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NCAA slightly ease live blogging restrictions amidst professional ridicule

NCAA slightly ease live blogging restrictions amidst professional ridicule

A couple of weeks ago I reported on the NCAA’s decision to expel a journalist who was live blogging a baseball game.

The NCAA has now relaxed its harsh restrictions on what can be blogged live from a match, saying that live blogging is allowed so long as it’s restricted to the score and time remaining.

Sorry, did I say “relaxed”? Perhaps that’s rather optimistic.

Some professionals have ridiculed the NCAA’s decision.

“There were two guys blogging at our championship game,” a pro league executive said. “We had to take them outside and shoot them.”

Chris Botta, the vice-president of communications for the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders, noted that coverage on any platform is generally a good thing for a team or league.

“In this day and age, there are so many ways to get the score of the game,” he said. “On the Internet, satellite. I would hope nobody would overreact the way the NCAA did.”

The Courier-Journal, whose reported was ejected, has not yet taken any legal action against the NCAA, but John Fleischaker, their lawyer, says that the issue needs to be resolved.

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“I’m hard pressed to believe the NCAA has really thought this through,” he said. “I think they run a risk – I hope they run a risk that the media finally say we’re not going to do it, we’re not going to cover the games.”

It’s still a minefield when it comes to blogging live events, but one that will only get worse if the issues aren’t resolved now.

(Via Globe and Mail and First Amendment Center)

View Comments (2)
  • Over recent months, the issue of regulating blogs is one that has reared its head on a number of occasions, and following some well-documented cases of cyber-bullying, there have been calls from some quarters for a Code of Conduct for bloggers.

    Tessa Jowell (Minister of Sport and Culture – UK) went online at the Guardian’s ‘Comment is free’ site to discuss blogging; specifically whether a blogging Code of Conduct should be introduced in order to “increase the quality of internet debates.”

    For more info on whats happening with blogging in the UK visit :http://www.montagecomms.com/blogger/hannah_roberts/blog.html?

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