The Players’ Tribune
The Players’ Tribune

Authorship and directness in relation to the problematic practice of “ghostwriting”

Summary/Abstract: In the global media discourse, there is a visible trend: the personal became the general. Publics expect intimacy in the media coverage of sport. On the American market there is a unique media outlet to serve this demand. The Players’ Tribune was founded by Derek Jeter a former professional baseball player. This media company publishes first-person stories from athletes. Its site promises to ‘provide a unique insight into the daily sports conversation’ and to ‘bring the fans closer than ever to the games they love’. The stories published by The Players’ Tribune create the illusion of intimacy by seemingly bypassing the traditional journalistic methods in the coverage of major sport stories. However, it is not a secret that several texts published by this media company were written by ghost-writers. This paper gives an analysis of the most common approaches of the problematic authenticity of writings published by the website and gives an interpretation of the presumed intimacy of its texts.

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