Venting my disgust

[Bronx Bomber 15]

I just had to let this out, what better place than right here?
I don't know baout the rest of you, but anyone who reads the NY based papers had probably seen the recent barrage of articles about the fixing of fights and all the corruption within the sport of boxing.
I read all three NY papers (Newsday, Daily News. Post) daily (they're left around at work, I don't buy them!) and I very rarely, if EVER see any coverage of boxing, major fights, results, and God forbid rankings. So why, oh tell me why when a bum like Mitchell Rose makes the claim he was told to throw his fight against the clown Butterbean, am I seeing full two page spread in the paper? Sure, throw in a Tyson fist fight, a death or two and the papers are all over it. A major fight card? World title fight? Local fights? Forget it. It's disgusting.
Let's be real. We all know there's corruption in the sport, always has been, always will be. There's corruption in every sport, but I don't see page upon page of coverage in the papers on a daily basis. It wouldn't be such an issue if there WAS ANY positive coverage of any sort at any time, but sadly there is none.
It's a real slap in the face the many, many fighters who train diligintly, and work hard and honestly at their trade. These guys put their lives on the line every time they perform and unlike the other pro athletes, if they don't perform, they don't get paid. No DL, no bench warming, no trades...just no money.
Those of us that have been there know how hard it is to be fighter, maybe the media moguls should lace up the gloves for a round or two and maybe they'de give the sport a bit more respect and breathe a little more life in to it.
Just saying my peace...thanks for the outlet

[Jim Trunzo]

I couldn't have said it any better myself. Even boxing's own people shoot the sport in the foot. I am so sick of reading Mike Ryan blast the sport about which he writes in The Ring Magazine that I'm going to call him and talk to him about the attitude he's promoting. You have big names like Lou DiBella and Bob Arum saying boxing is dead or in its death throes. Well, that really helps, guys!

Compare the crap in boxing (of which, admittedly, there's a ton) to what goes on in other sports - umm, Kobe Bryant? Pete Rose? How about that tight end from the Packers who like young tight ends - Mark Chumura. The Black Sox Scandal. Ty Cobb, the Georgia Racist!

But how many papers carried the story of Fernando Vargas, doing a Christmas toy give-away this year? Or the special works done anonymously by Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward?

Bah, bad sells papers; good is boring - and fairness is non-existent!

[vistaman44]

As a boxing fan, I too am disgusted by the coverage of the large national media. I agree that it is slanted and hugely weighted toward the negative.

However, as a career community journalist at dailies and weeklies in the South and Midwest, I have done everything in my power at the papers I have edited and worked for to provide fair and unbiased coverage of the local news, good and bad. There is fairness where journalists take a stand for facts over fantastic and credibility over screaming headlines.

The problem of sensationalism, negativism, etc., is far more prevalent on the major media newspaper, radio and television levels than in the smaller hometown markets. Unfortunately for boxing and its fans, the sport's reputation precedes it and it is an easy target at all levels.

[Puckett guy]

"Bad news makes good reading." All public figures and public endeavors have to deal with this marketing philosophy of the media. Boxing has not, is not and will not be immune from it. Whining about it, will not make it go away.

[Cap]

Buddy and I were talking about this just the other day. The press has always loved bad news and the more horrific it is the better. Unfortunately, the reason they love it is because it sells papers and the advertising in them. They don't have much time to catch your attention, so WHAM! they hit you with an earthquake or a double homocide.

As for boxing, the press which once made money off it, now sees it as a pariah. Up here it is extremely rare to see any fight news in the big dailies. If some poor addled ex-fighter robs a liquor store it might make page three, but actual boxing coverage is almost nowhere to be seen.

Cap

[dempsonny]

What is amazing is that you can't find a boxing magazine or books half as easy as you can find wrestling literature. Writers always refer to the barbaric nature of the sport and how it should be banned. They compare it to dog fighting or bull fighting. they fail to realize that humans have free will and choose to enter the sport unlike dogs and bulls or cocks who don't have an option.
This is all another product of the liberal media that has taken over this country. Grade school kids that use to have tug of war as a gym activity had to change the name of the activity to tug.
It's just the direction our country is going in.

Gus

[BasicGuy]

Originally posted by dempsonny
This is all another product of the liberal media that has taken over this country.

In this day an age for anyone to claim the media as a whole has a liberal biased Is just unbelievable(The same could be said about some claiming the opposite) You can find some News Stations that have a liberal biased I know(CNN) but I can just as easily find one with a conservative biased.(FOX)

To say the media has whole Is biased towards one political party Is just being paranoid.

[PyroFalkon]

Sensationalism sells... I remember awhile ago, I saw an episode of SportsCenter on ESPN. (This was probably a year and a half ago.) There had been a fist-fight at a press conference or weigh-in, and it happened soon after Lennox Lewis's people had one as well. The ESPN guys mentioned something about "this happens all the time in boxing!," and then they turned the camera to their on-site reporter, Max Kellerman (another ESPN guy and the host of their show "Around the Horn"). Max immediately jumped on his own colleagues, saying that he was sick and tired of everyone in the media (including ESPN itself!) saying that this kind of thing was ordinary and happened all the time.

The situation reminded me of something though. Remember the Colombine shooting? Two days after it happened, there was a copycat crime somewhere. A FOX News reporter said "It seems to happen almost on a daily basis." Apparently two school shootings in two to four years constitutes "daily basis" simply because they happened in the same week. (And I'm normally a fan of FOX News.)

Oddly enough, I want to announce something here to, eh, lighten the mood, I suppose. Games typically arouse my interest in things, and now that I've played TBCB for a good month, I'm ready to study up on boxing a bit. I'm going to watch ESPN Friday Night Fights this week, which features Diobelys Hurtado (36-3-1, 24) vs. Joe Hutchinson (31-4-2, 14), two guys I've never heard of. But hey, it'll be the first boxing match I'll have seen in... eh... probably three years. And it'll be the first one I watch in its entirety!

[dempsonny]

Basic,
Fox and The Post Conservative....
All the rest...Liberal. The NY Times, Newsday, CBS, NBC, ABC all liberal trash, there's even a book out about that written by a liberal that left the times.

[Cap]

Yeah, burn does librals at da stake! That'll teach 'em a lesson.

Actually, I was talking about the driving force behind all media. The almighty buck. Sports reporting has very little to do with politics per se, and more to do with perceptions at media HOs that the public doesn't want to read or hear about boxing.

Cap