CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
With the 2026 training camp just a bit over a week away, we're planning our training camp coverage for this year. Pete, Fred, and I met yesterday to plan out our approach. A lot of it is informed by your comments from a thread in the Insider Discussion forum, where we asked what you were looking for in the OBR's Training Camp coverage this year. There's still time for our subscribers to chime in and let us know their thoughts.
A general theme was that you liked what we were doing during mini-camps, with both free and subscriber content appearing in the forums and the front page. There was a lot of emphasis on the OBR serving as the eyes and ears for fans who can't attend training camp in person. Which, based on my email inbox, is most of you, since it was very difficult for non-season ticket holders to get tickets to the camp.
What there wasn't much of was the desire among our readership for us to turn what we see into faux controversy, bogus and misleading statistics, or daily breathless updates on quarterback horse races. I found this odd because many media outlets have determined that this is exactly what fans want, since that's what they're delivering. I guess they are basing that on what draws clicks and social media engagement rather than asking fans what they want.
Perhaps there is a difference between what folks say they want and what they click on, but I prefer to think that our readership is simply different from the average casual Browns news consumer, so we need to provide something different from what many other outlets offer. And I'm fine with that.
I've used this space many times to bust on clickbait aggregators and sports radio outlets, both of whom I find insulting to the intelligence of their supposed audience. Pushing bogus "insider" gossip and misleading headlines to me indicates that they simply don't respect their audience, and I find it strange that so many people gravitate toward them.
Newspaper
I still remember these (Photo: Unsplash.com)
But then I read something that sort of made a lot of sense to me. I believe it was said about the weaker of the two sports radio outlets in town, which is at the forefront of pushing whatever narrative-of-the-day they think will get attention. I was told, straight up, that these folks aren't journalists and don't pretend to be. They're entertainers, pushing a brand of blather that some folks find entertaining rather than informative. Their audience, in other words, doesn't really care about whether they're taken seriously, as long as the clicks and Arbitron ratings follow.
Looking at it from that perspective, it's a lot more understandable. For example, in addition to faux news, there are entire sports - professional wrestling, for example - based on made-up narratives that have nothing to do with actual athletic victory, but rather deal with predefined storylines and extreme soap-opera-like drama and over-the-top characters.
Then, to me, it makes sense that a talk show host may go on the air and push narratives like the Browns trading Shedeur Sanders because he doesn't really care about its accuracy. He cares only about whether it entertains his audience throughout a four-hour show.
I find myself growing slightly more sympathetic to their approach, given this. The remaining problem, however, is that it's misleading to fans, as it's presented as "news" rather than entertainment, and may fool people into thinking that there's actual substance to the radio show or "Analyst Reveals the Truth about (full in the blank)" clickbait articles. The bottom line is that neither is actual journalism. They're just out there for fun, and for fans who enjoy the day's narrative, I'm sure it's fine.
The OBR fits in because we want to present the news in an entertaining and effective way, but not replace the site's core focus with entertainment for entertainment's sake. You may get my sense of humor in this article at times, or Pete Smith's dry wit in Ask the Insiders, or other elements of fun alongside providing the news, but journalism still trumps entertainment here. Or should, at most times.
In any event, the notion of "news as entertainment" is something I'm finally starting to grasp, but it still grates on me because a lot of these folks want to switch back and forth between presenting infotainment and pretending to be actual journalists. I think we need a clear sign from them about their purpose, so fans can tell who to take seriously and who not to.
Clown noses might work.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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When not sending cans of face paint out to his "peers" in this niche,, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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