Michael Beasley found out the hard way the dangers of modern technology: http://hoopsmanifesto.blogspot.com/2009/08/big-brother_24.html
Good article. Media feeding frenzies don't just hurt the players. In the long term, they hurt the fans by forcing players to become more paranoid and secretive.
I listened to some of the KJR guys talking about "new media" and their disgust over how bloggers are flaunting their ability to make personal (read: unprofessional) attacks online out of anonymity, report on things that aren't really the media's business, and to not have a legal standard to be held to. In trying to remove a filter (the credentialed, "old-school" press) they've made it so that athletes and celebrities maintain a strict guard over anything "newsworthy", to the point that all we get now are bland, trite, Nuke LaLoosh quotes OR stuff from Page Six. They did bring up a good point about the change in the sports media spectrum over the last decade...it used to be that radio "shock jocks" were about the worst offenders out there and were suitably ostracized (look at where radio sits at a game vice credentialed paper press, their ability to get interviews and access, etc.). Now, they're considered part of the same "system" as the print guys (who are going out of business left and right) and the bloggers are the folks riding the cutting edge. But all that being avant garde has done is decrease the quality of content (for the most part) available to those actually reporting.
