Personal Branding Pitfalls in Reporting:

I have fun applying these observations to sports coverage where frankly as with NPC News operations they demonstrate there is a long line of available and efficient talking heads (no offense) that will work for exposure. Meanwhile sites like MD and RX hold on to the model of releasing coverage via their highly paid media personalities.

The interests of the "personality" aren't necessarily the same as the media outlet of course and the value of "personality" is to bring eyeballs, but in fitness event coverage as the number of events and participants has exploded the only outlet that's keeping pace is NPC News Online as the competing participants are the central focus not the media personalities. The outlets that depend on high paid personalities can't be in many places at once as with this weekend's dozen bodybuilding events occurring simultaneously around the globe. Personality driven muscle media outlets cherry pick contests like the Arnold South Africa (what media personality wouldn't want to be there?) and any open bodybuilding contest in the U.S. as priorities and as a rule won't cover a contest that doesn't at a minimum have 212 bodybuilding or isn't run by an influential promoter.

Another reason MD, Flex, Rx, etc aren't at your event is they don't have enough media personalities to go around and wouldn't be able to afford to send them to a dozen shows on the same weekend anyhow. They will say those events aren't cost effective. However, one would expect if their current model is a successful business strategy that they are doing well financially. Rumor has it that, MD owes numerous photographers and videographers significant sums of money that's going unpaid. Flex is charging Olympia vendor for advertising in their magazines as part of the booth purchasing requirements and Palumbo is financing his Rx media coverage on his supplement line profits.

Anecdotal evidence that the "media personalities" coverage approach is the cause of lax show coverage by legacy show coverage sites is that the same outlets won't expense even $100 for all the contest images from a show as Rx has typically done since the start of their operation. They simply refuse the content. Of course, that's not the way these personalities portray their decision not to cover various shows. Rather they say those events aren't important or prestigious enough.

Let's get real though. More event coverage means more people will be visiting your site galleries including new competitors friends and family members that may frequent your advertisers and run up your site numbers to market to other advertisers. The proof is in the pudding as all the old legacy muscle media brands who have done show coverage are in dire financial straits again as a reminder at a time when the number of competitors and events have exploded. They will decry the lackluster bodybuilding lineups and claim too many pro cards are given out, but how would they know the quality of bodybuilders on stage when they barely cover 10% of the competitions? It's the classic its not our fault, but the sporting officials fault defense by media personalities who first and foremost are proficient at building their personal brands versus the brands of the media outlets that are paying them to decide what to cover and what not to cover in 2016 and beyond.

"It used to be the opposite: that “things you do to make a name for yourself” were synonymous with “bullshit,” and most journalists conformed to the style and standards of their employers. Now personal branding is a venerated skill of “Journalism 2.0,” but most outlets, which are brands in their own right, have yet to reconcile what that means. For employers, journalists with their own brands bring an interesting set of pros and cons. On one hand, news outlets can bump up their traffic significantly with a single hire. On the other, the journalist can always take that traffic with her if she jumps ship. On one hand, outlets get the sort of audience engagement that classic inverted-pyramid dry news stories often just don’t bring. On the other, encouraging individual journalists to carve out a style—and, sometimes, rules—of their own can backfire when the outlet is forced to defend the reporters’ actions."

http://www.cjr.org/realtalk/lara_logan.php