Fansided

Fox denies snubbing Tony Gwynn during All-Star Game

By Dan Zinski

Jun 26, 2014; San Deigo, CA, USA; A general view of Tony Gwynn
Jun 26, 2014; San Deigo, CA, USA; A general view of Tony Gwynn /
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Controversies happen because of what you say and sometimes what you don’t say. Fox is currently embroiled in the latter type of kerfuffle after allegedly snubbing the late Tony Gwynn during Tuesday night’s Jeter-centric All-Star Game presentation.

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Despite being a respected baseball icon equally as beloved in San Diego as Derek Jeter is in New York, Gwynn was mentioned a grand total of zero times during Fox’s telecast of the All-Star Game. The lack of Gwynn homage did not go unnoticed by Twitter, who barraged Fox with outrage.

Amid the social media word bombs, Fox offered a meek defense. According to them, they did mention Gwynn. In fact, they did a whole video feature on Gwynn.

So, controversy over, right? Not exactly. Because though the video feature is real and surely stirring, it didn’t actually air on Fox but on its sister station Fox Sports One, which is watched by exactly eight people.

A truly weak defense by Fox and a really weak move to utterly ignore Tony Gwynn while lavishing so much praise on Jeter. This is another clear-cut case of a major media entity going overboard in its blanket coverage.

The suits at Fox decided that Tuesday would be Jeter night, and became so single-minded in hammering this one major selling point that they became blinded to everything else. A little more thoughtful far-ranging programming by Fox would be helpful.

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    • The whole blanket coverage strategy is becoming a blight on the media landscape. Please corporate types, stop assuming fans are idiots. We can digest multiple things in the same day. We can handle a small amount of Gwynn homage mixed in with the Jeter worshiping. It won’t confuse us.

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