How the Media Portrayed Tom Brady In DeflateGate Case

The first time I had heard the word DeflateGate it was the night after the AFC championship game. I didn't think much about it and went to bed. I figured it was a small story and it would fizzle out as time went on. But it did just the opposite. When I woke up in the morning the story was everywhere. On every major sports and news channel. Tom Brady and the Patriots now had the word cheaters next to their names instead of champions, Tom Brady, who people see as a great guy and a role model is now public enemy number 1. I wondered how a story that small could grow over night into a major story. And from there it only grew.  In this blog im going to discuss how fast a story can grow, based on how much attention the media gives it. And how fast a reputation can be ruined. I am also going to talk about the different stories you are getting from the media depending on where you live.

For all of his career in the NFL Tom Brady has worked and held himself a certain standard. He takes pride in doing things the right way. He is well respected around the league as one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game. So when I try and think how a story like DeflateGate  could get so big the answer is right in front of us. The media sees someone like Tom Brady and of coarse the NFL as polarizing figures in America. Any controversy story that comes out about the two is going to spread like wildfire, and that exactly what happened. The morning after the AFC championchip game was played  Americans woke up and saw headlines on every important sports channel that convicted the Patriots and Tom Brady as cheaters. Chris Mortensen, a writer for ESPN was the first to report "that the Patriots had 11 of 12 balls deflated in the game". Later in the investigation it was proven that only 3 or 4 balls were deflated, not the 11 Mortensen had claimed. It shows that sometimes reports will get published just to get a reaction out of the public. Instead of letting the story fizzle out the media grabs it and stretches it out as far as they can. DeflateGate was every where from talk radio, to sportcenter, even on CNN. By the time DeflateGate was over everybody was so sick of talking about it. I feel like the media does that to every big story they get their hands on.

Another topic I want to discuss is how the media portrays storys based on where you are in the country. I know for the most part the media around the Boston area was now saying the same as the New York Post. Around the Boston area the fans never lost faith in Tom Brady. They were behind him 100%. Even the local newspapers and talk radio shows seemed to be backing him. The Boston Herald posted a picture on the back of their newspaper the showed their support in Brady. The New York Post did the same on the back of theirs, as you could imagine the pictures are extremely different.


boston                        new york          


It shows that depending on where you live the media can shape the way you think about a matter. If I lived in New York or Indy and all I saw in the news was Brady is a cheater, It would definitely shape my views of him. Compared to if I lived in New England and all we care about it winning championships! It all depends in your surroundings.

To wrap everything up I believe having the media in our country is important because it spreads the news and hottest topics to the people in America. But if we start abusing the media and blowing every small story out of the water we are sending a bad message. The newspaper and news channels should spend there time writing about marines dying everyday over seas, instead of abusing a DeflateGate story that never needed the attention it received.



Works Cited
Carsen, Dan. "Boston Herald Can't Let It Go, Either." Bleacher Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Dator, James. "We Fixed the Boston Herald's DeflateGate Cover for Them."SBNation.com. N.p., 13 May 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.