Up to this point in his career, Chad Ochocinco (see: Johnson) has been most well-known for his elaborate — some would say obnoxious — touchdown celebrations and apparently lackluster grasp of the Spanish language. I say let the man dance.
This year, Ocho is acting on a newfound desire. He's not merely taking sports media's barbs but rather becoming a part of the media itself. He began by releasing his book, creatively titled "Ochocinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way," last month.
Since then, he has also expressed a desire to form a social news network on Twitter.com. He has even come up with a clever acronym for his delightful new venture: OCNN, short for Ochocinco News Network, of course. Contrary to first impressions, Ocho claims this will not just be an outlet to vent his already well-publicized opinions. Rather, he will be using it to inform the public about the goings-on amongst teams and players throughout the NFL, using his numerous contacts among fellow football players.
Ocho says he first considered the idea after breaking the news that rookie tackle Andre Smith had ended his holdout and signed with the Bengals during August. It's obvious that NFL coaches and front office employees, a notoriously clandestine and secretive bunch, won't exactly be thrilled with the idea of Ocho doing this sort of reporting — particularly if he proves to be a trailblazer of sorts.
Imagine a player announcing via Twitter.com or OCNN that he won't be playing in an upcoming game two or three days before the official injury report is released, giving the opposition extra time to scheme around what would have been a previously unexpected absence. Any coach, particularly in the secretive NFL, is bound to get riled up by such an occurance. And athletes do seem to be a narcissistic enough bunch that this idea of creating the news, rather than simply being reported on, might be quite appealing to them.
Fans also have to wonder about the veracity of anything reported via OCNN, which will seemingly act like a glorified blog with a definite lack of editing and fact-checking. OCNN's slogan, according to Ochocinco himself — "If I break it, you might as well believe it" — doesn't exactly inspire the same confidence as "All the News That's Fit to Print."
On the other hand, Ocho does raise an interesting point: He mentions the idea of cutting out the media as a middleman. If his idea catches on, the players would be reporting exactly what's going on in their own lives.
This might have a particular appeal to athletes who feel as though they're being misinterpreted or misrepresented by the mainstream media. This alternate medium would give players an opportunity to truly speak for themselves without anyone filtering or editing their words. If this proves successful and people actually want to hear what athletes have to say directly, it could spell an even further decline in the importance and relevance of mainstream sports media.
Detractors, though, can reasonably argue that this is exactly why we do need the media: to give us an unbiased perspective of sorts, to point out when an athlete may be wrong. But is the media really all that unbiased? Sports reporting has gone from straight coverage to mining for a deeper storyline to now trying to create storylines where they quite often don't exist. I'm willing to give OCNN a chance — reluctantly.
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Ethan Frigon is a junior majoring in economics and international relations. He can be reached at Ethan.Frigon@tufts.edu.
