Brett Favre

I thought it would be fitting to write about Brett Favre in my last blog considering I wrote so much about him throughout the semester. There is still one big question that every NFL fan is waiting to find out this off season. Not to anyone’s surprise the question revolves around Brett Favre. The question that has surrounded the past couple off seasons, is whether or not Brett Favre will return to play? This off season is proving to be no different. Brad Childress (Minnesota Vikings head coach) has said that they have no time frame concerning Brett Favre’s decision. This may be shocking to a lot of people. Many people were also surprised that the Vikings did not draft a QB in this year’s draft to someday replace the legend. Many people thought that this meant that Brett was definitely coming back next season. Vikings fans were once again caught off guard when they heard the news that Brett would have to have ankle surgery if he wanted to return next season. The media was all over this story. At first ESPN reported that Brett would not be able to play next season unless he had ankle surgery. They made the injury to his ankle sound pretty bad. Then later that day Brett himself made a statement to the media saying that this was an injury he has played through in the past and it was one that was easily fixable. He made it sound like his decision to come back to the NFL would be an easy one, but it was made a lot more difficult considering all of the support he has from the Vikings organization and fans. This was a pretty cool example of the media today. It was fun to see a conversation unfold through different media channels. After the conversation was out to the media they have absolutely picked it apart. It seems like the media has really over analyzed this situation. They have brought up questions like, why would Brett bring up this ankle surgery now? Many people have different thoughts about this question. Some feel that he truly just found out that he would have to have surgery, while others feel that this was just another way that Brett Favre could get himself some attention in the media. I feel that Brett would not just bring up this surgery talk now just to get into the media. He injured his ankle in the NFC Championship game against the Saints and the swelling had not gone down. I am kind of surprised that the media has not been covering his ankle injury more this off season until this point. There is no question Brett Favre will be in the media for many weeks to come. It will be very fun to see how all of these questions and stories will be covered by the media. Once again the media should thank Brett for giving them so many stories to talk about.

NFL Draft

In this week’s blog I am very excited to get back to writing about the NFL. The big news that everyone has been anticipating this time of year is the NFL draft. Every year the media is promoting the draft more and more. It is very definite that they have definitely stepped up the promoting this year. For the very first time, the draft is being held on prime time hours for television viewing. The media has many intriguing stories that the audience is very excited to hear about. Some of the main stories of the first round of the draft were Sam Bradford going first overall, and when will Jimmy Clausen and Colt McCoy get picked? Some of these stories have already been answered. As the title stated Sam Bradford did go number one overall to the Rams. Jimmy Clausen surprisingly dropped all the way to the 16th pick in the second round to the Carolina Panthers. As of right now, Colt McCoy has not been taken yet. The media is all over this story because many people thought he would be drafted much higher. For absolutely every player the media has a story to tell about them. The Radio City Music Hall, which hosts this event, is absolute chaos during the NFL draft. The venue is filled with fans, reporters, Hall of Famers, Commissioners, and players nervously waiting for their name to be called. Along with promoting the draft, the media gets a lot of attention for covering every step of it. I have been keeping up with the draft in various ways. I have been watching the draft on ESPN 2, reading about it on various websites, and keeping track of who has been taken on my IPod Touch. If that isn’t covering all forms of media, I don’t know what is!
I have been watching the draft pretty closely to see what my favorite team (Minnesota Vikings) would do. During the first round they had the 30th overall pick. I waited all night to see who they would pick, only to find out that they had traded their pick for more picks in the second round. I guess it paid off because I feel they got two very good players in the second round. First they picked Chris Cook, and then they picked running back Toby Gerhart. This made me pretty excited considering Gerhart was this year’s Heisman runner up.
Overall, the NFL draft is a very important media magnet for the NFL. It is unbelievable how much coverage the NFL gets for this event. This year’s draft is filled with great stories, and it will be very fun to see how all of them play out.

Tiger

Many people may be sick of hearing about Tiger Woods in the media. This is because the media has been having an absolute hay day with Tiger Woods ever since he crashed his car. I know that I cannot turn on ESPN without hearing something about him. Even though there are many other important things that could be talked about, (NBA playoffs, MLB season, NFL draft) Tiger Woods still seems to be what is on everybody’s mind. In the past Tiger Woods has been able to keep a low profile. Ever since all of the news came out about all of the women he has been with, he has not been able to get out of the spot light. All of this has to do with the media and public relations. Tiger Woods is not only a golfer, but a business. He has to sell himself to the public and to his sponsors to make money. Recently Tiger has been making the news for his return to golf. This return has been talked about in the media for a long time for a lot of reasons. One reason was to see how the fans would react to Tiger after what he had done. I watched his opening drive on ESPN and it seemed like the crowd was pretty sympathetic towards Mr. Woods. I was expecting to see a much more hostile environment, but on the contrary the fans were very nice to Tiger. While I was watching ESPN I saw a commercial featuring Tiger Woods looking directly into the camera while his dad’s voice is scolding him. I learned in my media class that this ad was not for advertisement at all, but for public relations. The ad was sponsored by Nike, which was one of the sponsors that held on to Tiger through this public relations nightmare. Many of Tigers sponsors dropped him because of his behavior. Even though Tiger definitely did some very bad things, it seems like he is trying to take the right steps to improve his image. He has gone to several weeks of counseling, and he has said that he will have more respect for the game of golf. It is yet to see if Tiger is really making these changes to improve himself as a person, or if it is just public relations to improve the image of Tiger Woods the business. It will be interesting to see what stories the media will come up with for Tiger in the future. Tiger is definitely giving the media stuff to cover. Hopefully, in the future he will only be in the media for good things and not for bad.

March Madness!!!!!

I know many of you are not college basketball fans, but I bet many of you have seen something in the media about March Madness. I personally am not a major fan of a specific major college basketball team. However, it is definitely that time of year where I will be watching a bunch of college basketball. The only reason I get so into March Madness is because of all of the media coverage it gets. Everyone is talking about who they have picked to win the big tournament. There are a bunch of people who are even competing in a bracket challenge to see who can predict who will win all of the games. There are a bunch of famous people who are getting into these bracket challenges. There are websites where you can see many of these famous people’s bracket picks. Some of these famous people include, Dick Vitale, LeBron James, and even President Obama.
The media is so engulfed in March Madness, because there is so much potential for great underdog stories. Every year there is a great story to report. This year there has already been one major Cinderella story. This happened when the number 1 rated team in the entire tournament (Kansas) lost to the big underdog UNI. Many people had Kansas to go very deep into the tournament (including the names listed above) and were stunned when they were upset. Another big reason the media loves the college basketball tournament, is because the winning team has to earn the championship. Unlike college football where there is a computer ranking system that decides the National Championship game, college basketball follows an actual tournament. This makes it much more fun for the media and the public to follow and watch. When the tournament is over, you know that the team deserves to be the National Champion. In college football after the National Championship you are sometimes left wondering if the Champion is actually the best team in the land.
I personally think the main reason the media is covering the tournament is for publicity and advertisements. Many websites have places where you can sign up to compete on predicting the brackets. This is a great way for websites to get people to come to their web pages. Once you have signed up to compete in one of these bracket challenges, the website can advertise to the people they get competing.
Overall, the March Madness tournament is a great way for media to get publicity. From people competing, to people reading about the Cinderella stories, the tournament is definitely a media gold mine. It will be very fun to see how the tournament plays out this year and how the media covers it.

Here is another great story of a person predicting the bracket

Error Code 8001050F

For those of you who read my blog to find out about new Brett Favre news I am sorry to say that this blog is not going to talk about Brett. However, I will tell you that the only new news about him is that he was recently on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
I recently bought a new video game for my Playstation 3. I was very excited to play my new game but was very frustrated when I turned on my PS3. I put in my game, but to my surprise the screen went black and said error code 8001050F. This error code kept coming up every time I tried to play my new game (For those of you who are wondering what game, it was Legends of Wrestle Mania). I then decided that this error code must have something to do with the new game so I decided to try another game. To add to my frustration, the error code came up again. At this point I was beginning to panic. I could not believe that a machine that was so expensive could be not working. After I tried everything I could possibly think of I turned to the media to try to figure out the problem. Once again I was very surprised at what I saw when I searched for this error code. I found that I was not the only one with this terrible problem. There were various videos on You Tube about the error code 8001050F. Many people were not sure what the problem was. Many people were trying to show how to fix the problem, and others were just showing how mad they were that these machines were malfunctioning. I was very happy when I found a video that showed that this problem was not my machines' fault, but the actual Playstation network. I then decided to check on the PS3 website to see what they had to say. I found a blog that talked about this error code. The blog advised people to shut their PS3 off until the problem was fixed. I kept my PS3 off for about a day. I did not want to turn on my PS3 before this problem was fixed so I kept up to date on the situation over the internet. I finally found what I had been looking for when I found a question and answer page that said it was ok to turn my PS3 on again.
Even though this is far from a major crisis, it is a good example of how the media can be used to keep up to date with the latest issues. I know I was very pleased that there was so much media coverage of this event. It helped me know what was going on, and how to deal with the problem. I bet Sony would not be saying the same thing, because I am sure they are getting a lot of negative media attention from this event.

Media and the Olympic Games

I am sad to say that this is my first blog that doesn’t have anything to do with Brett Favre. Even though I really want to be writing something about Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings, I can’t help but to write about the Vancouver Olympics. In this blog I will be writing about how the media is absolutely feasting over the 2010 Olympic Games. I will tell you why you are so glued to the Olympics, as well as what the media is reporting on in this go-around of the Olympic Games.

I have been watching the Olympics a lot lately. Some of the events I have been watching are events that I am not interested in. I find myself asking myself the same question over and over again. That question is; why would I possibly be watching things like figure skating? I came up with a very simple answer. I am watching these events not for the sport but for the individual stories behind the athletes. The media has found that they can pull our attention to certain events by pulling at our heart strings. They have picked up on a story for just about every athlete. Some of these stories have a great ending and some of them are very sad. There are the “feel good” stories of Alex Bilodeau who not only won the first Canadian gold on home soil, but won it for his brother Frederic Bilodeau (who has cerebral palsy). Who couldn’t be inspired by Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, who came out of a two year retirement for one last shot at the gold medal in couple’s figure skating. It made it more of a “feel good” story when they actually won the gold. Along with the good stories, there are also the stories that just tear at your heart. One of these stories is the story of Lindsey Jacobellis, an American snowboard cross competitor. In the previous winter Olympics Lindsay was in the lead heading for gold when she lost her position by showboating. In this winter Olympics she fell short of her goal once again. The media absolutely loves this story, because they know how bad we feel about an Olympic athlete not meeting their goal. When these stories are not enough for the media to talk about, they pick up on funny or informational stories concerning the Olympics. Some of these stories include the Olympian who chipped his tooth by biting his medal, and what the Olympians are listening to on their iPods.

Other forms of media are using the Olympics to create publicity. MTV has created a show out of Canada called “Over The Bolts”. In this show the media follows the Canadian snowboarding team, so people can get to know them and their stories.

As you can see the media has drawn me into the Olympics with their various stories. The media is also using the Olympics to promote other forms of media. The media has gotten very good at making people, like me; watch what they want me to watch. I am not mad about this at all because they really have me interested in this year’s Olympic Games.

So Favre So Good!

In my last blog I wrote about how much the media needs to thank Brett Favre for all of the contributions he has made to them. Unfortunately the Minnesota Vikings lost in the NFC Championship game against the New Orleans Saints. This was not the perfect ending for Brett Favre that I and many other people were really hoping for. In this blog, I am going to write about how the media is gaining publicity by trying to answer unanswered questions by Favre this off season. I am also going to be telling you another surprising way the media is being used for Brett.
As the Minnesota Vikings just came up short against the Saints, the media was all over the big story of the offseason. Will Brett Favre be back to lead the Vikings in the 2010-2011 season? It sounds like the media will be feasting over Brett’s decision for the whole offseason, because Brett has not made up his mind. Rightfully so Brett has decided to go back to his hometown of Hattiesburg for awhile to reassess his feelings of playing next season. Once again I feel the media should thank Brett for this. If he had made the decision to play right after this off season, the media would not have too much to talk about. As long as the decision is up in the air, the media will be picking Brett’s decision making process apart trying to predict whether or not he will come back.
The media is not just being used to cover the decision of Brett Favre’s comeback. It is being used in many ways to get him to come back to lead the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl. According to a blogger (Michael Rand) from the Star Tribune (Local Minneapolis paper), the Minnesota Vikings fans are using the media in various ways to try to get Brett Favre back to the team for next year’s season. The blogger reported that a Vikings fan created a Facebook appreciation group for Brett Favre. There was an explosion of interest in this group, so the fans created a place for people to donate money for Brett. The money is being used to put up billboards that thank Brett for helping the Vikings out this season, and asking him to please come back for another season. The group has already raised enough money to put up one billboard in Favre’s hometown of Hattiesburg. The billboard cleverly reads, “HEY #4, DO MINNESOTA FANS LOVE YOU AND WANT YOU BACK NEXT YEAR? “YOU BRETTCHA.”” This group of fans has very high goals. According to their website, they want to raise enough money to put up more billboards in Minneapolis, Duluth, Wisconsin, and possibly Miami. They say they would also like to purchase television ads, and full color page ads. These fans truly want the media to influence Brett Favre to come back to the NFL, because they know that the Super Bowl would in reach with him leading the team. Along with this fan group other organizations are also getting involved. KFAN (Local Minneapolis Radio Station) also wants to put up a billboard. According to Michael Rand this billboard would read, “DEAR BRETT, DEANNA & FAMILY, THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MINNESOTA. WE’D LOVE TO HAVE YOU BACK. VIKINGS FANS 4-EVER.”
As I have stated in this article the media has really benefitted by Brett Favre. It is cool to see it being used to try to get him back playing for the Minnesota Vikings. If you want to contribute to the Vikings here is your chance!