Olympic "spoilers"

[BillyT]

Some papers are making a big deal of not writing headlines on Olympic results during the day and noting there are "spoilers" in the story.

I would think we're over that now, especially with the Internet.

I guess the thinking is that people who really, really want to be surprised by NBC won't look at your website if you do not go that route.

Seems silly to me.

Thoughts?

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's a favor to readers. If they want to, they can click. Most of the spoiler alerts I've seen have done a good job of saying something big happened but not saying what it was.

I think most of the urge to blare the news comes from a journalist's desire to stick an f-you to NBC, but I don't think that serves your own readership very well.

 

[Football_Bat]

Got to remember who your audience is. A good chunk of dead-tree newspaper readers don't have the Internet because they're old.

For AM papers, spoilers are not an issue if you consider it to be one. The presses start running by about the time NBC signs off for the day.

 

[BillyT]

I don't think anyone is holding anything back in print, but right now there's a paper's wesbite that says: US-Canada spoiler alert.

I do not think it's about hurting NBC but rather serving the reader.

 

[HanSenSE]

Oh come on now, do our checks say "Podunk Daily News" or "NBC Sports"?

 

[MileHigh]

Been interesting to see who has done it and dies not. USA Today and L.A. Times have been reporting the news as it happens. Denver Post and others on my feeds have not. And you read the comments and people get upset at getting the news. And it's funny when in the comments someone reports the news when an outlet did the spoiler alert. I'm in the report it as it happens camp. News is news no matter when it happens. I did like on my L.A.Times app when the games started that I got a prompt on whether I wanted Olympics news live so it was able to configure its app two ways for that.

 

[Screwball]

In London, I tweeted the results of a few events as soon as they ended. I got more than a few tweets about being a spoiler. And I'm thinking, "You're on Twitter because you want to know what is happening RIGHT NOW and you're upset because now you know what is happening RIGHT NOW?"

 

[Mark2010]

If I want live news on an event happening on the other side of the world, I'm probably not going to the Podunk Press website.