Barcelona defender Gerard Pique said that "players and their clubs do not need the media as much as they once did," according to Samuel Marsden of ESPN.com. The "rise of social media and self-publishing has meant footballers no longer rely on traditional media" to put out a message. Barcelona "toyed with the idea of moving players' commitments" -- apart from obligations to deal with TV rights holders -- in house last month and "prevent outside publications from speaking to them." Pique said, "As a profession, we're using the media less and less all the time. If you look at the biggest players in La Liga, some have more users than the media. Marca, for example, is the most read newspaper in Spain. How many Twitter followers do they have? More than four million? There are players with more than that." Pique added that a "small part of the media had eroded trust by 'inventing, imagining and creating stories.'" Pique: "Immediacy, right now, comes before the truth. That order is one of the problems for journalism." Pique is "one of the leading players when it comes to creating his own content, regularly interacting with fans on Periscope and Facebook and a keen Twitter user." Pique said, "Normally I never put the brakes on when it comes to posting tweets. I'm not afraid of the reactions. What people say bothers me less all the time" (ESPN.com, 12/14).
