"Eagles receiver Riley Cooper uses racial slur at a Kenny Chesney concert"

(Disclaimer: this video contains a sensitive subject matter)

From USA Today

Analysis by Sean Wheeler in SRM 334 (section 2)

On June 9th, 2013, Riley Cooper, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver, alone with his coach and some of his teammates attended a Kenny Chesney concert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cooper, teammate Jason Kelch, and coach Chip Kelly were invited on stage by Kenny Chesney to perform his song, “Boys of Fall.” Cooper then, after a security guard did not allow him to go backstage, said a racial slur regarding African-Americans. On top of that, Cooper also got into a verbal altercation with people outside of the concert. After all of this hit the fan, Cooper released a serious of tweets apologizes for the incident, as well as, personally apologizing to his black teammates. He was eventually fined and sentenced to three days of sensitivity training.

From a media standpoint, this was blown way out of proportion. The media has the power to “blow-up” stories and this was exactly the case. The media made it seem like Cooper committed a serious crime and even publically viewed him as someone like Aaron Hernandez, New England Patriots wide receiver who was recently charged with murder. Cooper understandably did and said a horrible thing, but he did not commit a crime and, therefore, should not have made national news.

Another point to be made, regarding the media, is that everything is documented now-a-days. Because of the advancement in technology this past decade, not so important stories like this are being viewed and taken to levels they should not be taken to. For example, without cell phones and cameras this incident never would have been made publically like it did. People in this generation care more about taking a picture or video of something rather than fully enjoying the experience firsthand and not through a lens. Sure, people would talk and a good amount would have found out about it, but it would not have been talked about around the entire world (twitter). Furthermore, because of twitter, it allowed anyone to voice their opinions on Cooper to millions of people, which they absolutely did. Other athletes, like Marcus Vick, and many non-athletes showed their anger and attacked Cooper via twitter. This would have never happened ten years ago before twitter and all of this advanced technology was created. The Riley Cooper incident is relevant to this course because this is a textbook situation that we could be in and might have to deal with in the future. Whether it be working in PR or being an SID, you never know what you might have to deal with or the decisions regarding players’ actions that you are going to have to make, especially due to the fact that athletes are constantly acting as they should not be and doing “stupid” things. Furthermore, this is relevant because we learned about the advancement in technology and how it took over the media; one little slip-up can make national news and really turn someone’s life around.

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Analysis by Brooks Shyman in SRM 334 (section 2)

For our current event Sean and I chose the topic of Riley Cooper and we chose the article “Eagles Receiver Riley Cooper Uses Racial Slur at Kenny Chesney Concert.” The article starts by giving you background on what happened before the event. It tells you that Cooper and some of his teammates were even invited on stage to perform the song “Boys of Fall” with Chesney. Then the article goes on to explain the event behind Cooper using the racial slur. It also tells you that Cooper got into another verbal altercation with a group of people outside the concert, and has videos of both incidents. The article concludes by telling you how the Eagles organization feels about the article and tells whether or not they think the NFL will discipline Cooper.

The media took this story and ran with it. It was major news the second the video became public. This happened in large part to technology improving. Think about it, would this have even been a story 10 years ago in a time before cell phones and cell phone cameras? Now a day for athletes everything you do is documented and can be out in the media within 10 seconds of you doing it. Another media aspect to this story is twitter. Many athletes and celebrities were able to tweet out there opinions to millions of people in an instant. Even Cooper’s teammates were going out on twitter and criticizing him. But not only were people able to tweet their opinions; they could tweet directly to Riley Cooper themselves. And while I did not tweet to him, I can only imagine the kind of messages he was receiving. This story also shows you the power the media holds. This Riley Cooper incident in the media was about as big a story as Aaron Hernandez; and Aaron Hernandez is accused of murder. And of course, what Riley Cooper did was terrible, but to be held on virtually the same level as someone who’s accused and likely guilty of murder really shows you the power the media has over public opinion.

This article/incident is very relevant to us as a class. We all want to go into different jobs in this field, and some of us are bound to end up working in media. Whether its being in PR and having to clean up an incident in, or being a journalist and writing an article; it’s a predicament any one of us can be caught in the middle of. Also the media is changing, and it’s something that we will all have to adjust to. With all different kinds of social media out there, there are a lot more ways to break a story.