This could happen, but not on a large scale by any means... As sports crazy as some parents are, I would not be suprised one bit if a handfull move to WDM just so their daughters can train with Chow...
Olympics - (Spoiler Alert!)
- Thread starter Stormin
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This could happen, but not on a large scale by any means... As sports crazy as some parents are, I would not be suprised one bit if a handfull move to WDM just so their daughters can train with Chow...
Why should we only hype her up if we get some sort of monetary compensation from it? Shouldn't we praise her for what she has accomplished and is going to accomplish? It's not like we have olympic gold medal winning gymnasts come through Iowa every year.
I don't understand what you're saying I guess. That since Shawn Johnson won't bring more jobs to WDM then we shouldn't dedicate news stories to her?
Depends, do they have a young gymnast prodigy and they want her to be trained by Chow? If so, they wouldn't be the first family to move for the opportunity to have their kids coached by a certain person.
EDIT: cybsball beat me to it.
I disagree. You may see some switch trainers from other places in DSM but I highly doubt you're going to see anybody move from out of state just to train there. There are dozens of gymnastics places all around the country where Olympians have come from and I would doubt that they've had to build extra roads to handle the huge influx of residents. One or two nuts may move, but I would question if we're really value them:wink:
You obviously underestimate certain peoples quests to become olympic athletes. This kind of thing happens all the time.
I'm not saying that at all. I think we can celebrate her and we should be proud of her, but most of the replies in the threads about her have stated that certain things should be dedicated to her or that we should all stop our lives to bow down to her. I'm just asking for it to be put into perspective and for people to realize that in a month, nobody outside of Iowa or the hard-core gymnastics world is going to remember her name, let alone where she grew up.
She should be celebrated, just in moderation and with some sanity and rationale.
I fancy myself as an avid CF reader and I haven't read any threads that have advocated "bowing down" to Shawn Johnson. Respecting, praising for her accomplishments, sure, bowing down?
You're really not giving her a lot of credit are you? I'd agree that only hardcore people who want to train with Chow would remember she's from WDM, but for people to just forget about her in a month?
I think this is the real problem. You're idea of "sane and rational" is obviously different from others. The obvious solution would be to turn off or not read stories about SJ.
I agree with what your saying here. No one ever said that Shawn's winning would bring an economic boom to our state, and I don't know why anyone would think that.
I also haven't heard of any of our state resources going to Shawn. Yes the news outlets are putting a lot of coverage on her and thats mostly because of her success she has had in the past and becasue gymnastics always gets a lot of press at the olympics.
I see nothing wrong with celebrating what Shawn has done at the olympics. The Iowa news outlets, along with the National news outlets will continue to do stories on her until another feel good story comes along and then they will move on.
We all understand your animosity to the DMR, as well as others on this site. The problem is when that animosity spills over and colors your view of the coverage of SJ - or more specifically, the accomplishments of SJ. I could go out right now and link at least 10 national stories relating to SJ and what she has accomplished - today. And I don't have the slightest idea of what is being covered internationally, but hos watched Shawn live in London this morning.
The thing is, these comments are coming out on a thread devoted to the Olympics where we are trying to celebrate the accomplishments of SJ and other US athletes. It's small. Whatever you think of the DMR and it's coverage, why bring it up here? This is like the church from Kansas that protests at funerals of soldiers that have died in Iraq claiming it to be punishment from God because of abortion. It's simply not relevant and it's a HUGE disservice to Shawn and the people wanting to share and celebrate her accomplishments.
Many on this site blast DMR, and rightfully so, for its weak coverage of what has happened in Iowa City. That's an entirely different issue. Don't get me wrong, I have grown weary of the Phelps hype and thought the "butter Shawn" at the State Fair was embarrasing. I'm very disappointed in the DMR for its lack of coverage in Iowa City. But spending all this time blasting DMR and it's coverage of Shawn is, in my opinion, a personal agenda. If that's what this thread is to become, please move it to the "politics/religion" forum so the rest of us don't have to look at it.
I apologize in advance for being so harsh.
I'm certainly not anti-SJ at all, not one bit.
I'm somebody that loves news and religiously reads countless websites a day covering politics, news, etc. With that, I have a pretty good grasp on what is going on in the world at any given time and it bugs me to no end when news outlets dedicate countless resources and sections talking about any one person rather than informing the public about the news and world events. It's perfectly fine for the time around that person's event, but for almost an entire year? That just shows what a crappy grasp our population has on the state of the world today.
I'm a pretty serious person and to me it's up to People Magazine, Glamour, etc to report exclusively on what is good in the world and it's up to the news outlets to report news. To me, that is where all of my tiredness of this story comes from - nothing about me hates SJ or what she has/will accomplish, far from it. I'm proud to be in Valley's school district and have somebody winning Gold in the Olympics from my area, but I have a problem with the constant hype and attention for months on months leading up to this when so many other things were devastating people in Iowa and there were big stories from each side of the state that barely got mentioned.
All I am saying is that people have a twisted sense of what needs to be priorities in our daily lives. What one Olympian does or doesn't do every day for 6 months leading up to the Olympics is far less important to me than all of the devastation around the state from the major floods, or the political race that's going on, or the war in Georgia/Russia, etc. I guess maybe I'm too rational and look at the big picture too much. Instead of worrying about the things that affect the world we, and our kids, live in, we should all focus on the outfits celebrities wear, who's dating who, what celebrity slept with Paris Hilton this week, what SJ had for breakfast, etc.
It's great to talk about her accomplishments today, this week, next week. But at some point people need to realize there are far more important things impacting the state we live in.
Sorry for making this a downer thread, move on and skip my posts, maybe they're out of place today...
I'm somebody that loves news and religiously reads countless websites a day covering politics, news, etc. With that, I have a pretty good grasp on what is going on in the world at any given time and it bugs me to no end when news outlets dedicate countless resources and sections talking about any one person rather than informing the public about the news and world events. It's perfectly fine for the time around that person's event, but for almost an entire year? That just shows what a crappy grasp our population has on the state of the world today.
I'm a pretty serious person and to me it's up to People Magazine, Glamour, etc to report exclusively on what is good in the world and it's up to the news outlets to report news. To me, that is where all of my tiredness of this story comes from - nothing about me hates SJ or what she has/will accomplish, far from it. I'm proud to be in Valley's school district and have somebody winning Gold in the Olympics from my area, but I have a problem with the constant hype and attention for months on months leading up to this when so many other things were devastating people in Iowa and there were big stories from each side of the state that barely got mentioned.
All I am saying is that people have a twisted sense of what needs to be priorities in our daily lives. What one Olympian does or doesn't do every day for 6 months leading up to the Olympics is far less important to me than all of the devastation around the state from the major floods, or the political race that's going on, or the war in Georgia/Russia, etc. I guess maybe I'm too rational and look at the big picture too much. Instead of worrying about the things that affect the world we, and our kids, live in, we should all focus on the outfits celebrities wear, who's dating who, what celebrity slept with Paris Hilton this week, what SJ had for breakfast, etc.
It's great to talk about her accomplishments today, this week, next week. But at some point people need to realize there are far more important things impacting the state we live in.
Sorry for making this a downer thread, move on and skip my posts, maybe they're out of place today...
I don't think anyone said anything remotely close to we should stop our lives and bow down to her. Just that the story is a national story, it's getting press everywhere, it's only natural that it be greater in her hometown, and that she deserves the recognition. I also doubt that her name will be forgotten in a month. To think she'll be forgotten so easily is naive in my opinion. One of the posters for the "i'm sick of shawn johnson" side keeps referring to her as no more than a Kerri Strug, and will be forgotten, yet he remembers Strug 12 years after she competed. Maybe it's just that those local people only view it as a local story and refuse to accept it as a big deal because they don't see any exposure outside of Des Moines.
What a silly thing to waste engery on though. Complaining about too much coverage of a good story.
The DMR has been the largest and most persistent outlet for SJ coverage. it isn't a condemnation of her accomplishments at all. It is a condemnation for the DMR not finding something more significant to report on. Maybe there's a problem with the DMR when you have no idea what's going on internationally, and instead know every single bit of minutiae about some 16 year old girl from West Des Moines.
Secondly, it's not like a thread on a random internet message board is some sort of hallowed ground for sports coverage. The thread started out about SJ, and I think diverging into media coverage of her is a perfectly fine place for it to go.
So now you are tired of Phelps coverage, but see no problem with Johnson coverage? They are exactly the same thing. It's hype hype hype. And at the end of the day, it's no different than the DMR running front page stories about the last Superman for a month straight. It's simply not news. It's entertainment.
Whew, glad we settled that.
As much as you hate to admit it, this is news. The olympics is news, and Shawn Johnson being the first gymnast gold medalist from Iowa, let alone WDM, is news.
It seems like you need to create a new thread titled "Why I hate the DMR". You seem to be mixing your feelings with them with your feelings for the people involved in the stories they report on.
So only Bad news is good enough for news outlets and if I want to hear about the good things happening I have to get a subscription to Glamour? I'm not one of these people that love to be miserable and complain about everything, and I enjoy hearing good news every once in a while, but my friends are going to start doubting my sexual orientation when I start reading Glamour all the time.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
OF COURSE SHE IS GET NATIONAL PRESS TODAY. SHE JUST WON THE GOLD MEDAL. Vincent Hancock has had over 700 articles written about him in the last week. Do you know who he is? Gold medalist in Skeet shooting.
I don't know anyone that has a problem with the attention she is getting today. It's the non-stop press over the last 3 months that's annoying.
I don't know anyone that has a problem with the attention she is getting today. It's the non-stop press over the last 3 months that's annoying.
I'm kinda thinking the DMR has a section dedicated to the Metro, Iowa, national, and international news. As well as sports, Iowa life, and most importantly the comics.
I know! DMR should stop printing all of its sections except front page news. After all, that seems to be all that is important in many of your arguments. In fact, maybe it should identify the single most important issue facing this world and report exclusively on that. Maybe all of our media outlets should do the exact same thing??? That way, we could dissolve major league baseball, the NFL, Nascar, the NBA, and all of collegiate athletics. I mean, in the grand scheme of things it's just not important relative to what is happening in Darfur, Iraq, and Georgia. Now - which one of those should we not discuss???
My home page is MSNBC, not the Shawn Johnson Daily. I'm well in-tune with what is happening in this world and will sit down with anyone and have that debate. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to hear about SJ - and the more the merrier IMO.
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Since some people don't like the discussion of the news coverage of SJ, but want to talk about her accomplishments, I created a new thread that can stay strictly pro-SJ. Sorry for contributing to a larger discussion on what constitutes hype vs news - that probably should have stayed in a different thread, I didn't intend to try and take anything away from what Shawn has accomplished.
I think it is pretty BIG news that someone wins 8 Gold Medals in one Olympics. I also think it is pretty BIG news when our gymnasts come home with the great success that they had. Mary Lou Retton certainly got as much or more hype than Shawn Johnson had. Bruce Jenner turned his Decathlon win into a career. So did Mark Spitz. These are pretty unique accomplishments. They only come along once in a while every decade or two or three. I for one am thrilled that Shawn Johnson is getting such great press. Will it make people want to live here? Probably not. But it might show our next great prodigy that they don't have to move from here to realize their dreams. Why diss the young girl for such an amazing accomplishment? And why diss the DMR for printing all they can about her? It is better than writing about our wonderful economy or the upcoming elections and the candidates.
