Maria Burns Ortiz

Week 7 – Navigating the Blogsphere

Sports blogs – Part II. Blogs as reporting tools and the rise of the live blog.

Readings:

• “How Gawker Ripped Off My Newspaper Story.” Ian Shapira, Washington Post.

• “Has the Blog Killed the Journalist?” Jeanne Sager, The Stir.

• “Tension over sports blogs.” Tim Arango, New York Times.

• “Top Sports Blogs of 2011” Real Clear Sports. (Check out a selection of the blogs listed here.)

• “NCAA Puts Limits on Live Blogging.” Mike Masnick, Techdirt.

• “A manifesto for a digital sports section.” Lucas Timmons, Online News Association.

• Sportswriting in the Digital Age, Part 4: Bloggers and Other Threats

Live blogs (read these before doing your live blog assignment):
Red Sox live blog
Olympics live blog
Super Bowl live blog

Blog assignment 1: Live blog a sporting event. (Must be approved by me in advance.)

Blog assignment 2: Blog Assignment: Monitor how you use sports media over the course of one day. Roughly how much of that is via the Web, TV and print (magazine or newspaper)? Do you follow teams/athletes/media via Twitter or Facebook? Who writes the blogs you read – fans or journalists? When you hear a story where is the first place you go to confirm it – and why do you go there? How much do you use your mobile device vs. a computer to check sports news? Compare this briefly to how you used sports media three years ago.

Skill: Twitter