The Cycle of Journalism

Or, more appropriately, the cycle of Sports Journalism. You see, Sports Journalism is unique in that it does significantly more prognosticating than its brethren on the serious pages of the newspaper. It does much less reporting, and much more guessing. Take a look at your morning Newspaper, MSM website, or Yahoo's front page. Today, there will be speculation on where Manny Ramirez is headed, what the Packers will do with Brett Favre, and how the USA Basketball team will fare in Beijing. These are the stories that are dominating the front pages of sports sections across the country, and they are largely speculative pieces. The hotter the topic, the more speculation.

What the naive believe is that sports writers write pieces designed to get at the truth; what they, with all their access that us common folks don't have, believe will actually happen. In reality, sportswriters write what they believe will get people to read their articles, click their links, and make their newspapers money. Drew Sharp in Detroit, Dan Shaughnessy in Boston, Colin Cowherd on the Radio; they all are controversial, and they all get you to read their article, and in so doing, patronize their news outlet.

Within this framework, there is a specific cycle that Sports Journalism prognotications follow. It is as follows:

Step 1: Pick this year's "hot topic" prediction
Step 2: Find out what everyone else is saying in said prediction
Step 3: Print your own article rehashing what everyone else has said - tow the company line, make sure it pisses off a large section of your readership. You are a parrot at this point, simply repeating what has been said.
Step 4: Once the market has become super-saturated with the prediction that everyone is saying - write an article claiming that said prediction may be wrong, thus endearing yourself to the readership that your original prediction pissed off, and giving you the option to be "right" no matter the outcome.

Applied to College Football, it looks something like this:

Step one: Identify Michigan as a "hot topic" for predictions.
Step two: The media, including blogs, message boards, etc. has universally panned Michigan's chances for success this season.
Step three: Write your own article saying what everyone else is saying.
Step four: Ahh, the saturation point. It has been reached, and now you're seeing pushback.

Soon, the view of "Michigan may not be that bad" will reach the saturation point, and the cycle will rinse, and repeat. It happens all the time. Look for me to be writing a post about how good Michigan's going to be despite what everyone is saying in the near future - that way I can be right no matter what too.