RIP Stuart Scott

Russert was the one I thought of, too, while this was going on yesterday. He was still regularly on the air at the time, though, and his death was unexpected.

 

I am I the only one who is a little creeped out by the advanced work in video tributes.

It reminds me of The Twilight Zone episode where the monument engraver was
carving names in stone before people died. Show ends with him carving
Abe Lincoln into stone a day before his death.

 

They could have spun it as something they were going to use for the ESPYs.

 

Right, which somewhat justified the strong reaction.

I wonder if the reaction would have been as strong for more famous broadcasters like Berman or Patrick.

 

Scandal involving a media company: No comment

Tragedy involving a media company: overboard coverage

 

Yeah, but if you were on social media yesterday, non-media people were flipping out about Scott's death, as well. Maybe even morseso. Now you can say it's a chicken-or-egg thing, and that the coverage fueled the reaction. But on the face of it, people - and not just media people - seemed to be affected.

 

I think the reaction of the way Scott's death was reported caused the reaction to be what it was. I was incredibly touched by what Eisen said.

I also have a friend who used to work at ESPN who told me over and over again how much he couldn't stand Scott post a loving tribute to him with a sweet anecdote and about 150 likes on his FB page. I'm not saying he did anything wrong. I wasn't a Scott fan on any level, but I was very saddened by the news of his death.

 

True. But, that's what happens on social media today.

A C-list celebrity could die, and you'd think it was the biggest news story ever if you paid attention to the folks on social media.

 

That's also what happens with D-list scandals

 

By revolutionary, I mean that he changed what would be seen as sports journalism. SportsCenter before Scott had some schtick at times, but the show with Tom Mees, Bob Ley and Gayle Gardner was like the evening news. And with Patrick, Olbermann and Kilborn, it was still mainly that way. Scott turned it into something else entirely, in many good ways (widening ESPN's audience, and widening its minds) and some bad (part of the blurring of the line between athlete and journalist, and spawning a legion of godawful imitators).

 

Does Chris Berman's death get as much coverage as what Scott got? Does Bob Costas?

I wonder if there are 10 members of the media who would get similar treatment. I'm talking pure members of the media, not celebrities/athletes turned members of the media.

 

It's tough to determine that without context that is unknowable. Scott battled cancer pretty publicly for nearly a decade, if I'm not mistaken. Like Jim Valvano, he made a memorable speech about his fight against it near the end of his life. People had invested in his battle.

Matt Lauer and Jon Stewart are the two, to me, that could go suddenly like Russert did and get that kind of outpouring.