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Our Mission
John Lennon’s assassination was reported live on Monday Night Football. Janet Jackson’s nipple quickly became the most-Tivo’ed event in television history. The San Francisco Earthquake disrupted a World Series telecast, and one line by Al Michaels – “Do You Believe in Miracles?” – is one of the touchstone moments in Cold War history.
We believe in sports. We love sports. As a culture, as a gathering of cultures, we are compelled to watch, whether it’s in an underlit bar next to Wrigley Field or with friends and family for a Thanksgiving Day football game. We love the moments, the action, the heroics, the drama; we love the camaraderie and the emotional roller-coaster and the thrill of watching history unfold.
But every time we tune in or turn on, we’re tuning in or turning on the sports media. Every time we feel that exhilaration, we’re doing it in the presence of a media that has gone largely uninterrogated.
Until now.
Sports Media Watch is here to keep the sports reporters honest, to keep the executives in check, and to keep the channels open and varied. Through columns and features that dissect the tools by which we interact with sports, through a dogged focus on the real meaning of sports journalism, and through a commitment to providing genuine insight instead of endless repetition, we’re working to ensure that America knows what happens every time it tunes in.
Give notice to ESPN: we’re taking notes. Someone tell Fox: yes, you do have viewers, and they’re smarter than you think. We read enough to notice when corporate media drop the ball, and we’re here to hold them to the high standards that viewers demand.
We can also read the business pages. When Comcast buys and sells, when Disney cross-promotes, when one corporate hand washes the other: we’re noticing. They might not report it, or they might bury it where the sun rarely shines, but we’re here to unearth and connect the dots that don’t get connected anywhere else.
And we’re here to have fun. Sports should be fun. We see nothing wrong with cheering for the reporters we like and sparing no snark for the ones we don’t. At Sports Media Watch, we’re fans. We love these games. We’re here to play.
But don’t forget to take us seriously. A culture that invests so heavily in sports cannot afford to let its sports journalism go unchecked.
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Our Mission
