Media and the Defamation of Athletes

Any individual that is involved in the management of professional sports teams has voluntarily stepped into the public eye. Most cases that deal with athletes claiming defamation are dismissed without fine or counter claims. Also the defendants are not demanded to remove their statements made in their articles. A few questions came to mind after reviewing these articles. Do athletes, coaches, or members of a professional organization ever get to fight for their positive image? Shouldn't the public figures at least be allowed to have the negative images or statements removed about them? Should public figures or professional athletes at least be forewarned about their name being used? In this paper I will discuss these five cases and do overviews and analysis for them all.
             Methodology.
             The method I chose was the method used in the "2009 Student Athlete Experience Survey" written by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). For the past few years, you can't help but notice how the media has changed the behavior of both athletes and fans in the sports world. It is not only limited to the professional ranks, as college and high school athletes have all jumped on the bandwagon. We would even venture to say that as this generation that grew up with social media as one of their main means of communication, we will only see social media impact sports in more and more ways and with more intensity. The NCAA used two methods of research. They gathered statistics and mass surveys. Their studies show that the media, especially social media, can be beneficial and also detrimental. .
             The NCAA stated that "statistics show that more than 80% of sports fans monitor social media sites while they are watching the game on television and over 60% do when they are actually at the game. Of course, the players are all in social media in a big way and they have created more buzz with their social media properties than through any other channels.