MLB, Steroids and Bad News

A must listen for those interested in aggressive use of networked and digital media from the Feb. 5 edition of NPR's On The Media. The story covers Mark McGuire's admission of the usage of steroids during the great home run season. As the NPR reporter Bob Garfield puts it, that McGuire made his mea culpa wasn't a surprise -- it was where he did it and with whom.

The where was on MLB's own new network and with the MLB's star reporter, Bob Costas. "A watershed moment," according to Garfield.

Garfield interviews Indiana University's Tim Franklin, one of the principals of the National Sports Journalism Center. Franklin:

"They broke a major national story on their network, and I think you are going to be seeing more of that. It is a trend that is about to take off."

Why? Economic reasons, says Franklin, and the one we've being saying here for some time (Last week | Twice | Last December | Last Summer | 2008):

"The ability to have a little bit more control, perhaps, over the message."

It's not a bad thing, he continues, pointing out that fans will have more places to find the news, including from the teams and leagues themselves.

"Just like in politics, you read many different newspapers or different news outlets -- you may need to do the same in sports and then do the compare and contrast."
Franklin continues that leagues and teams want credibility for their websites: "That means some of the hard stories."

If you want to check out the entire episode of On The Media, jump to their website (there's also an interesting story about the impact of Madden on "real football").