Breaking News Errors & Money in College Football -- Some Things I Want to Study

1. Errors in live breaking news coverage -- on Twitter & live TV news, stories "evolve" live, leading news consumers to learn information that can turn out to be incorrect. Is there a correlation between the speed with which a news organization reports information in a breaking news scenario and how incorrect it is? This could be tested through interviews with reporters and TV producers while also testing the tweets or scripts in a quantitative way. This is important because as news consumption becomes more immediate, reporters run the risk of doing more harm than good -- by reporting false or incorrect information.

2. College football TV contracts -- How have corporate TV contracts in college football changed how sports journalists cover their subjects? This is important, specifically in the discussion of concussions in football. Sports journalists must decide whether or not to cover this story, running the risk of upsetting sponsors or the corporate wing of their sports division. Football on ESPN has higher ratings than any other cable channel. This could be tested by interviewing TV reporters as well as college athletic directors and conference CEOs. However, it would be difficult to gain that access. An example of a change in coverage is ESPN dropping out of Frontline's documentary about concussions in the NFL.

I also considered looking into whether or not journalists can sustain their careers on low pay, after reading this article on Al Jazeera America's blog yesterday. I don't think I am interested enough to research it but I thought the article was worth sharing with the class.