The Value of Sports

What is the value of sports in a newspaper?
Sports have been a vast spreading entertainment that has industrialized along with the new ways of mass media. From watching a gladiator back in ancient Greece to the capabilities of watching games on cell phones, sports has become one of the greatest assets to man. From football to swimming in the Olympics, everyone wants to know the details. It has become an ideal means of communication. Sports are also the highlighter of the newspaper. After many have read the interesting information about the president and the war in Iraq, they want to turn to something with pictures and numbers that they can relate to. Its human nature.
I know personally that whenever I grab a newspaper I go to the sports section. It has become so habitual because it does not matter what sport is highlighted, I know that it will be interesting. Newspapers need their sports section. If the sports section did not exist, the sales of newspapers would decrease tremendously.


Here are some statistics taken from a survey given to 5,000 people.

Top 5 sections among male company workers
Headlines (62.0%)
Domestic News (55.4%)
Sports (55.4%)
Economy (53.3%)
International News (47.8%)

Top 5 sections among male students
Headlines (66.7%)
International News (45.8%)
Sports (43.1%)
TV listings (41.7%)
Politics (38.9%)

We obviously see the percentage of how much people love sports. The numbers for women were a lot different but the percentages as a whole would not be to far off. This society needs their daily updates on how many golden medals Michael Phelps has won and if the Yankees beat the Mets.

Slavery

I can’t but wonder how hard it must have been to be a slave during the 1800s. Getting beaten everyday and working in the hot sun picking cotton must have been the hardest job known in the history of mankind. It must have been difficult for the women being tortured so much while giving birth. These women must have gone through stress that no one in this world could imagine since their children were taken away from them without any questions asked. And not only did they have to deal with giving away their children, these children were sometimes fathered by their owners. Life must have been the hardest for women during this time. I can remember my great grandmother telling me a few years ago that her mother was a slave in Trinidad. My great grandmother died at the age of 100 and she was born 1900. Her mother must have been a strong person to persevere and raise a family while being a slave.

Slavery

Slavery in the Carribean

The Iceberg theory and how it applies to news stories

What exactly is the Iceberg theory?
Ernest Hemingway stated, “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.” Hemingway has used this theory for many of his works and his essential reason for doing this is to make the reader think about what’s not technically being said. It is called the iceberg theory because the authors hide the majority of their foundation or feelings just as an iceberg only shows 10% of its mass.
This technique can apply to news stories because many reporters try to leave it up to the reader to figure out and learn what their true intentions are. This is seen a lot with politics. Sometimes a reporter may not bluntly say that a politician or a leader is wrong for his or her actions but the reporter uses their words and ideas behind their writing to help the reader see what the true meaning is. With this technique, reports help readers become more engaged into their articles and wanting more.