The Borg That Roared: ESPN Attacks Local News

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Miller on July 22, 2009 at 2:46pm

Resistance is futile. "Readers", including myself, are the jury and we have rendered a verdict: http://espn.go.com/chicago/ is BY FAR a better Chicago sports information source than http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/.

I feel for the Tribune in some weird way...I, literally, learned how to read by looking at the sports page with my father every morning at breakfast. Now, I have registered to become an ESPN "member" in order to personalize my ESPN Chicago sports information. I choose what content I want and how I want it displayed. I now check out my "home page" for Chicago sports information while eating my Cheerios and have canceled my print subscription to the Trib...RIP.








ESPN is winning by outsmarting, rather than outspending.

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Permalink Reply by CK Thurber on July 22, 2009 at 2:52pm

It really is a shame to see all of these iconic publishers crumble in the face of evolving technology. At the same time, it's exciting to see major media titans experiment in technology and become successful.

Maybe there will be a time when we will return to physical print newspapers to read our sports "while eating [our] Cheerios," but for now, customization and aggregation seem to be winning over nostalgia.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Miller on July 22, 2009 at 3:26pm

To add to the information overload story in my life - I also watch and listen to ESPN News on TV while scanning the http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ headlines on my laptop while eating my Cheerios and ignoring my Lab's plea for table food each morning. At 47 years old, I never, ever would have thought what I just described would be my morning "media" habits even one short year ago.

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Permalink Reply by CK Thurber on July 22, 2009 at 3:34pm

We live in a 'multi-distracting'... I, uh, mean 'multi-tasking' society. We're all consuming multiple media options at the same time. That's another thing ESPN is banking on: you'll want to watch ESPN national sports news on TV while reading hyper-local sports content on your computer.

It will be interesting to see if hyperlocal will help us focus our media choices (narrow-casting versus generic broadcasting) and lead us back to tuning in to our local "paper"/news site. How important is simple hyper-local content in a complex global economy?

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