Bob Costas doesn’t see someone recording a video of a sporting event on their cell phone as a threat to his job. He said mobile videos can’t compete with the corporation that owns the rights to record a sporting event, even if they can record the final score of a baseball game that the rest of the United States has yet to see.

A panel featuring three media representatives – including NBC broadcaster Bob Costas – discussed this kind of censorship of sporting events Friday afternoon in front of a packed Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium. The panel’s discussion, ‘When Rights Collide: Sports Coverage vs. Branding,’ was the start of a three-part series on free speech hosted by the Tully Center for Free Speech Friday afternoon.

The first seminar featured sportscaster Bob Costas, Time Warner executive John Keib, and media attorney Mickey Osterreicher, a general council with the National Press Photographers Association.

Recognizing that the broadcast rights to sporting events are purchased, the panel discussed the conflict between journalists, photographers, Internet bloggers and other media to cover broadcast events.

Bill Spaulding, a freshman broadcast journalism major, was excited to hear what the panelists had to say.

‘As an aspiring sports broadcaster I am very interested in how the rights holders of an event can censor what reporters have to say,’ Spaulding said.

David Rubin, former dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the panel’s moderator, said media members continue to encounter conflicts with the corporations that own the rights to the broadcast. As technology continues to get increasingly sophisticated, more problems will most likely arise, he said.

As someone who has hosted Olympic broadcasts, Costas pointed out that there is often a time difference between the U.S. and the site of the Olympics. Revealing the results in advance of the telecast can dramatically affect those who paid for the rights to the games.

For now, Costas believes that people prefer to follow events through the traditional media rather than through short and blurry video from a cell phone or a fan blogging their thoughts.

‘At the end of the day, bloggers do not interfere. People would simply rather just watch a game,’ Costas said.

All three speakers on the panel agreed that technology has altered the coverage of sports events drastically. It is beyond the corporation’s power to control everything but they do try to impose some restrictions. And it will be necessary to incorporate all media – including coverage by citizen journalists – into their sports coverage.

Costas mentioned that in addition to cameras, some sporting events have started to ban guests from bringing cell phones into an arena.

Osterreicher said photographers have been given tighter restrictions by the contracted broadcaster to sports events. At times, photographers are only allowed to post a certain number of pictures on a Web site and only have a limited period during which their pictures can be posted.

The panel noted that even high schools have begun to televise their sporting events, causing issues between local reporters and school officials.

After the panel with Bob Costas, Lesley Fair from the Federal Trade Commission discussed her opinion on unfair and deceptive advertising.

Fair discussed her role at the FTC. She examines advertisements and decides if the advertisements are truthful.

Fair brought up the television psychic, Miss Cleo. In 2002, the two executives behind the Miss Cleo television show plead guilty to defrauding people who called into the show.

The third panel featured international Internet researcher Nart Villeneuve, who gave a presentation discussing the increasing censorship of Internet content by governments around the world.

algree03@syr.edu

Published on October 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm