“Nasty, my critics have critics.”
And as Brian Billick always says to me: “They’re gonna spin it however they want anyway.”
True, true, true…
And sports, more than most of life outside of political issues of a truly serious nature, lends itself to mostly harmless opinions — drawing up sides, expertise, parochialism, conflict, pageantry and fellowship while teaching the most virtuous characteristics of our better selves (teamwork, sacrifice, effort, practice, fairness, competition, etc.) – without taking on the real world of issues of economics, law, racism, religious conflict, torturers and war.
Sports is a “war” where no one gets hurt and everyone comes back again next season to “fight again.” It’s a set of “make believe” regional battles presented as entertainment. It’s a daily soap opera where the drama of the contests and the fervor of civic pride provides a backdrop to captivate America.
The “war” going on now in the media world is about content and distribution. The days of the corporate monopoly and corporate “message” are now over because the paradigm has changed.
There will never be three channels of TV again. There will never be a monopoly in any city for a news agency. And radio – while it pains me to say it – is a dying medium as well.
Take our “little AM radio station” at WNST-AM 1570. For about a decade (and six decades before that) the only media that we could create was blind sound, with a daylight radius of 37 miles during the day and eight miles at night. In the old days, we called it “theater of the mind.”
Now consider that at WNST.net we can transmit that same product on a Listen Live feed, while distributing EVERY blind radio sound we’ve ever made on demand, an endless amount of “written” words on our blogs including standings, scored and news in real time and full color video uplinks from Radio Row at the Super Bowl this week in a matter of seconds.
We’ve gone from being a tiny radio station with limited distribution to a full-service radio, television and real-time newspaper available anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. And we come into the palm of your hand via your mobile device.
That’s a powerful, powerful shift in my world. And I plan to take advantage of that opportunity at WNST.net by serving you the best information, analysis and conversation platform in the marketplace.
So, now the best “critics” or writers or distributors of thoughts and communication will win. That’s the content part.
And the distribution part – where WNST.net comes into everyone’s hands in the world via their mobile device – is now simply about the marketing, promotion and moxie of our quality and trusted content.
We think that’s us, at WNST.net.
If you love what we do, we hope you’ll tell your friends and others who would like our product on the web.
If you don’t like what we do, we hope you tell us so we can try to make it better in an ever-changing world.
Once again, here’s the “WNST State of Baltimore Media Survey” that you can fill out for a chance to win a 50-inch Panasonic HDTV…
While many other “vanity” companies charge for a monthly subscription or their publications, we continue to offer the many, many resources at WNST free of charge. They are all sponsor-supported and this how we feed our families.
If you love WNST, join any or all of our FREE services. And if you see a blog or a text or a video or a link that you like on our site, please forward it to a friend. It’s the best thing you can do to be a “friend” to WNST.
We really appreciate your support over all of the years and hope that 2010 is our best year ever at WNST.net.
One thing for sure: we’ve never had better content or distribution of our content.
Tomorrow’s class: the bought off media and the “rest of the story” you don’t know about how the local news world works in Baltimore.
