BIO
Jack McCune is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism at Penn State University. While his passion is sports broadcasting, Jack also loves to cover news.
Jack is a contributor to CommRadio, Penn State’s online student radio station, where he has covered Penn State sporting events through play-by-play and beat coverage.
He's a Basketball Insider for the station where he covers the Penn State men's team on a daily basis through articles, podcasts, live shows and Twitter updates. His most popular article reflected on the 2020-21 team in the middle of its season in comparison to the much more successful 2019-20 campaign at the same time of the year.
Jack joined the CommRadio Management team in February 2021 as a New Member Coordinator for the station to help familiarize new members with journalistic writing, play-by-play tips, instructions on how to operate the station's sound board and more.
He also co-hosts Broad Street Bros, a Philadelphia sports radio show which airs on Tuesdays from 7:15-8:15.
In addition to the sports department, Jack also contributes to CommRadio News. He is the producer and co-anchor for the Monday newscast at 5:30. He also contributes to election coverage by covering local elections, the presidential debates and Election Day as a live field reporter, studio analyst and writer.
Jack is also the social media/public relations chair for LEV, Penn State Hillel's THON Organization. In addition to posting graphics for the organization's Instagram and Facebook pages, he helped to raise over $17,000 for THON 2021, a 46-hour philanthropic dance marathon in search of a cure for childhood cancer.
ISSUES AND CONTROVERSIES JOURNALISTS FACE
The article Issues and Controversies Journalists face on ThoughtCo delves into the problems the journalism world faces in today’s era.
The author Tony Rogers tackles two areas: the fact that print journalism is dying, and the fact that biased journalism continues to dominate.
Rogers first explains that print journalism is “in peril,” and that many print news outlets are folding.
But he then dives into the fact that many of these print outlets, along with TV and radio stations, are saving themselves by moving to the digital world.
I agree with his point, though, that moving journalism online creates an indistinctness between objective news like those print/TV/radio outlets and other online resources like bloggers, journalists who haven’t been trained and more.
And while a certain audience of readers may believe everything that a blogger or citizen journalist may say on the internet, the reality is that those outlets have much less credibility than the other legacy resources.
That doesn’t mean they’re all lying or they don’t have anything good to say, but as a trained journalist, I know it’s more difficult to trust these sources, but that source’s audience may not know that.
Rogers then discusses the dangers of reporting briefly. He talks about how journalists face ethical dilemmas, and that being a journalist can be dangerous in a country that does not have free speech.
I agree with the second point, but I believe the rest of his argument is taken a little out of proportion. Some journalists do face many ethical dilemmas many times, like some political journalists for example, but most don’t.
As a student journalist, I’m not too worried about my safety and facing too many ethical dilemmas once I graduate and pursue a career, but that may also be because I’m more on a sports track than a political track.
Rogers then finally goes into the bias of news coverage. He gives a great example with the fact that two different cable news companies can present the same news story in completely different ways in attempt to appeal to their audience better.
But he also says that “newspapers, cable television news, and radio broadcasts have all come under fire for reporting stories with a bias.” I don’t agree that all news outlets have come under fire for reporting with a bias, if I’m interpreting his point correctly.
The national and cable news outlets all certainly have, but they have in effect hurt local news outlets, which from my experience don’t usually hold a bias. I’ve learned that the cable news networks are why so many people are so reluctant to talk to the local media today, because they’re afraid that their words will be taken out of context, but this is just something that local news doesn’t really do.
HOW TO FIX THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF
As a sports journalist and an avid football fan, I follow college football very closely. However, it has come to my attention that the current College Football Playoff system is extremely flawed and should be changed.
The current College Football Playoff has four teams compete in bowl games that rotate in and out of the playoff every three years. The winners of the two games then face each other in the National Championship game. This is the first playoff system for Division 1 FBS Football, the highest level of college football.
However, after now eight seasons with the playoff, there are clear flaws with the system. Four teams is just not enough, and the majority of the playoff games have not been close.
Five FBS conferences are considered “Power Conferences.” In every other NCAA Division 1 sport, the winner of each conference is granted an automatic bid to that sport’s playoffs or tournament.
While many avid college football fans may argue that some of the so-called Power Conferences are not as good as the others, as many of them consider the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 to be better than the Pac 12 and ACC, I believe that the winner of each Power Five conference should receive an automatic bid into the playoff.
So that gives us five teams. But I still don’t think six teams is enough. I think college football should incentivize winning and strength of schedule by giving bye weeks in the playoff to the best teams. And I think the top four teams would be a good amount, because those top four teams would’ve made a four-team playoff.
So, I think the playoff should have twelve teams, where teams five through twelve play in the first round, and the top four teams receive a bye and play the winner of the first-round games.
Another big thing that I think would help the playoff would be having home games for the higher seed in the playoff for every round except the National Championship. Currently, all FBS postseason games are neutral-site games.
College sports are all about the students and the universities’ loyal alumni and fans, so I really don’t think it makes too much sense to have neutral-site games as the biggest games of the year.
Plus, this would make for matchups that don’t usually happen at colleges’ home stadiums. For example, Alabama is in the SEC, and Ohio State is in the Big Ten, so they never play each other unless it’s a bowl game or playoff game. If Alabama was a higher seed and Ohio State got past the first round, then Ohio State would face Alabama in Alabama, which has never happened.
LET'S TALK BIAS IN SPORTS JOURNALISM
The article Let’s Talk About Bias in Sports Journalism on The Cauldron by Jim Cavan is a subjective piece arguing that there should be less objectivity in sports writing and sports coverage.
Although the article was written almost seven years ago, I still think its arguments are valid to this day.
As a sports journalist himself, Cavan argues that there does not need to be such objectivity when it comes to covering sports. He alludes to ESPN and what he calls the “dinosaur dailies.”
He admits he has covered sports with some subjectivity, specifically with former NBA player Raymond Felton, who Cavan often made fun of on Twitter.
Cavan is clearly referring to using a personal bias in his writing: using his opinion to react to news in the sports world.
Cavan implies that ESPN and the sports networks do not carry a bias in their sports coverage, but I would argue they do, just in a different way.
ESPN and the other networks like FS1 instead have a consumer bias, where the networks cover only the sports news and topics that would most entertain their viewers.
For example, the Dallas Cowboys are discussed all the time on ESPN and FS1’s sports talk shows and even sports news shows because of the team’s extremely large fanbase and, on the opposite side of the spectrum, extremely large pool of non-supporters.
The same can be said about the Los Angeles Lakers and, to a lesser extent, the New York Yankees. These teams are covered so extensively because whether people love the teams or hate the teams, people care about those teams.
You won’t see ESPN talk about, for example, the Memphis Grizzlies all too often. The more the networks cover the teams with big appeals like the Cowboys, Lakers and Yankees, the more viewership they will receive.
Bias also comes in what sports the networks base most of their coverage on. If you turn on SportsCenter, you’ll most likely see football or basketball highlights or coverage. Every now and then you’ll see golf and hockey highlights, and during the peak baseball season, you’ll see baseball highlights.
Again, ESPN wants to show and discuss what will get the network the most viewership. Football and basketball have become the country’s two most popular sports, so that’s what ESPN needs to cover to get the most viewership.
But all of this bias, I believe, is okay. It may not be favorable, but it’s okay, because like Cavan says, we’re covering sports here. Political news coverage should certainly not have a bias, but at the end of the day, sports is entertainment and an escape from the real world.
So whether it’s personal bias or bias for a profit, bias will probably always exist in sports journalism. But, that’s just the nature of sports. Sports, at the end of the day, are meant to entertain, and with entertainment comes praise and criticism.