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I am a big fan of technology and the Internet age -- the rise of cyberspace has allowed me to publish this blog, makes everyday tasks much easier and provides hours of online procrastination. But the instant gratification, Need to Know Now!! culture that it has spawned is often problematic. The latest example -- the results of the Olympics.
An hour ago, I grew bored at work and decided to check out the New York Times homepage, as I had not read today's issue. What am I greeted with? A banner headline telling me the results of tonight's figure-skating competition. What?? Now that I knew the result, I checked out ESPN -- same thing. CNN/SI -- same thing!! Why do these Internet news sites insist on making it impossible to go through the day without knowing the results of competitions that will be shown that night. Well, I thought, perhaps they are trying to scoop the rival NBC network by taking away the drama from tonight's broadcast. But, when I visited NBCOlympics.com, guess what I found? A banner headline telling me the result! And NBC wonders why its ratings are so low.
Now, I have no problem with news sites featuring stories about the competitions, including the results, posted in real time. Many people want to know, and they should be able to. But a lot of people don't want to know. Should the major news organizations not respect this desire?
It would not be hard for new sites to have a link on the homepage that says, "Dramatic Result in Ladies Figure Skating! Click here for results!" Putting this on the page, rather a banner headline with the result, would allow the sites to maintain the "We are the fastest" bragging rights, while still allowing some fans to watch the broadcast in suspense. It seems to me that part of the responsibility of the news media is not only to satisfy the public's thirst for knowledge, but also to respect the public's desire not to know, at least for six hours.
One news site has it right. ABCnews.com has a link that says "Get the results here first" without spoiling the ending. You can keep up with the day's latest news, and you maintain the option of learning the results of events that will be televised tonight. If they continue this, then I guarantee that during the next Olympics, ABC news will get my business. Other sites won't, until they respect my right not to know.
-- Posted by Greg @ 2/23/2006 06:07:00 PM --
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5 Comments:
I completely agree. The Olympics -- which I am surprised that I'm watching, by the way -- have totally changed my daily web-browsing habits. I completely avoid sites like ESPN.com (hard) deadspin.com (harder) and cnn.com (hardest). I even don't listen to the radio when I'm in the car. I initially thought NPR wouldn't spoil the results for me, but that hope was dashed early.
You might think that the plus side of this is that I'm doing less web browsing generally. That's true, but I'm losing that time on the other end by watching way more TV than I otherwise would. *Sigh...*
TV isn't much better - ESPN and CNN Headline News have both spoiled results for me. Since I work at a sports bar with 4 dozen TVs, its impossible to avoid.
CBC does show a lot live, and does a better job than NBC.
I was just going to comment that the very first time I ever used a web browser, it was to check some winter Olympic results from Lillehammer. Of course that was just some guy in his kitchen transcribing results and scanned photos, so it wasn't quite the "real-time" phenomenon that it is today.
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