Everyone wants their share of the limelight. So, how best can Johnny get his? Almost every regular local TV newscast spends about 1/3 of the time covering sports. Even if a team is having a losing season, they are likely to get a mention on TV. As far as academics? Maybe a brief story will be run about the national spelling bee champion. But did you see any coverage on the district or state winner?
Those who lay out the news would argue that they are just giving people what they want. Ratings dictate that academics not be covered and sports be covered. Is that really the case? If you had a child who was to be on TV for an academic achievement, would you not try to get all of your friends and family tuned in to the broadcast?
It seems more and more that the news programs are becoming expanded commercials for other programming on the station. It then makes sense to emphasize sports so that people want to watch the sporting events that will be televised the next weekend. Are not sports a better profit generator for TV networks? With a sporting event, the network need not pay writers and actors. The TV program coordinators will claim that they focus on athletic programming rather than intellectual because that is what people want. If people don’t want the intellectual programming, how do you account for the popularity of such programs as “Universe”, “Jeopardy”, and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”?
I have picked on TV, but are radio and newspaper any better? Don’t most newspaper have an entire section dedicated to sports? How much space is dedicated to academics?
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