Sacramento Sportswriter Cries Foul Over Kings Coverage

The term “exclusive” is constantly misused in the media. For example, here in Hollywood, is it really accurate to deem a brief, canned one-on-one chat with the star of Thor as “exclusive” when it was one of nearly a hundred such conversations granted by Chris Hemsworth from the same hotel suite, on the same day?

Sacramento sportswriter Joe Davidson makes a similar point in reviewing the meadow of local media coverage generated by the possible move to Anaheim of NBA franchise the Sacramento Kings:

TV folks forgot–or simply ignored–what “exclusive” means: to have the only access to an interview subject. Yet the stations touted having “exclusives” with the Maloofs on relocation filing day when the owners talked extensively to everyone–print, radio, TV, Internet, and news services.

What’s more, all local media and some national Internet news services drove the word “sources” into the ground. Electronic media especially chose not to mention names or specifics. The source could have been your buddy at the bar, waving a foam Kings finger, for all we know.

Or maybe even a cow. One ring of the cowbell for, “We’re mo0-ving;” two for, “We’re staying.”