Sports media – like everything else in life – is constantly changing. Not too long ago, perhaps some 60 or 70 years ago, all of our sports information came from newspaper accounts. Then came the advent of television, which brought the biggest games into our living rooms. Cable television allowed viewers to watch almost every one of their local teams’ games. When ESPN came around, suddenly we had 24-hour sports coverage from all around the country.

These advances have all made following our favorite teams and sports much easier. Add in the information we now receive from the Internet via blogs and social networking sites and there is no shortage of coverage, gossip and intrigue that can be found about any team or athlete, college or pro. Almost everything sports-related is now just a click away.

Endless statistics, recaps and analyses are great, and though it is lamentable how much SportsCenter has become like TMZ or another trashy celebrity gossip program, the scandals embroiling star athletes must be discussed only as much as they pertain to sports. While as sports fans we probably should not care about exactly what happened between Tiger Woods and his wife Elin on Thanksgiving night, or what Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger did at that bar in Georgia, these stories matter because they affect, or will affect, how Tiger and Big Ben play.

What is even more troubling is the direction that some components of sports media have taken in recent years. No longer is the media content to focus on what happens on the field, in court or in the private lives of stars. Now we have sports media critics whose sole job is to analyze – and largely rip apart – television and radio sports broadcasts.

This media evolution brings about a logical question: Have we completely run out of things to talk about in sports that we turn our attention to the broadcast booths?

It is very easy to be an armchair critic and evaluate the sports broadcast you are watching. Think about how many times you howled at the television during March Madness when CBS refused to switch to the Villanova-Robert Morris nail-biter in the first round or the riveting Michigan State-Northern Iowa game in the Sweet Sixteen, and instead stayed with games few in our area cared about. Think about all the times you criticized the announcers during a game you were watching when they said something completely untrue about your team, proving that you know more than they do. It’s very frustrating, to say the least.

Those of us who watch sports way too much on TV are guilty of thinking about these things. Still, must they be written about?

Apparently all of the major New York newspapers believe so. The Times’ Richard Sandomir, the Daily News’ Bob Raissman, the Post’s Phil Mushnick and Newsday’s Neil Best all write primarily on the business and broadcast aspects of sports media. Sometimes they add something positive to the discussion about our intake of sports media, as evident in recent columns about the possibility of the NCAA expanding the men’s basketball tournament and its implications for the future of its television contract.

Most of the time, however, Raissman and Mushnick’s columns are devoted flatly to gossip about television and radio broadcast teams. How did Jim Nantz and CBS cover Woods at the Masters? How hypocritical is ESPN, who reports on athletes one moment then later films commercials with them, violating all journalistic ethical standards? Is Chip Carey the worst broadcaster of all time? Will WFAN radio host Mike Francesa ever admit he is wrong?

Why should we care?

Even if these critics can provide some adequate analysis to help us understand sports media, Mushnick’s column particularly demonstrates why sports media critics cannot be taken seriously. Much of Mushnick’s commentary focuses on the hypocrisies found in sports media, particularly ESPN’s double-standard when it comes to sex. He makes a valid point when he suggested that ESPN should not criticize those who objectify one of its female sideline reporters (Erin Andrews) while it uses sex to attract viewers.

Yet Mushnick’s own column has no integrity, for if he really wanted to be straight with his readers, he would denounce his own newspaper, which had a picture of Woods or one of the women he cheated with on its cover for 20 consecutive days. Where is his denunciation of the Post?

How we consume sports is very important, and the way in which games and stories are presented plays a critical role in how we perceive what we see. Still, do we need someone to analyze how something was portrayed?

The reason sports fans are glued to their televisions and newspapers is because of the games themselves. We want to see the drama play out before our eyes, always on the edge of our seats as the outcome remains in the balance. We want to know about anything that will possibly give us a clue as to what will happen next, whether that is analysis of the previous game or a report of an off-the-field incident that will affect a team’s or player’s performance.

But as we continue to get further removed from the events on the field and start worrying about the broadcast booth, we begin to lose sight of what sports are all about. Once we do that, we will also lose these media columns. For without sports, we won’t have broadcasters to complain about.

(Note: The blatant hypocrisy of this column, criticizing sports media critics, is not lost on its writer.)

Nick Macri is a junior in the College. The Big Picture appears in every other Tuesday issue of Hoya Sports.