Ahhh, the Super Bowl.

With the festivities coming up this Sunday,you know, that thing called the Super Bowl, media coverage always is high. While I'd love to go on and on about how I think Tom Brady is overrated and how Eli Manning actually is better than his older brother, whom I'm sure you have heard of I need to stay on topic here.

With the media coverage ablaze in Indianapolis it gives me a great platform for this blog.

For starters I'll go off my personal experience, I use Twitter but I only follow roughly 20 people. As I'm checking my account on my BlackBerry right now I have five updates related to the Superbowl or football in general. Granted this does not directly related to the way I think of sports journalism and reporting, it does affect it because the way ESPN's NFL insider Adam Schefter breaks reports is through is Twitter account.

A very basic point is that we can get this news instantly. As soon as Schefter hits his enter button on whatever device he may be using we have access to that same information. How he seemingly gets the information first and accurately all the time is beyond my knowledge. But if you want to see how well this man works here is an activity to try sometime: wait for the day Yahoo! Sports has a breaking story then turn off all of your technological devices for a few hours, put ESPN on your television and watch how ESPN's insider has denied the report.

Anyways, back to the Superbowl and new media. While new media wont necessarily have an effect on the game itself, it will have an impact on the way journalists cover the game. I'd expect to see Tweets and network updates online more rapidly than in years past, just because of the society in which we live and the vast majority of people watching.

Another aspect of new media during the Superbowl that will be interesting to see is the commercials. Not necessarily the commericals in themselves, but the way companies are pushing technology in their products and/or services.

With all of these points in mind it will be interesting to watch how mew media affects the whole day. We'll only have 6 hours of pre-game coverage of only God knows what, plus the football game and the always too hyped half-time show, plus all the celebratory acts of the winning team, I'm sure we can oberseve how new media is affect sports journalism and reporting.

Have a super Sunday.

Here goes nothing...

As a sports fan having an opportunity  to get a grasp of the side of the sports business in greater depth is something I have always wanted to do. (It's never too late to transfer)

 I’m addicted to the lights, the fans, and the general atmosphere of athletic events. This is beside the point but I even went so far to start officiating high school level basketball in the Fargo Moorhead area.

A college basketball official giving a technical foul.
Photo Courtesy of NBC Sports

Through this blogging experience I would really like to analyze how new media effects reporting and journalism. As a whole I feel this is in the preliminary ages of study but there are a few prominent sports journalists who are leading the charge. They are not necessarily researching how new media effects their craft but they are the ones who are using social media most frequenty in the craft.

When I see the names mentioned in the article I’m quite surprised to see these are the ones leading the charge. The name that really surprises me is Woody Paige. I read Paige’s work frequently and watch him on Around the Horn on ESPN whenever I can but my impression of Paige is certainly not one of him being a tech-savvy person, rather I see him as being an old guy who wants to stay stuck in his “old fashioned” ways. If you're interested you can follow Paige on Twitter @woodypaige or read his work here.  

Woody Paige
Photo Courtesy of TVNEWSER

A way I have noticed new media affecting sports journalism is through the work of Rick Reilly. Reilly is the sports writer I admire most. His work is so clean and crisp with so much wit and intelligence involved that I think every aspiring journalist should model. Reilly in the past has produced two to three stories a week, usually all print until recently when he started producing feature videos for Monday Night Football this year. While the videos are just as good and inspiring as his columns video is obviously newer technology than print. You can follow Reilly on Twitter @ReillyRick or see his work here and if you're anything like me, those two places will become frequently visited websites.  

These are just examples I have come up with in a short time in doing very minimal research. Looking at how new media affect sports journalism and reporting will be quite interesting and very rewarding for me and I am excited to see what I can find in the coming semester.

Just watch Reilly's work.

(Updated April 26th, 2012)