How can media make or break a person,especially sports personalities,
How does this happen?
Answers
Answer:
There have been sports celebrities since the 1880s. For example, newspapers and magazines wrote extensively about the exploits of boxing champion John L. Sullivan. When professional baseball began to take hold as a national sport, many newspapers began covering the stars of the local teams. Sometimes, these stars took on a national profile, the way Babe Ruth did, while at other times, the players were just local favorites. The same was true about other sports, whether college football or track & field or tennis (pro football and pro basketball wouldn’t take hold till much later). But the role of the media (called “the press” back then) was crucial. It was the press that often decided which athletes to focus on, and the local reporters could give these athletes a boost with praise for their accomplishments. (Sportswriters, who traveled with the teams back then, generally covered up the personal indiscretions of players— drinking, gambling, adultery, etc.) And even 100 years ago, some athletes knew how to endear themselves to the public with charitable work or speaking engagements. Today, many pro athletes make huge salaries and are much more media-savvy. They know how to use social media to get publicity (often with the assistance of a team publicist), and most have been trained to avoid making controversial statements when being interviewed. But then as now, media attention is often crucial. The media can report about a player as if he (or on a few occasions, she) is somehow special, amazing, or unique. Media attention can turn a player into big news— in fact, sometimes, certain players are treated as if they are gods. Agreed, that’s not new— it was happening a century ago. But in our current media climate, it’s easier to create an image and then spread it on social media.
In the world today, it’s much harder for athletes to hide their personal indiscretions, but some reporters have made excuses for the biggest stars because their presence is so important to their team’s chances of winning games. Reporters, being human, sometimes like certain players and dislike others. But most sports reporters do try to be accurate, whether they personally like a player or not. However, just like on cable news, there are also some sports commentators, and they can trash certain players or make unfair statements about them, which is always good for ratings. And while some reporters have investigated accusations of bad behavior by athletes, it’s usually the hard news reporters, rather than the sportswriters, who break these kinds of stories. Over all, because sports are so popular with the public, the media will undoubtedly keep creating the next big sports star; but as others have noted, fame can sometimes be temporary, and the person being praised today could be mocked tomorrow.
