Why is the Coverage of Skateboarding often Negative?
For example, in October of 2008 a teenage boy was brutally murdered in queens. It was discovered by police a few days later that another teenager had done it. The two boys had been fighting over a skateboard and that led to the death. The focus of this story should have been the death of the young man and even youth violence. Yet the focus that many reports took was that it involved too boys that were labeled as skateboarders.Now, when is the last time you saw a new story that covered young men and women having a good time practicing on their skateboards? Where are the pictures of them working with each other to learn more and to help improve skills? Where are the stories on kids that have taught themselves to perform some of the very complex tricks of the professionals? Sadly, if you want them you will have to find skateboarding specific magazines and websites.
The professionals often donò€™t get great media coverage either. They are part of sports events all over the world, but there is very little live coverage of them. Unless you turn to skating oriented magazines and websites you may not even know about most of the events that take place, let alone the results of them. Make sure you tune into these types of resources if you are into skateboarding as they are more valuable than you might think.
However, if any professional skateboarders get injured during an event or practice and it will be on every news site. Along with it is the sensationalism about skateboarding being too dangerous and that they are risking it all to take on more complex moves. These types of introductions are often followed by statistics about injuries in the sport. Yet they fail to show the entire picture as they donò€™t talk about how many people get out there on a skateboard daily and donò€™t get injured.
It is important that you let your views about this type of coverage relating to skateboarding be known. When you see such negative stories offered on TV or online, take the time to contact those entities and tell them how you feel. Offer them some topics that are more positive for them to cover relating to the sport as well. If enough people take the time to do this, they will have to come to the realistic conclusion that there is so much about skateboarding that they arenò€™t seeing.
As they begin to cover more of the positive elements of skateboarding, it can change the image that many in society have about it. That is important because those that take part in it have had a bad reputation based on stereotyping for too long. Removing those problematic views can help people to see this sport for what it really is. This is one that requires skill and dedication. There are some amazing people that take part in skateboarding and they deserve some positive support for all of their effort. If you donò€™t speak up those types of negative coverage are going to continue being the norm.