Understanding Fox News through the lens of sports
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Are they not playing by the rules? Or are they in another game? (Photo by Vu Huy Hoang Chu on Unsplash)
Calling this time of the year “March Madness” may be just a clever marketing gimmick to lure more viewers for the NCAA basketball championship games, but it’s a genuine big deal: experts say about 40 million people filled out tournament brackets this year.1 And American fandom isn’t seasonal or confined to one sport, which we know because surveys reveal that about one-third of us call ourselves “avid” sports fans, and three-quarters are at least casual fans.2
So you can understand why a writer would use sports as an analogy for just about any complex topic. An analogy can help a writer enliven and explain many topics — science, art, religion or politics — and if your analogy is something widely embraced, as sports is, you’re better able to capture readers’ attention and make your point.