BLEACHER REPORT
In today’s society, the use of social media is integral to the success of a journalistic news platform or broadcasting network. Correspondingly, the power of visual storytelling techniques can also have a significant effect to the overall success of such websites.
‘Bleacher Report’ is an American journalism website based on American sports such as American football, basketball, baseball and hockey. They provide updates on games around America while also incorporating news stories in a section called ‘The Mag’.
‘The Mag’ displays an array of different stories written by journalists within the business. These stories are multimedia stories incorporating video or images to compliment the text.
Bleacher Report resembles a journalistic website which gains success from social media. This multimedia aspect ensures their audience are able to gain stories from an array of sources. They are based on all three of the main social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The article I will be analysing, ‘The NBA can’t change China; Deal with it’, comes off the back of the controversy regarding NBA and China. Bleacher Report journalist, Howard Beck, draws upon the “long and complicated” relationship between NBA and China which few seem to acknowledge.
The current controversy started with Houston Rockets general manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. In tweeting this created a online war which has spurred journalists from around the world (many from China) to put forward their own personal opinions, mainly in the form of outrage. Yet this controversy has only added to the long winded online war between the NBA and China.
In saying this, I believe at the time of publication, this story was extremely newsworthy. As the conflict between NBA and China has spanned over a long amount of time, as well as the countries involved being ‘elite nations’.
Beck takes on an argument against the critics who were seen to be slandering the NBA. He uses images of Lebron James and members of the Houston Rockets team in 2004 displaying the business related relationship which has spanned decades between the NBA and China.
He does this to show the positives which the NBA has done for basketball in China. Having pre season exhibitions staged in China has only been beneficial to Chinese fans of basketball. Yet China seems to forget the positives and highlight one mere tweet.
At the beginning of the article, Beck uses the repetition of “China” to display all the wrongdoings which surround the country in today’s society, such as “China intimidates, harasses and detains journalists”. He also continues to convey forward his argument though the use of syntax sentencing, listing many problems with the current debate.
“IGNITE THE POWER OF SPORTS CULTURE TO MAKE MOMENTS THAT MATTER“
In a pursuit to learn more about this website, the about section portrayed this phrase in a salient manner. Personally, I believe to really highlight moments in all sports, you must incorporate the culture which surrounds it, as culture remains an underrated factor in the playing of sports, the viewing of sports and the analysing of sports.
“Our favourite teams bring people together, keep family members close, bond people from different generations.“
Bill Simmons – American sports journalist
Bleacher Report stands by these words to authenticate and stand out from other journalistic websites. Appealing to the importance of culture within sports is as main reason as to why they have such a global and enormous audience. To add to their niche, they have a multimedia aspect derived from their use of social media and an incorporation of images/videos with a thorough text.
James Muggeridge
James Muggeridge 