Sportswriter-on-sportswriter crime

It's been an interesting week in terms of sportswriters feuding with each other. There as blog fight on the interwebs between Bill Simmons and Charles P. Pierce over Pierce's review of The Book of Basketball. This came a few days after Murray Chass and Tom Verducci had a dust-up after Chass incorrectly said that Verducci didn't vote for Marvin Miller in the recent Hall of Fame vote. Now, I'm not too much interested in the particulars of each feud* as much as I am this notion of sportswriter-on-sportswriter crime. And not from the perspective of wondering why writers feel a pathological need to attach each other in print, but from the public's perspective.

(*- Charles Pierce is my favorite writer. Not my favorite sports writer. My favorite writer. Ahead of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Rushdie and everyone else. And it's for lines like "I've been thrown out of better joints than your bibliography.")

There's a common thought among sports journalists when feuds like this bubble up. That nobody cares about us. That we are not the story. That this is all inside-baseball knowledge and that readers don't give a hoot about who's nice to who in the media room.

But is that really the case? Look at the comments on these stories. Pierce's response on his Boston Globe blog has,  at time of this writing, 189 comments on it. Not only is that far more than any other post he's ever had on his blog, it may be more than all previous blog posts combined. Joe Posnanksi's epic takedown of Chass received more than 60 comments (an average number for his blog) - and that's a third-person account of the feud.

Granted, reader comments aren't necessarily the best metric for measuring interest. It could be the work of a handful of people ganging up on a writer. But the numbers are still interesting. Clearly, in some way, people do care when sportswriter start talking about other sportswriters.

Why is this? A few first thoughts, but I'm more curious than anything else. I'm wondering why people care - and why reporters are so insistent that people don't care?

1. As scholars like Pam Shoemaker (member of the official Sports Media Thesis Committee) have written, conflict is a key news value. It's what we look for in news. So conflict between two high-profile media members? News.

2. Good old-fashioned schadenfreude.

What's everyone else think?

Taking a break

I know what you're thinking ... really? A break? You've posted like three entries this month. That too much of a breakneck pace for you? Fingers tired? Fair point. And I wish I could write. So much fun stuff ... Deadspin and Favre (anyone else concerned about how Deadspin got, and reported, this story? I'm telling you, they're gonna get burned huge); LeBatard (did he really compare newspapers to a restaurant? Really?). A Nieman report that shows sports sections are a newspaper's innovators and early adapters (could have told you that).

Lots of good stuff. But ... I've got three classes I'm taking, Ph.D. applications, a thesis to write ...

And ... most importantly ...

Sports Media Ellie

Born last week (Oct. 2).

So yeah, I'll be away for a while. Maybe I'll pop back in. I hope so.

Sainz? Shut up

Oh Jesus tap-dancing Christ ... First of all, let's be transparent. I'm not in a position to speak objectively about this. Sports Media Sister is also the above-quoted president of AWSM. So I take the issue of women reporters being allowed in the locker room personally. Because all those Clinton Portses out there saying women are trying to find a dick they like in the locker room ... yeah, they're talking about my sister. You don't get to do that.

Now that that's out of the way, a couple thoughts:

- Since this story broke on Sept. 11, I've had trouble reconciling things in my mind. My problem has been, frankly, Ines Sainz. As has been noted, she's a reporter who trades on her looks and sexual appeal to get ahead. That's fine. More power to her (I'd argue it's a form of feminism to use your, ahem, assets, to your advantage, but that's probably why I'm not a feminist). So to have someone who has made the choices she's made make the accusations felt ... off? I understand the official AWSM position. Once she's credentialed, game over. Treat her with respect. Hard to argue with that. I guess Sainz just didn't make the best witness for the defense.

- Sainz complains that AWSM just wants attention. Folks, AWSM is an ADVOCACY GROUP! Their job, their mission, is to draw attention to their cause. Their cause, which is promoting women sports writers and making sure they're treated with dignity and respect, is hardly some radical agenda. Of course they're going to draw attention to this.

- Speaking of, Sainz complains about AWSM wanting attention after going on 22 talk shows (her count) about this ... Pot. Kettle.

- One more point on this ... Sainz is the one that drew attention to this herself. She's the one who started the controversy by posting on her Twitter feed that she felt "very uncomfortable." That's how it got picked up online, and how AWSM found out. She called attention to it in the first place. She kept it in the news by going on the talk shows. To suddenly say "oh, this was no big deal, why is this group using this to get attention" ... sorry, doesn't work that way. You can't call the fire department to your house to put out a fire, and then complain that they broke a door putting out the blaze.

- The laughable point is Sainz's money quote, that AWSM is setting back women's reporters 50 years. I'd say that's so laughable that it doesn't deserve a comment ... except for the fact that sports is one of the few places where the "men are men" culture still reigns supreme. Part of the hostility toward women's sports, women's sports reporters, etc., has always been (to me, at least) due to men feeling threatened. "This is our thing! This is the last place men can be men, and how dare you bring your girldom into it." I don't say this as someone trying to be enlightened and sensitive (sorry, Whitlock). I say this as someone who doesn't accept the outdated norms of what it means to be a man. I say this as the soon-to-be-father to a daughter, and I'm grateful that she's going to have the chance to play any sport she wants, cover any sports she wants, if she chooses. I say this as someone who expects to, openly and unabashedly, weep when my daughter's born.

By calling out AWSM, Sainz is the one doing the damage. By trying to distance herself, she's increasing the odds that AWSM gets marginalized. Next time there's a legitimate complaint about locker room harassment and AWSM speaks up, what are the odds you see the reaction among some media members (Whitlock) and fans of "there goes whiny AWSM again, always complaining. Look what they did to that poor Sainz woman. They're just opportunists trying to further their agenda. Women shouldn't be there anyway."

AWSM isn't setting back women's sports reporters 50 years.

Sainz is doing all the damage herself.

A word about access

Up until last August, I covered the Binghamton Mets, New York's Double-A affiliate. Two years ago, four players who began the season in Binghamton were playing for the big-league club (Nick Evans, Daniel Murphy, Bobby Parnell and Jon Niese). I was able to convince my bosses to let me go down to New York for two days, meet up with them and do a series of stories about them (it was a four-part, three-day series). The only way I was able to do this was the fact that the locker room (clubhouse in baseball speak) was open to the media.

If I had to rely on an interview room? Forget it. Remember, this was September. The Mets were in a playoff chase and playing the Cubs. In an interview room setting, I would have gotten 5-10 awkward minutes with each guy.

If I had to call up the PR guys to do interviews? No way. I actually tried that the year earlier and got shot down. There's no way the New York Mets would allow their players to do phone interviews in September with a guy from the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. And nor should they. If they did, then every reporter at every weekly paper/blog would be calling the team trying to get phone interviews.

Instead, I was able to walk into the locker room before the game and spend a lot of time with Niese, Evans and Parnell. I got to see the little pink backpack that Parnell, as the youngest guy in the bullpen, had to carry out to the pen every day (leading to the great quote "This one has a pretty little princess on it.") After the game, I got to wait until the media hoard left Murphy and got 20 minutes of time with him. I got to get a quick quote from David Wright about Murphy.

All of this made my stories possible. All of this made my stories better.

And all of this was made possible by the fact that I was in the locker room in Binghamton every day to begin with. They knew me, I knew them. I wasn't a stranger. I was the reporter they had seen 75 times that year.

One of the unfortunate outgrowths of the Ines Sainz-Jets debacle last week was the opining of national sports columnists that maybe locker rooms should be closed to all the media. We don't belong there, anyways. It's crowded, and smelly, and you never get a good quote there anyways.

Look, one of the secrets of being a sports reporter is that nobody really likes going into the locker room. It is dirty, crowded and smelly (the visiting locker room at Ralph Wilson Stadium is an atrocity). But that's where the story is. If you believe that sports journalism should not be root-root-root for the home team but instead should provide a balanced, independent examination of a team's successes or failures, then locker room access is an imperative.

Maybe it's not important for the national writers. They can call up any PR guy and say "I need to talk to (blank) for my ESPN/CBS column." And that's fine. Any PR guy/gal should do what he can to accommodate the national guys. They work for the team and want the team to have the best national coverage. Also, a national columnist is paid for his or her opinion. Its his words that matter most, her thinking that matters most.

But for beat reporters, for those writers covering a team on a daily basis, it's the news that matters. The information. That's the stuff that's found in the locker room. You find out big stuff (who's hurt, who left the stadium early, who's mad at who) and little stuff. Is Bobby Parnell's little pink backpack news? Not really. But two years later, it's the one thing I clearly remember about that trip. It's a neat, fun little fact that, I think, made my story a whole lot better than just hearing about him adjusting his fastball to big-league hitters.

Reporting, at its heart, is based on relationships. You get to know people, they get to know you. It's not about friendship, it's about a working, professional relationship. You build trust, which is how you build sources, which is how you find out what is really going on. It's hard, if not impossible, to do that in a media room setting, where it's a "get in, get it done, get out" mindset. It's almost impossible to do that over the phone. It's almost impossible to do that in press conferences.

Like it or not, locker room access is important because that's where reporting happens.

I heart Apple. But ...

So, I am an Apple junkie. Plain and simple. I write this on a MacBook I bought three years ago and use every day. Our house has two Macs and four iPods. My wife and I, independent of each other, got each other engraved iPods as wedding gifts.  Sports Media Baby already has an iPod in her nursery. I think Apple software is generally greate and easy to use. I think iTunes is the best software of the 00s - simple, intuititive, easy to use. But ...

News that Apple is ready to announce subscription plans for newspapers leaves me uneasy.

On the face of it, it's great. Hey, Apple is helping out the "dying" newspaper business! It puts our product in the print form (pdfs, pages, etc.) on the iPad. We can make money off this internet thing. Hooray! Apple is cool and Apple likes us.

But ...

Read the whole story: "Apple probably will take a 30 percent cut of all subscriptions sold through the company's online App Store, and as much as 40 percent of the advertising revenue from publications' apps."

30 percent cut of subscriptions.

40 percent of ad revenue.

30 percent cut of subscriptions?

40 percent of ad revenue?

Sorry, I don't see how this benefits newspapers. The problem is the online platform isn't profitable. Giving away at least a third (or more) of the money right of the bat to Apple is good for Apple. But how does this help newspapers? I don't see the benefit.

Prior restrain this, Redskins.

So, it's been a bad week for the NFL in media relations. First, the J-E-T-S (Our fans can spell!) had their little flap, followed by Clinton Portis' dumb-assery. (Note, if you haven't read Sally Jenkins or Dan Wetzel on this. Go. Do it now. Seriously. It's much better writing than you're going to get here).

And today, the news leaked out that the Redskins have issued media guidelines trying to prohibit blogging and twittering during practice (I refuse to call it tweeting. Can't do it.) I'm told that the Bills tried to do this to during training camp.

Which is, of course, complete crap.

The notion of blogging and twittering during games has raised issues between teams, leagues and writers to. But at least there's a logical reason to it. It's to protect the financial interests of the leagues and networks. There's a lot of money at stake there. I don't necessarily think that makes it right, but it's at least understandable and logical.

This, is pure nonsense.

There's no financial stake at practice. No rights holders that are having their profits threatened. It's pure control. It's the team and the league trying to control the flow of information. I'm not saying this is a Pentagon Papers-situation, but this is an example of prior restraint. Pure and simple.

Also, it's unfair. Media can't twitter and blog, but there's no one stopping fans from doing it? That's unfair.

Like it or not, Twitter and blogs are a part of a reporters' job these days. The Redskins and all NFL teams should let reporters do their jobs.

Special post: A team that should treat its fans better

I don't usually post stuff like this, because I like to keep my blog nice and nerdy. But I felt this story needed to be told publicly. It's from one of my best friends in the world, Bailey, who is such a die-hard Bills fan that she makes me look like a poser. It's the story of a team that should value its loyal fans and, apparently, doesn't.

I've put up with a lot of bad football as a Bills fan. But this story makes me ashamed to root for this organization.

http://housewifemonday.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/to-the-buffalo-bills/

Women in the locker room ... really?

Really? We're still having this discussion? In 2010, we're still talking about whether women sports reporters should be in the locker room and treated the same as men?

Really?

People ... this isn't an area of debate. This isn't a question that needs to be answered. This is a matter of FEDERAL LAW. A federal court ruled that a sports team could not close its locker room to women if it is open to men. If a locker room is open, it's open to everyone. If it's closed, it's closed to everyone. Period.

The Ines Saiz-New York Jets situation has been the story of the last few days. Look - the Jets acted like idiots. It's the frat boy atmosphere that Rex Ryan has installed. And yes, I know that these are young athletic men amped up on testosterone (and perhaps other enhancement drugs), and that this was an attractive lady in the room ... but let's not allow that to excuse bad behavior. These are grown men, in their 20s and 30s, multi-millionares. They can be held to an adult standard. I don't think it's a stretch to ask them to act like adults.

And yes, Ines Saiz is not blameless. This is a woman who wore a wedding dress to Super Bowl media day several years ago to propose to Tom Brady, who measured players biceps on the air in another story. She has very clearly traded on her looks and her sex appeal. That in no way excuses the Jets behavior (to do so is the equivalent of the "She asked for it" defense). But to pretend that she's a blameless victim isn't right.

And then there's Cinton Portis and his dumb-assery. Let's say it, for those of you who may not realize it: Not all women reporters are in the locker room trying to get laid by an athlete. They're there to do their jobs, get their quotes so they can file a story on deadline and get home. Just like the rest of us. (Interesting side note: Why is this a man-woman issue to Portis? Who's to say there haven't been gay men in locker rooms looking at an athlete's packages ... )

And please don't give the argument that "Well, men should be allowed in woman's locker rooms. Fair's fair." I have never covered an event where woman's locker rooms are open to the media. So it's not an issue. Besides, as a former male reporter, I would have felt uneasy being in a woman's locker room. It's a matter of respect for me.

Look, the Jets players and coaches acted like idiots. Ines Sainz hasn't exactly distinguished the field of journalism or advanced the cause of women journalists in the past. And Clinton Portis is a dumb-ass. We can leave it at that. We don't have to make a federal case about this.

There's already been a federal case about it.

So really, this case is closed.

College vs. pros

So hi. It's been a while (since July 22 ... eek). I spent 10 years covering college sports in the newspaper business (primarily basketball, but all sports). I spent the last four years also covering minor-league baseball. People often asked me which I liked better, and that was a tough question. College basketball is (along with the NFL) my favorite sport, and it is the sport I know the best, so I like that. But as the years went on, there was something about covering pro sports that I grew to love.

In pro sports, there was never any kind of artifice. There wasn't that the players were there trying to uphold any kind of noble mission. They were getting paid. They were doing their jobs. This was their work.

College sports is, in so many ways, built on that artifice. It's the notion of student-athlete. It's the notion that sports (especially football and basketball) gives opportunities to young men and women (in basketball's case) that they wouldn't otherwise have - and, of course, that's code talk for poor black men and women.

But with that artifice and mythology comes a dark side. The history of NCAA rules violations is lengthy, from the gambling scandals of the 1950s to the paying players scandals of the 1970s and 1980s to the agent scandals of the 1990s and 2000s. I may have a skewed view, since I covered two college hoop scandals (St. Bonaventure in 2003 and the start of the Binghamton collapse in 2009), but college sports can feel so ... dirty. There are so many rules, so many arcane restrictions that are horribly slanted against the players and that leave even honest, well-meaning coaches in violation sometimes. And the rule violations are often cloaked in a sense of "I'm just trying to help poor kids achieve their dreams," which is an insult to every coach who actually did try to do that - not to mention the poor kids who don't happen to have a good jumper.

All of this is in the news now, of course, because Reggie Bush may have his Heisman Trophy taken away from the Downtown Athletic Club. Bush was retroactively declared ineligible by the NCAA for being on the take during his USC career.

A lot of the coverage/opinion I've read about this is indignation. What, you think Reggie Bush was the only Heisman Trophy winner ever to be on the take? is what they say. Which strikes me as a false argument. It's like saying "Officer, you can't give me a ticket! Look at all these other cars? Do you honestly think I'm the only person speeding?" Bush got caught. Whether he should be retroactively punished for crimes 5-6 years ago, whether it's right or wrong to try to erase history by vacating awards, those are intersting questions. But to answer them by saying "Everyone else was probably doing it" bothers me.

But that's an aside. One of the things that interests me is how college sports is covered in the media compared with pro sports. I think there are a lot of similarities - big-time college sports* is basically a minor-league to the pros.

(Note, when I say college sports in this post, I am referring to men's basketball and football. I'm doing this solely for the sake of brevity.)

And on a superficial, off-the-top-of-my-head level, it seems like college sports is, at its core, covered with this mythology in place. The "rah rah for old State U.! Give it the old college try!" mentality. It's not that overt (OK, maybe in the SEC). But I get the sense that it's still there. In a way, I wonder if we project our memories of college onto college sports. For a lot of us, college was great. One of the best times in our lives. Memories of sitting around the dorms, drinking cheap beer, eating leftover pizza, partying, tailgating, rooting for our school. I think that's a powerful force in why college hoops and football are so popular. It takes us back to our college days.

As for the pros ... that mythology is gone. Pro sports is a big business. I think we all understand that. You can argue that this is not a good thing, but it's true. We don't expect our pro athletes to do anything but compete, play hard and win (maybe throw the hometown fans a bone here and there).

My sense (and again, this is all speculation) is that we expect more from college athletics. We expect it to be, for lack of a better word, pure. It's supposed to be pure, exuberant and joyful, like our memories of college. That colors our judgment, and it colors our coverage. It's why there are so many stories and investigations into NCAA rules violations (and, to be fair, I won a national award for covering an NCAA scandal) whereas there are, say, relatively few about the long-term physical impact of playing football on the human body.

Maybe that's why I started to like covering the pros better. All that mattered was the game. Not the mythology supporting the game.

Required reading - Whitlock

I linked to this yesterday, but it's worthy of a separate post. Jason Whitlock tore Mitch Albom and APSE a new spacehole yesterday. I don't have much to add. I don't always agree with Whitlock, but he nails it here. Unlike some of the other Mitch Albom stuff, which was related more to Albom's behavior, this is more about the newspaper industry as a whole. Some of the money quotes:

At a time when it’s embarrassingly obvious we should’ve adopted new content approaches 15 years ago, APSE, by defiantly recognizing Albom, is stating “we did nothing wrong.” ...

The newspaper industry is being driven by fear. The market place of ideas has disappeared. There are no jobs. People have mortgages to pay and kids in need of daycare or college. Everyone just tries to avoid conflict and avoid the next round of layoffs.

Fear and ass-kissing won’t save newspapers. What's everyone else think?

Mitch Albom, Stevie Wonder and Bender

This may destroy any cred I've built up ... but one of the most formative books I read in my sports journalism career was "Fab Five" by Mitch Albom. It's his book about the Michigan basketball team led by Chris Webber, and it's one I read so often in high school and, I wore out the binding. Parts of that book are still noteworthy. Albom's attention to detail in his writing is impeccable. Details are what make a great feature story, and this book is a wonderful example of that.

But here's the thing - the book glosses over the fact that Webber and his teammates basically violated the NBA salary cap while at Michigan. There's a famous anecdote in the book about how Webber had to send food back at a restaurant, then looked across the street and saw his jersey for sale and marveled at how unfair that was.

Yeah.

All this came back this week, when the kerfuffle erupted over Albom winning the APSE's Red Smith Award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. Dave Kindred, one of the all-time greats, wrote a smack-down on sportsjournalists.org. Charles Pierce followed, and then Deadspin and Jason Whitlock torched the place. The main controversy is, of course, that in 2005, Albom wrote a column about Michigan State basketball players watching their alma mater at the Final Four. Turns out, they weren't there (they planned to, told Albom this, he wrote on an early deadline, they ditched). So he wrote, as fact, something that didn't happen. He wrote it as though he saw what was happening. He wrote fiction.

Thoughts: - Albom is an insanely talented writer. That is impossible to deny. That being said, I stopped being a fan of his around his second book. So much of his work is, in the words of Barry from High Fidelity, "sentimental, tacky crap." He's the sports writing version of Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You." - What he did at the 2005 Final Four was wrong. 146 types of wrong. You don't write that something happened if you don't know it happened. That's journalism 101. Insert the word planned, scheduled to into your copy. It may be slightly less lyrical, but it's 200 percent more accurate, and that's what matters in our biz. The fact that he was writing for an insanely early deadline, or that none of the editors had the guts/ability to stand up to their superstar columnist is irrelevant. - The galling part of Albom's speech wasn't anything about accuracy. It was the notion that he didn't socialize in the press tent because he was out there doing journalism work for the workers back home whom he wrote for.

"And always, always, be mindful of who you are serving – not your ego, but your reader. I never spent much time in media hospitality suites because I saw the trap of comparing notes, trying to impress colleagues with who could write more viciously. I saw how quickly conversations degenerated into complaint sessions and where I lived, cynicism was the wrong approach. The reader of Detroit, the guys on the assembly lines, the grandfathers in Alpena, wished every day they could trade places with me. If I turned cynic, how would that serve them?

So I often kept a distance. I spent more time at events than in the office, more time in my community than in press boxes or media parties, and this may have cost me over the years. People who don’t know you are often the quickest to speak about you, especially if you are blessed with some success."

To quote a great man, gag unto me with a spoon. For one thing, there's nothing I hate more than someone invoking the working class to justify their own decisions. Second ... I've heard enough stories from people I like and respect describing Albom as a bad guy, a superstar with an ego to match. It costs nothing to be a nice guy, and to be a dick and cloak in doing "journalism for the working man" is nauseating. - As for Whitlock's take on the state of the industry ... that gets its own post.

What's everyone else think?

Why print still matters

This image was floating around the intertubes on Friday morning. At least 10 of my facebook friends posted it the day after LeBron-apalooza. It's the A-1 page from Friday's Cleveland Plain Dealer. The little text pointing at his hand reads "Seven years in Cleveland. No rings."

This is a remarkable page for two reasons. One, it shows how simplicity in page design (hell, in all things) can be so effective. Just one picture, a headline, a little caption* and a ton of white space tells the story so perfectly, so efficiently. Mrs. Sports Media Guy is a graphic designer who did newspaper pages back in a former life, and when I showed her the page, she loved it.

(*-I'm not a huge fan of the caption. I think it reads very catty - especially since Cleveland would have cheered had he returned. More importantly, it's unnecessary. The picture and "Gone" tell the story exquisitely. But it doesn't ruin the page at all.)

The other reason it's remarkable is that it shows that a print newspaper can still be an effective medium.

One of my pet peeves is how print people and digital people are always arguing with each other. Print people view digital people as uninformed losers living in their mothers basements.* Digital people view print as the cantankerous old bastards yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn.

(*-My wife wants to become the head of the national grammar police. When this happens, I want to be the minister of cliche eradication. This image of bloggers would be one of the first to go.)

No one's ever explained to me why it has to be an all-or-nothing decision. Why can't newspapers use print and online together, using them in a complementary fashion to play off the strengths each one brings?

The internet can inform people of news around the world at incredible speeds and bring new voices to the fold. Social media tools, when used properly, can foster a connection between reporters and readers that has never been there before. And print, with its traditions and deadlines, can lead to thoughtful, well-rounded stories.

And even in this day and age when everyone already knew where LeBron was going, had already read opinion pieces and reacted to it themselves on Twitter, the daily print paper in Cleveland still effectively told the story in a new, wonderful way.

LeBron-apalooza

Because what the world needs now is another piece on the internet about Lebron James. But it's kinda my thing.  Assorted thoughts on the whole thing:

  • Obligatory thought on LeBron's decision. I have no problem with him choosing to go to Miami, to play with friends of his in a warm, fun environment. But, as many others have said, it's the way LeBron handled the whole process. Going on live TV to announce he's leaving Cleveland (a city that rivals Buffalo for sports heartbreak) was pretty callous. Stringing along other cities in a made-for-the-internet tour was fairly disrespectful and egotistical. Put it this way - had he made this decision and said "I want to win. I don't need it to be my team to win, I just want to win, and going to Miami gives me a chance to be a part of a team, something bigger than myself, and win a championship," he would have been applauded. Now? He's just another selfish athlete.
  • ESPN is taking its hits, rightfully so, for the special and its handling of the story. CNBC broke news this afternoon that Jim Gray, who did last night's interview, was paid by LeBron's people, which is pretty much the definition of conflict of interest. But here's the thing ... ESPN sold its soul years ago. Remember, it has broadcast deals with the three major team sports. It's in ESPN's financial interest to promote the NBA, NFL and MLB. There's inherent conflict there.
  • Another ESPN thought - the network is the agenda setter for sports. I don't know if that's been studied academically, but it's anecdotally accepted. If ESPN says its a story, it's a story. And of course they over-hyped the LeBron story. The same way every network that carries the Super Bowl over-hypes that. But it's easy to forget that for all the hype and conflicts and promotion, ESPN still does some damn fine journalism. Read Wright Thompson's long-form stuff on the web site. It's staggeringly good.
  • One of the big issues that I found myself thinking about during this story was the use of anonymous sources. They were, of course, all over the place. Which led to confusion, as reporters were writing and twittering seemingly contradictory stories "according to sources." The use anonymous sources is a tricky subject. Sometimes, they are necessary. I used them myself in my career, breaking stories I wouldn't have been able to otherwise without. But it was about an event that had already happened (instead of a pending decision), and I double-checked what they said with other sources. The thing with the LeBron story is that no one knew for sure what was going to happen (except maybe Stephen A. Smith, but there's some question of when this decision was really made). So the source stories were "Sources say LeBron is leaning toward Cleveland ... sources indicate that LeBron may be leaving for Miami." There were so many qualifiers in these stories, that I question their usefulness. I feel bad, in a way, for the reporters. They were under enormous pressure to break this story, to report something. So "leaning toward," rather than the waffle that it is, became worthy of a headline. The lesson here isn't that anonymous sources are bad and shouldn't be used. Blanket rules almost never work in journalism. It's that, as a reporter, just because a connected source tells you something doesn't mean it's so. And you don't have to print everything a source tells you. God gave you news judgment and a bullshit detector, use it.
  • Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is getting a lot of praise around the internet for his letter blasting LeBron. Two thoughts: a. Purple comic sans? Is he 11? b. Adrian Wojnarowski (the best writer in this whole story) has it right - Gilbert enabled LeBron's ego for seven years and made millions and millions of dollars off of him. It's more than a little disingenuous of him to rip LeBron out the door.

What did everyone else think of this entire story?

Another brick in the (pay) wall

In two ways, I am the reason the newspaper business is dying (or at least, struggling). Way the first: A decade ago, I argued (successfully) against putting the Olean Times Herald's online edition behind a pay wall. Meaning that, for the past 10 years, people could read that content for free - until this week, when the  paper (along with the Bradford Era and the Salamanca Press) went behind a pay wall.

Way the second: I haven't purchased a print copy of a newspaper in probably a year. I read newspapers every day - but online. For free (well, not counting the cost of my roadrunner.)

Pay walls are the new trend in journalism. The Tallahassee Gazette announced that, as of July 1, it's going behind a pay wall. (Note, it's a Gannett paper, which means odds are it's going to be royally screwed up). The New York Times is doing so next year. Newsday did it (though early numbers indicated it's going been a huge bust). The Wall Street Journal's done it for years.

A decade ago, I was strongly against this. I was in charge of our paper's web site (if only because I was the young kid who had his own site), and I would get into long discussions with our publisher about charging for our content. He wanted to. I didn't. My argument had nothing to do with the "Information wants to be free" ethos of the early internet.* It had to do with this: I felt that if people had to pay to get news from our website, they wouldn't. They'd go somewhere else. Which, for me, meant that instead of reading my St. Bonaventure coverage, they'd read the Buffalo News'.

(* - There's a great article in The Atlantic this month about how that quote, from a guy named Stewart Brand in 1984, has been taking out of context.)

I believe this has been the reason for the decline of print journalism. Why buy the paper when it's online for free? There's no reason to. It's a dumb business strategy. My thinking back in 1999-2000 was to stay free and that, in a few years, somebody will figure out this whole making money on the internet thing. We're still waiting.

Looking at it from the newspapers' perspective, I see the dilemma. Why go on giving away your content? On the other hand, people are used to it being free. That was my other argument 10 years ago. If people are used to paying for a print edition, they'll pay for it. If they've been getting something for free for 10 years and now you're making them pay ... woah! That's when you lose readers. Also, there's the cut and paste issue. All you need is one subscriber to go to the online edition, copy and paste your article onto a fan message board ... and you've got thousands of readers but only one subscriber. Sure, it's copyright infringement. But what newspaper has the legal resources to go after each infringement. Plus, you'd be alienating your core readers. We saw how well that worked for Metallica and Napster.

Of course, the other problem with this is that newspapers don't make money off circulation. They do so off of advertising - especially classified advertising. Pay wall or no pay wall, the industry is going to have to figure out how to fill the revenue gap left by the fact that it's easier, more effective and FREE to post an ad to sell your bike on Craigslist.

So from the newspapers' perspective, this is a complicated issue. What works for the New York Times won't necessarily work for the Post-Standard, which won't necessarily work for the Olean Times Herald.

But from a readers' perspective, this is an end of a era.

Let's be honest, we as news consumers (and readers of sports pages) have been living the high, fat life for a decade now. As you've no doubt read, I'm a die-hard Buffalo Bills fan. Every week during the season, I get to read the Buffalo News' coverage, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicles' coverage, Chuck Pollock's commentary in the OTH, plus stories about their upcoming opponents in their local papers. All. For. Free. Contrast that to the pre-internet age, when I'd get whatever wire stories the local paper picks up and whatever Sportscenter might have (which, for a team that has stunk out loud for the better part of the 2000s, isn't usually much.)

It's been great.

Say all those papers went behind pay walls. Would I pay for this news? Probably not. Mainly because I'm a poor grad student with a baby on the way. But also, that's a lot of money to spend on a weekly/annual basis.

So that raises the question of what's the best move for newspapers? What is the Olean Times Herald's audience? Is it St. Bonaventure basketball fans looking for wall-to-wall coverage of their beloved Bonnies (that's a huge online readership, at least it was when I was there?) Or is it the people living in Olean, Allegany and Portville, who are affected by the news in the area and (more importantly) can frequent the paper's advertisers?

That's the thing. There is no easy answer. There is no magic bullet. Pay walls are probably the right thing to do. They're probably the smart thing for newspapers. Like I said, giving away your product for free is just a dumb way to do business.

But for news consumers, it's tough to start paying for something you've become accustomed to getting for free.

What's everyone else think?

The sensitive subject of race

The subject of race in sports coverage is a dicey one. The way black athletes are portrayed in the press is often far different than the way their white teammates are (there's the classic example of how black athletes are praised for their natural ability, while whites are praised as hard working). Sports is often viewed as being "beyond race" in that it's a meritocracy - it doesn't matter if your black or white if you can play. But that's often not the case. So it's into this hornets' nest that we learn that Michael Vick was voted as the most hated person in sports in a Forbes poll. Not a huge surprise, all things considered. Those dog-fighting convictions have a way of haunting you.

But Dexter Rogers of the Black Athlete Sports Network views it different. He blames the media for Vick's status. "Yes, Vick made a huge mistake and was vilified for it actions but if Vick were white I feel he’d been cut some slack." (link original.) For Rogers, Ben Roethlisberger should be the most hated man in sports, because of the rape accusations he's faced in the recent past. Rogers even writes that "The media essentially has ignored Big Ben.  He’s not been covered with the same level of persistence as Vick.  Big Ben has been protected by the white mainstream media and Vick wasn't." (link original.) Ahem.

To say that Rothelisberger (or as Rogers so cutely calls him, Rapelisberger, which does not exactly help his case) wasn't covered "with the same level of persistence as Vick" ignores the wall-to-wall coverage that the major networks gave the case earlier this year. And even if we grant that Vick was covered more persistently than Roethlisberger, we could argue that there's a legit reason for that. Roethlisberger was never charged with a crime (Rogers, in his role as DA, writes that he believes there was more than enough evidence to prosecute.) Vick was prosecuted and convicted by state AND federal authorities for running a dog-fighting ring across state lines. That alone could explain the difference in coverage.

Rogers writes that there is a galling lack of diversity in the sports media, which is overwhelmingly white male. That's undeniable. However, he writes that Vick's selection as the most-hated person in sports is a symptom of that problem. But, here's the rest of the top five of the Forbes list:

2. Al Davis - Old White dude. 3. Ben Roethlisberger - Young White dude. 4. Jerry Jones - Old White dude. 5. Tiger Woods - Young mixed-race dude.

So of the top-five hated people in sports, we had three white men - including two old white men. Davis was ranked just three percentage points behind Vick. The poll does not seem to be as clear an indictment of the white media holding the black athletes down as it might seem at first glance.

Besides, there are studies that show that having a diverse staff in a newsroom doesn't necessarily translate into more diverse views making it into the marketplace of ideas (I apologize for not having the cites).

Look, I'm not defending Roethlisberger. If he did do what he was accused of, he's a low-life. And I thought it was sickening how some members of the media elite - I'm looking at you, Michael Wilbon (who I'm a fan of) - went out of their way to defend Roethlisberger. And I am not objective about Vick. I'm too much of a dog person - if you've seen me around a puppy, or my four-year old mutt Zoey, you know this. Intellectually, I know Vick has paid his debt to society and deserves a second chance. But in my gut, he killed dogs. I can't get past that.

Rogers does raise some valid points about the appalling lack of diversity on sports staffs around the country. The sports media is a white-man's world. And the media (as I'm learning in my research) do as much to create reality as they do report on it. But one poll result does not necessarily indicate institutional racism.

What does everyone else think?

Women, sports and the media

It's been an interesting, but not altogether positive, week for women in sports media issues. A study by USC researchers showed that the amount of coverage womens' sports is getting on TV highlight shows has dropped to ridiculous lows. Also, the other day, the Chicago Tribune proved itself to be the clubhouse leader in  dumb-assery by unveiling a poster of Philadelphia's Chris Pronger "wearing a dress" and calling him "Chrissy Pronger. First, some links: Marie Hardin writes that the lack TV sports coverage can't totally be blamed on news organizations. Erin Whiteside believes that the sexist attitudes in sports newsrooms would be helped in part by hiring more diverse staffs. Sally Jenkins, as she always does, brings it.

And now, my  thoughts:

- First off, I am not a fan of womens' sports. That doesn't mean for a second that I think that girls can't play sports, or that they are not as good as men, or that they're undeserving of attention. If the upcoming baby turns out to be a sports media dudette, I'm thankful she'll be blessed to grown up in a post-Title IX world (although if this baby inherits any of my physical grace, he or she won't be anywhere near any playing field). No, I'm not a womens' sports fan the way I am not a fan of soccer. Or most major league baseball or the NBA. Just not my brand of vodka. My sports consumption is pretty much limited to watching the Bills find new and creative ways to throw up all over themselves 16 times a year, the NCAA Tournament and the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I'm also, as a researcher, not particularly interested in issues of diversity. Again, not saying they aren't worthy of study, just not my thing. I guess this is a long way of saying I have no real emotional horse in this derby.

- One of the tricky aspects in this arena is the notion of coverage vs. interest. The long-standing argument against more womens' sports coverage is that nobody cares - or, put more politely, that attendance is far lower than mens' sports. It's a chicken v. egg case - is attendance low because there's not as much coverage, or is there not much coverage because attendance is low? I don't know if there's an answer to that. I think it's a never-ending circle of debate where nothing gets solved.

- The study showed many interesting things about the amount of coverage women get. But I wonder something - I don't watch that  much Sportscenter these days, but my anecdotal sense is that there is far more focus on the so-called elite teams. LeBron. Yanks and Red Sox. The BCS. And so on. I'd like to see (or do, if I ever get the chance, the time and my thesis done) a comparative content analysis of Sportscenter today vs. five or 10 years ago. My sense is that across the board, there is less diversity of coverage. I get the sense that, say, the Brewers and Pirates don't get much coverage easier. This isn't a defense of ESPN's lack of women's coverage - but I think it might add some context. Remember, there are more than 100 "major" pro sports teams in the US, plus 100+ college football teams plus 350+ major college hoops teams. There are a lot of sports out there to fit into an hour of highlights.

- Here's a difficult question, one I don't ask lightly and am prepared for backlash but one that I think needs to be addressed. Should womens' sports be covered? The gut answer is, of course, yes. It's fair to do so, and it's sexist not to. But let me throw this at you, and then duck for cover: ESPN (and all media outlets) are for-profit industries. They are not here for the public good. They are not services. They're businesses. They're here to make money. If mens highlights draw better ratings and allow them to bring in more money via ads, why should ESPN stop? Is Title IX the answer to this? Because Title IX guarantees the right to participate, which we can all agree is one of the most awesome things ever. But that doesn't guarantee coverage on the news.

Again, I'm not necessarily saying womens' sports shouldn't be covered. But I think it's a topic worth discussing. Not doing so, I think, ignores the reality of the media business.

- The authors of the USC study wisely didn't address why women don't get coverage, or why they are portrayed the way they are. One thing you learn in your first research methods class is that you don't assume what the data means. You report what it says. But to me, the why is the amazingly interesting question going forward. Why is womens' sports viewed as lesser in quality than mens'? Why is the sports world one of the last accepted bastions of sexist talk, thought and behavior? It's clearly this culture that led to the Chicago Tribune's dumb-assery (sorry to repeat that non-word, but there's no better description of it).  Why is OK for Bill Simmons to rag on the WNBA constantly and have his readers accept and encourage it?

I tend to have a pragmatist, rather than feminist, point of view in my research. But I think this is the question we have going forward. Why does this attitude continue to pervade the sports world ... and what can be done to eradicate it?

What's everyone else think?

I'm still here

Yes, I am still here. Despite a ton of awesome news to comment on, this blog's been quiet lately. It's mainly because I spent the last week and a half running around upstate New York for weddings, on vacation in Maryland, getting going on my master's thesis (an examination of journalists' routines in this transition era). Oh yeah, and Mrs. Sports Media Guy is expecting our first little media dude or dudette in October. Anyway, here's a list of posts I'm working on and hope to have up soon:

-  A look at the recent USC study about how little coverage womens sports gets on TV.

- A look at a Penn State study about how different sports reporters have different ethics based on their beats.

- Thoughts on the steroid controversies.

- Ramblings about social media and the regular media.

- A post about the beauty of changing your mind.