VITAMEDIAS
The Internet Is Reshaping Bryant Story: Speculation is coursing through the Internet, sometimes making its way onto sports talk radio, where it hardens into fact as a 10-second news update. Competitive pressure between 24-hour cable TV sports and news outlets results in prolonged conjecture about the credibility of [athlete Kobe] Bryant's accuser. Mainstream newspapers, torn between old standards and new fears of losing readers to broadcasters or cyberspace, are split over how much to tell readers about the accuser's past. Even a hallowed media policy — withholding the names of victims of sexual assault — is under fire in a few quarters.
Coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial of the mid-'90s conferred newfound respectability on gossip tabloids such as the National Enquirer, which — while sometimes paying for interviews — broke stories that TV and daily newspapers felt obligated to follow. The line between tabloid and mainstream journalism has been blurred ever since.
In the Bryant case, the new player is the Internet.
There are about eight times as many North American Internet users — more than 160 million — as there were during the Simpson case.
$10,000 to hunt naked women with paint balls? Not exactly: In the haze of summer, some stories are just too deliciously silly to ignore. That's where "Hunting for Bambi" comes in.