet or post about it, especially positive events.
When it comes to negative events, there may be a slight turn on an athletes personal account. I spoke with professional athlete, LaQuan Williams, of the Baltimore Ravens, he said instead of feeding into negative news, he'd avoid it. That idea is common amongst celebrities.
When looking at an athlete from their personal account versus a journalist's perspective, you feel like you know a person personally. From a personal account/posts/tweets, athletes (and other celebrities) include the things they do on a daily basis, and sometimes several posts updating in a matter of minutes. Following an athlete from what journalists publish is often "less personal". Athletes today post things such as a plate of food they are currently eating, whereas a journalist is not following an athlete every second to publish their meals of the day.
From my assessment, I believe that athletes (and other celebrities) personal accounts give fans a closer connection to them and the things they post displays more of their personality versus a journalists published article that just covers a specific story.
