Hmmm. 'What the hell?' is the first thing that comes to mind. I looked up and caught some footage of Grant Balfour throwing in some postseason action from a couple of years ago.
So, I open up the web and hit the NineMSN website, where I find this:
The sidebar shows that Balfour has signed a huge deal with the Angels!!!! What the hell? I better watch this story.
WARNING ----> RANT COMMENCES BELOW
I clicked on play, and you can too here, and got quite a few laughs out of it. Firstly, they report that Balfour has 'just signed a deal'.
ARE YOU KIDDING CHANNEL NINE!!!!
It happened on the 15th of January!
Secondly, as is the way with all the modern 'news' programs, they have emblazoned across the top one of their watermarks, so everyone is clear who broke the 'news' 'first'. Anyways, this one says 'First on 9'. HA!!!!
ARE YOU KIDDING CHANNEL NINE!!!!!
The story was ALL OVER the internet for days before it even broke. It was reasonably big news at the time, as the hot stove had cooled a little bit. It was widely reported online, both overseas and at home.
In fact, that great institution of journalistic integrity, professionalism and award-winning writing - the Daily Telegraph - broke the story on the 17th of January. That's 48 days ago! And, yours truly broke it on Twitter on 15th January.
'First on 9' obviously means 'first time they have featured a baseball story this month'. Silly me for thinking otherwise.
Oh and finally, they featured Balf in all his Oakland gear, and mentioned in the article a number of times that he played for the Athletics, yet their online team got it wrong and wrote Angels.
COME ON!!!! GET A CLUE!!!
RANT OVER
Ok, so I feel better now. It is great to see some mainstream media coverage, and great to see Channel Nine send their LA correspondent to visit Balfour during Spring Training camp. But a little more research and attention to detail, and a little less patting-yourself-on-the-back-for-something-you-don't-even-deserve, would have earned Channel Nine a lot more cred.
1 comment:
Hi Nicholas. Yes, you are definitely right, it is fantastic to see some mainstream (almost) prime time coverage of baseball, and a really great thing for Channel Nine to go to the effort of meeting him in the US and also interviewing his Dad at home. As a dedicated baseball fan - and someone with perhaps unreasonably high expectations of the modern media - I find it frustrating when they make such fundamental errors....anyways, on we go!
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