In a media-saturated world, everyone with a smart phone can be a fan and a critic, a citizen blogger and an amateur reporter, reports the Detroit News—and looking at the coverage when Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo was considering leaving the school provides a stark example. In mid-May 2000, the news shocked Spartan fans still reveling in a national championship: Izzo was mulling a job with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks that would bring him millions more in annual salary than he could make in East Lansing. As fans fretted, the media cranked into action, but it was limited to the mainstream newspapers and a few fan blogs and message boards writing on what was a three-day story. What a difference a decade makes. Over the nine days that Izzo considered a move to the Cleveland Cavaliers this year, thousands of news stories, web stories, sidebars, updates, columns, and blogs landed on a vastly different media landscape. But that was just a fraction of the blizzard of reports that ultimately drew the ire of MSU administrators: Talk radio went wall-to-wall with Izzo speculation, and Twitter and Facebook were employed to propel even the tiniest detail—true or not—into must-have news. “We did have a lot of tweets that turned into facts and rumors that turned into stories,” said MSU President Lou Anna Simon last week, moments after a press conference at which Izzo announced his decision to be a “Spartan for life.” “I just kind of regret that it happened.” Big news is something that you no longer just read: You can also shape and share it. Simon is right, the media world has changed—and the Izzo saga shows it’s going to mean changes for everyone, from news sources, to reporters, even the consumer…
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