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It would be stranger if TV news or newspapers led with sports coverage. But they almost never do. What is stranger by far, and more alarming, is the creep of s

It would be stranger if TV news or newspapers led with sports coverage. But they almost never do. What is stranger by far, and more alarming, is the creep of soft news -- celebrity news and other "lifestyle" news -- from the end of the newspaper to the front page. Here is an example: "Trump Attacks Warriors’ Curry. LeBron James’s Retort: ‘U Bum’" [1]. In 2017, that article was front–page news in the New York Times [2]. It shouldn't have been. Tweets and celebrity news should almost never be prominently featured by a news organization. And this article was both: it was about a tweet by a celebrity, LeBron James. It was a story that might be suitable on the cover of People or a tabloid, but not for a serious news organization. Which makes you wonder what has been happening to the Times. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/sports/football/trump-nfl-kaepernick.html?searchResultPosition=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/sports/football/trump-nfl... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/images/2017/09/24/nytfrontpage/scan.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/images/2017/09/24/nytfrontpage/scan....

pjmlp 6y ago
Come to Southern Europe countries, where football is occasionally the only news you get to watch. Not only the games, but what the players, their wives, kids, families, fan clubs, and whatever else are up to.
tzs 6y ago
That wasn't a sports story. It was a political story. A political story should not be relegated to People or the lifestyle section just because it happens to involve famous athletes.
- jbullock35 6y ago
  If that’s a political story, almost anything involving both a politician and a celebrity is a “political story.” Think of all of the times that Trump tweeted something about a celebrity, or that celebrities tweeted about Trump. I don’t think it can be right to say that these were all newsworthy events. But suppose that we restrict consideration to only those cases in which Trump tweets something about a celebrity (rather than a celebrity tweeting something about Trump). I think that even this more limited set of cases is rarely news – and almost never news worthy of the front page.
  - tzs 6y ago
    In this case, what was being tweeted about was politics. It's the content that makes it political, not who tweets it. The President was directly rebuking athletes for taking political positions that the President did not like, and they were responding to that criticism.
    - jbullock35 6y ago
      Yes: the content was political. The president was directly rebuking celebrities for taking positions that he didn't like, and one of them was responding directly. But that sort of thing happened almost every day in the Trump administration. On average, it happened more than once per day. And it generally happened via the shallowest of forums: Twitter. It shouldn't be front-page news if it happens so frequently and through such shallow exchanges. Really newsworthy events are happening every day, but instead of covering them, the Times chose to put a Twitter squabble on its front page. I don't think that we can justify its decision just by noting that the content was political and that the parties to the dispute were prominent.

pjmlp 6y ago

Come to Southern Europe countries, where football is occasionally the only news you get to watch. Not only the games, but what the players, their wives, kids, families, fan clubs, and whatever else are up to.

tzs 6y ago

That wasn't a sports story. It was a political story. A political story should not be relegated to People or the lifestyle section just because it happens to involve famous athletes.

jbullock35 6y ago
If that’s a political story, almost anything involving both a politician and a celebrity is a “political story.” Think of all of the times that Trump tweeted something about a celebrity, or that celebrities tweeted about Trump. I don’t think it can be right to say that these were all newsworthy events. But suppose that we restrict consideration to only those cases in which Trump tweets something about a celebrity (rather than a celebrity tweeting something about Trump). I think that even this more limited set of cases is rarely news – and almost never news worthy of the front page.
- tzs 6y ago
  In this case, what was being tweeted about was politics. It's the content that makes it political, not who tweets it. The President was directly rebuking athletes for taking political positions that the President did not like, and they were responding to that criticism.
  - jbullock35 6y ago
    Yes: the content was political. The president was directly rebuking celebrities for taking positions that he didn't like, and one of them was responding directly. But that sort of thing happened almost every day in the Trump administration. On average, it happened more than once per day. And it generally happened via the shallowest of forums: Twitter. It shouldn't be front-page news if it happens so frequently and through such shallow exchanges. Really newsworthy events are happening every day, but instead of covering them, the Times chose to put a Twitter squabble on its front page. I don't think that we can justify its decision just by noting that the content was political and that the parties to the dispute were prominent.