NCAA Squashes Live-Blogging
When you can't be there in person, watch it on TV, or catch a live video stream of an event, live-blogging is your last option for catching up-to-the-minute updates of the action. Live-blogging, as it sounds, is when a blogger continuously updates his blog in real time as events unfold -- no doubt to the annoyance of everyone in earshot of his incessant keyboard tapping.One of the most feverishly live-blogged events is the annual keynote address Steve Jobs gives to kick off Apple's World Wide Developers Conference -- something Apple seems happy to allow.
The NCAA, however, isn't nearly as forgiving, as sports blogger Brian Bennett recently discovered when he was ejected from a College World Series game this past weekend.
Brian writes for Kentucky's Courier-Journal.com and had, before this past Sunday, provided live coverage on his blog of every University of Louisville baseball game in the tournament. But, in the fifth inning of Sunday's game against Oklahoma State, he was told that blogging violates NCAA policies and was promptly kicked out of the game -- minus his press credentials.
The Courier-Journal believes the policy being violated here is the First Amendment. Meanwhile the NCAA is countering by classifying blogging a "live representation of the game," akin to setting up a camera and letting anyone tune in -- something the NCAA charges hefty fees to broadcasters for.
But is the NCAA really losing any money? Let's be realistic: No one would choose reading a live blog over watching a game on TV unless they were in a place that didn't have a television –- like the office, or the office bathroom.
From CNET and Slashdot
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