Sacramento's Small Media Market is Showing

Another chapter in the Sacramento Bee/1140 battle erupted yesterday, with Peaches ranting about how terrible the Bee is and how biased every writer they have is.  Sam Amick responded in his Kings Blog and away we go.

First things first.  The battle has simmered under the surface for years, but is really escalating with a couple of incidents earlier this year.  First, Kevin Martin attempting to return to the lineup was skewered on a daily basis by Peaches.  Was it deserved?  Well, Kevin didn't play well when he returned.  But a locker room cancer?  An ego maniac?  TZ went over this in an earlier post which I will do no justice to.  But the damage had been done, and Kevin was getting shopped.  

Next, came an Amick piece on playing time.  Mays, Evans, and Hawes all made comments about it, but Spencer got benched for his comments.  

In the course of a month, the local media had run a player out of town and gotten one suspended, which means we almost have to follow it as much as we do the team. 

But bias is funny.  If you listen to and or read anything, your not getting it from a robot.  Your getting it from someone who has certain feelings and issues and personal background into their own worldview.  I'll show you how.

If you listen to the 1140, Whitey Gleason has already bought season tickets for the San Jose Kings.  Grant Napear loves his Giants and hates Donovan McNabb.  Carmichael Dave and Urijah Faber are boys.

If you read the Bee, Ailene Voisin loves tall, dark europeans, and Jason Jones loves his Cal Bears.

If you talk to me, you know I love Vegas, regret my time and Sac State and am pretty excited to be broadcasting baseball for Pacific.

Bias should really come into play when discussing how the one screaming with a 50k watt boom box is collecting a (sizable) check from the team most people in Sacramento want to talk about.  And as callers (except for one who called in and snuck a Peaches yesterday) call in and continue to feed into the arrogant ego of the man with the mic, the cycle will continue.  Peaches has issues with the Bee, issues with callers, and issues with Jim Kozimor.  At what point do people ask about the common denominator?  

But listen to his callers, and they are all following him blindly.  Maybe they don't have time to read (although I question whether some of them can, but I digress) or just don't care to dive too deep into the issue.  But taking this man and what he says at face value while discounting where he is coming from is wrong.  He has a responsibility as the man who Kings fans interact with more than anyone else, being the TV voice AND having the prime time afternoon commute radio spot (which, having lived in Sacramento, no one is getting away from him) to understand his power.  Which he does.  They aren't reading the Bee or their blogs on the road to get their Kings fix.  They are listening to him.  And he's using that now to (arrogantly) settle grudges and establish his own superiority, again something TZ touched on earlier.  

The papers face another issue altogether.  For Jason Jones and Sam Amick, there is only so many ways to say Tyreke Evans scored 20 with five dimes and five boards and the Kings came up short.  But they do have something that 1140 does not, and that is competition.  Thats nothing new, and the blog world for the NBA is, without a doubt, the most widely covered and sporting the most talented writers of any other sports blogs.  But we're just not that easy to get to.  Simplicity is key, and thats what Peaches has over the Bee, over the blog world, and over basically everyone.

The Bee writers also have superiors to answer to.  I think we all remember the little spat over certain portions being cut out of Amick's story about Martin and his agent.  Well, it was over a week that Amick was not allowed to post to the Kings blog without it being put past Bill Bradley.  Bias?  Amick took that personal shot to his professional rep to make sure to include portions of a story involving a huge trade that had been cut out; very relevant portions as they pertain to members of the Kings past and present.   

One last part on bias.  There is a popular saying the the Archeology Community (ironic from the Greek, right?) that "You always find what you're looking for."  Same is true here.  If you wanted to call this a Peaches hit piece, then just take out of this whole thing me simply writing about Grant being arrogant.  If you wanted to call this a Kings media introspective, talk of my comparisons of the medium.  If you want to talk about me having issues with the Rise Guys, you can mention how Whitey bought tickets for the San Jose Kings.  There is a lot of different ways you can take portions of what I wrote.  Grant was hunting for something to blow up at, and he got it.  

Peaches says he never reads the Bee, yet always has something to say about their stories.  And the more that He goes on about the Bee, the more people will pick up things from Jones and Amick and think its biased, without thinking about why they thought it was biased in the first place.