In a USA TODAY column earlier this year, Christine Brennan reported that during the National Football League’s scouting combine, Nick Kasa, a Colorado tight end, who was drafted by the Oakland Raiders, was questioned about his sexuality by representatives of every team.
The NFL questions asked of the tight end do not have any bearing on his ability as a football player and received modest media coverage. More important the questions were also illegal.
Despite the on-going decades-long controversy about the dangers affiliated with playing football, journalists, both print and TV, often ignore the medical aspects and continue to provide media hype for America’s most violent major sport.
Here are some questions the journalist cheerleaders should consider asking the NFL.
•Are you now willing to admit that your interest in player’s health problems coincided with players speaking out and bringing legal actions regarding team’s disregard of the dangers brought on by concussions?
•Are you now willing to admit that for most of the NFL history team doctors kept injured players in the game at the behest of coaches?
•Are you now willing to admit that football is a violent game?
•Since you position the NFL as a patriotic and good citizen, and use soldiers as props during pre-game ceremonies, how many of our warriors have teams and the league hired in response to the military's continuing “hire our vets” campaigns?
•Since the NFL positions itself as caring citizens, considering the problem with teenagers and drinking, and the number of NFL players with drinking problems, why does the league permit beer commercials during its televised football games?
•How many players in the NFL have had problems with the law?
•Why did it take Congressional hearings and extensive media coverage, especially the dozens of stories regarding football-related concussions by Alan Schwartz of the New York Times, before the NFL admitted that research into the matter was warranted?
•Why did the NFL, for many years, label scientific research regarding dead football players and concussions flawed research?
•Is it only a coincidence that physicians who were affiliated with the NFL found fault with independent scientific research regarding football and concussions?
•What is the NFL's official position regarding concussions and the life altering changes to the players that receive them?
•Doesn’t the addition of Thursday night football make it more difficult for players to recover from injuries?
•Please explain the difference between the NFL’s position regarding football and concussions and Big Tobacco’s denial that cigarette smoking can cause cancer.
Extensive media coverage concerns the financial powerhouse that the NFL has become. During the run-up to the Super Bowl, marketing and advertising sections of the media also hype the Big Game. But despite the laudatory coverage, the NFL has problems. And with the exception of the concussion controversy, the problems are largely ignored by the media.
The Time’s stories on football-related concussions, the PBS Frontline special, League of Denial, and the book of the same name ensure that football-related concussions will be in the news for decades to come.
It was the continuing negative media coverage over many years about prize fighting and the damage it did to participants that reduced it to a minor sport. Will the same happen to football? A lot depends on how long the companies that keep the sport alive with its advertising dollars want to be associated with the NFL as on-going continuing negative coverage grows, especially as new scientific research supporting the accusations against the NFL emerges.
In League of Denial, former NFL CommissionerPaul Tagliabue blamed “pack journalism” for the negative coverage of the NFL’s concussion problems. He was right. There is “pack journalism” in the NFL coverage. But he had it wrong. It’s mostly adoring coverage.
Arthur Solomon was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller. He is a contributor to PR and sports business publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].
The NFL questions asked of the tight end do not have any bearing on his ability as a football player and received modest media coverage. More important the questions were also illegal.
Despite the on-going decades-long controversy about the dangers affiliated with playing football, journalists, both print and TV, often ignore the medical aspects and continue to provide media hype for America’s most violent major sport.
Here are some questions the journalist cheerleaders should consider asking the NFL.
•Are you now willing to admit that your interest in player’s health problems coincided with players speaking out and bringing legal actions regarding team’s disregard of the dangers brought on by concussions?
•Are you now willing to admit that for most of the NFL history team doctors kept injured players in the game at the behest of coaches?
•Are you now willing to admit that football is a violent game?
•Since you position the NFL as a patriotic and good citizen, and use soldiers as props during pre-game ceremonies, how many of our warriors have teams and the league hired in response to the military's continuing “hire our vets” campaigns?
•Since the NFL positions itself as caring citizens, considering the problem with teenagers and drinking, and the number of NFL players with drinking problems, why does the league permit beer commercials during its televised football games?
•How many players in the NFL have had problems with the law?
•Why did it take Congressional hearings and extensive media coverage, especially the dozens of stories regarding football-related concussions by Alan Schwartz of the New York Times, before the NFL admitted that research into the matter was warranted?
•Why did the NFL, for many years, label scientific research regarding dead football players and concussions flawed research?
•Is it only a coincidence that physicians who were affiliated with the NFL found fault with independent scientific research regarding football and concussions?
•What is the NFL's official position regarding concussions and the life altering changes to the players that receive them?
•Doesn’t the addition of Thursday night football make it more difficult for players to recover from injuries?
•Please explain the difference between the NFL’s position regarding football and concussions and Big Tobacco’s denial that cigarette smoking can cause cancer.
Extensive media coverage concerns the financial powerhouse that the NFL has become. During the run-up to the Super Bowl, marketing and advertising sections of the media also hype the Big Game. But despite the laudatory coverage, the NFL has problems. And with the exception of the concussion controversy, the problems are largely ignored by the media.
The Time’s stories on football-related concussions, the PBS Frontline special, League of Denial, and the book of the same name ensure that football-related concussions will be in the news for decades to come.
It was the continuing negative media coverage over many years about prize fighting and the damage it did to participants that reduced it to a minor sport. Will the same happen to football? A lot depends on how long the companies that keep the sport alive with its advertising dollars want to be associated with the NFL as on-going continuing negative coverage grows, especially as new scientific research supporting the accusations against the NFL emerges.
In League of Denial, former NFL CommissionerPaul Tagliabue blamed “pack journalism” for the negative coverage of the NFL’s concussion problems. He was right. There is “pack journalism” in the NFL coverage. But he had it wrong. It’s mostly adoring coverage.
Arthur Solomon was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller. He is a contributor to PR and sports business publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].
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