Sanctimonious citysiders? Shut up!

A while back, I was at an academic conference where I was presenting one of my research papers. I got talking to a professor from another school about my work and about my future plans. I told him that, for my dissertation, I was considering doing some work involving sports reporters. The look on his face suggested I had just killed his cat.

Why would you do that, he asked? Why would I waste my time studying something like sports?

That attitude is widespread both in journalism, and in the study of journalism. News is the real thing, the important part of the paper, the people's watchdog, the fourth estate. The sports department is the toy department, the fan boys covering inconsequential games.

I get it. Nobody would argue that sports is more important than news. Well-done news journalism can change the world and bring to light governmental malfeasance. But there is a place for sports journalism. Well-done sports journalism can be every bit as meaningful to readers as well-done news journalism.

That's one of the reasons the Manti Te'o story angered me so much. I was afraid that the stories that were proven to be false last week did nothing but feed the perception that sports journalists are not to be taken seriously. And judging by some of the posts online and in social media - including one professor who wrote that sports "journalism" should always be in quote marks - my fears are coming true. The Te'o story has brought out all the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou journalists and journalism watchers claiming that sports journalism "faces a moment of truth" and that sports journalism is going to change, for better or worse.

To the sanctimonious in the crowd, I say: Shut up.

Actually, let me let Charles Pierce say it for me:

As someone who's working both sides of the aisle at the moment, there is something up with which I will not put, and that is snarky comments from the elite political press about what suckers the people who write for The Toy Department  are. Knock it off, foofs. Careers are made in the courtier press by doing deliberately what probably may have happened by slovenly accident in the case of the sportswriters who passed along this tale of highly marketable pathos. What is the significant difference between the actual reality of Manti Te'o's dead imaginary girlfriend and the actual reality George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford?

To which, I would start chanting "Judith Miller! (Clap clap clap-clap-clap). Judith Miller! (Clap clap clap-clap-clap)."

See, the Te'o story (along with the Lance Armstrong story, and all the other ones that show the problems with sports journalism) are actually problems of journalism. What this story, and the others, reveal is how dependent on sources journalists are. So many times, journalists trust what a person tells them above everything else. We value human relationships, our access, our connections. And these are, of course, valuable. But one of the side-effects of this is that we become totally dependent on our access, connections and relationships. We can be blinded by them. Check out Rick Reilly's column about Lance Armstrong. Reilly had been one of Armstrong's biggest defenders for years, even as the evidence mounted that Armstrong used PEDs.

Why? Because Armstrong always told me he was clean. On the record. Off the record. Every kind of record. In Colorado. In Texas. In France. On team buses. In cars. On cell phones.

When it came to evidence vs. a source's word, he picked a source's word.

This happens all the time, at all levels of journalism. It is not at all a problem with sports journalism. It's not a symptom of  star-struck sports reporters who wish they were athletes and are still looking up to their favorite players. It's a problem for all journalists. It's a problem when we report what a source says without double-checking it or fact checking it, and then passing it off as simply "that's what I was told. That's what they said. What can I do?" That's the View from Nowhere. What the reporter can, and should, do is write down what people say and if what people say includes a fact that can be independently verified, the journalists should do that. Simple.

That's what the sports press didn't do in the Te'o story. As has been written, here and elsewhere, reporters seemed to fall in love with the narrative and, faced with a great story and the time constraints of modern news media, didn't do the proper fact checking. It was a grave journalism sin.

But in the end, it was just a football player claiming to have a girlfriend.

It's not like the reporting helped lead our country into war or anything.

Maybe being "just sports" isn't such a bad thing.

The "simpering crap" of the sports pages

Tommy Craggs, Deadspin editor, speaking to Poynter on why no other reporters followed up on the Manti Te'o story. It's one of the truest things I've read about this whole story:"

"Well, I understand how this slipped through the cracks initially. If I’m a beat guy and I have 500 words to file after practice come hell or high water and the best player on the team has just told me a story about his dear, departed girlfriend, I’m not going to go spelunking through SSA death records to make sure he’s not full of shit. They won’t say that out loud in journalism classes or anything, but that’s just the nature of covering sports on a hard deadline.

I have less sympathy for the folks who crafted those painstaking “Love Story”-in-cleats feature stories about Manti and his dead girlfriend. Those were dumb, infantilizing stories to begin with, and they were executed poorly and sloppily, and if there’s any lesson to be drawn from this, it’s that this kind of simpering crap should be eliminated from the sports pages entirely."

Te'o story is the worst (and best) of sports journalism

The ridiculous Manti Te'o story that Deadspin broke today represents the best, and the worst, in sports journalism. We'll get to the worst in a bit here - and there is plenty to say about the worst - but let's talk about the best. The reporting job that Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey did with this story is utterly sensational. It's among the finest pieces of sports journalism I've ever seen. Look at how they reported this story. Look at the work they did, discovering the fact that the photos of Te'o's girlfriend were actually those of another young woman, the discovery of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and his alleged role in the fraud. Hell, just read these graphs:

Manti Te'o did lose his grandmother this past fall. Annette Santiago died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis. But there is no SSA record there of the death of Lennay Marie Kekua, that day or any other. Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper.

Nor is there any report of a severe auto accident involving a Lennay Kekua. Background checks turn up nothing. The Stanford registrar's office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

That is reporting. That's the kind of fact-finding, discovery and writing you want to see in the media. This isn't a story graded on a curve because it's Gawker. It's better than almost anything you'll see on any media site - mainstream or alternative.

That is JOURNALISM.

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And now for the worst ...

There's no way to sugarcoat it. This story is an embarrassment to sports journalism. The fact that this "story" was reported as fact, and nobody sniffed out anything about it, is embarrassing. It feeds the worst perceptions of sports journalism - that we're all fanboys and fangirls, looking to tell cute little stories about games and that we're not real reporters.

These are points that will be widely made in the next few days, and they're worthwhile ones. One of the core parts of a reporter's job is to verify facts. It's to take what they are told by sources and try to independently verify them. Facts matter, even in a heartwarming feature story. A reporter should never take what he or she is told at face value. You know the old saying "If a story sounds too good to be true, it probably is"? Reporters need to live by that. The fact that nobody tried to verify the facts in this story is stunning.

(And, as a reporter, I can say I was not always very good at this. I was not a model reporter by any account. So yes, this is Monday Morning Quarterbacking to some degree.)

Here's the thing: Verifying facts doesn't necessarily mean being confrontational. It doesn't mean asking Te'o "Yeah, I want to make sure your grandma and girlfriend really died." Because yeah, you'd look like a terrible person if you did that. It also doesn't mean harboring doubts about what you're being told. It's doing your diligence. If you're doing a feature story about a player who's inspiration is his dying girlfriend, it seems obvious that you'd want her voice in the story somehow. That would mean trying to find out about her. What was she like? What happened to her? Maybe you call Stanford, where she went to school. Maybe you request the police report for the accident, which is public record. The player said her family wants privacy. Which is fine and understandable. But one of the things I always tried to do as a journalist was this: If someone didn't want to talk to me, fine. But they had to tell me no comment. Not someone on their behalf.

This is where it gets interesting. If you're a reporter, and you start to see questions arise - not doubts, but just questions like "Huh, I can't find her online at all aside from this one little profile ... and there's no accident report? ... and I can't talk to the family because they want privacy ... huh ... this is ... odd." What do you do? When you've got deadline's coming, you've got three beats to cover and your editor is houding you for the story ... what do you do?

I don't have a good answer to this question. I'd love to hear if you do (honestly).

This was a failure of process. It was a massive failure of reporters, who appear to have fallen in love with the story (which is so easy to do) and told what sounded like a perfect story. It was a failure of editors, who are supposed to protect against this. A good editor is a complete pain in the ass, a person who questions every detail in your story. The fact that no editor raised any questions about this at any outlet is just as much a failure as that of the reporters.

This is the story that makes sports journalists look terrible, like caretakers of the toy department. It feeds every negative stereotype of sports writers and sports journalism.

And yet, the work of Deadspin's reporters also showed that, when done right, sports journalism can be just as serious, deep and good as any reporting in any other section.

Jason Taylor, playing hurt, and the media's role in all this

I hope you've read Dan LeBatard's outstanding column from Sunday in which former NFL star Jason Taylor detailed the incredible lengths that he went through to play games while injured. It made the rounds on Sunday for good reason, because it's one of the most powerful columns you'll ever read.

This is another textbook example of the Sport Ethic I've been writing about a lot lately. While it's not my primary research focus, I'm incredibly interested in how the sports media reinforces and perpetuates the Sport Ethic, especially the notion of athletes playing with injuries. Player safety is such a huge issue in sports now, especially football. And the biggest impediment to any real, lasting change in the realm of player safety - especially in football - is the culture that's reflected in the Sport Ethic. It's the culture that's reflected in Taylor's actions and comments.

As I said, one of my obsessions lately has been trying to learn and understand how the sports media perpetuates this culture. I don't believe the sports media creates it. I think it's a part of the larger sports culture. It's the language of the locker room. It's part of the game. But one of my working hypotheses is that the sports media does perpetuate this, primarily through the use of athletes as sources.

I've been doing a lot of reading in media sociology literature about sources as part of a research project. One of the core findings of the classic media sociology canon is that reporters rely on sources, mainly prominent ones, to do their jobs. You can argue that if there were no sources, there'd be no news. One of the main findings in this area of research is that journalists rely on well-placed, prominent sources. It's why official government sources are so valued in reporting. When an official speaks, it carries an "official" weight that speaking to a guy down the street doesn't.

In sports, athletes are our official sources (along with coaches and owners). Their words have weight. Their words have meaning. If they say something, it is so. As reporters, we interview athletes, treasure their insights, require their words to be a part of our stories. We want the athlete's perspective and we give it weight. We value what they say, take it as a certain kind of truth.

It's a part of almost every story about player safety. Think about it. You almost always see players quoted, either past or present ones, talking about the culture of the game. Players' words are taken as gospel. Playing hurt is a part of the game. They'd never think about coming out of a game injured, or asking out. That's not what an athlete does.

What's interesting is that, in my mind, these quotes are almost universally presented unchallenged. In fact, they are taken as the final word. Now, journalists have never been great about challenging the claims of their sources. Reporters have viewed their job as reporting what people say, not the truth of those statements. That's particularly true, I think, of sports reporters and athletes. Questioning their comments or thoughts opens sports reporters up to the charge of being a "jealous failed jock" or "someone who never played the game," which I think is pretty fear-inducing for a lot of sports reporters (and I should be upfront and say that, when I was a reporter, I was terrible at this. It's one of my biggest journalistic sins - never challenging quotes.)

So the sports coverage may reflect the Sport Ethic, particularly in terms of playing hurt. But I wonder what would happen if the quotes from players saying that they'd play through anything, play through any injury possible, were challenged. If those statements were followed up with facts about long-term injuries, the potential for CTE, the potentially damaging effects of the drugs players take to stay healthy. How would the discussion of player safety change if the sports media didn't just reflect the Sport Ethic but instead raised well-meaning, well-intentioned and well-informed questions? Would that even begin to change the culture of sports?

Hall of Fame hangover

I blame the room.

If you've ever been to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, you know what I mean. The Room. The Hall calls it the Plaque Gallery, and it's right off the entrance from Main Street. It's the room with all the plaques of all the hall of famers.

It's immaculately clean and softly lit. The Class of 1936 - the first class into the Hall of Fame, the immortal class of Ruth, Young, Cobb, et al - sits set back in a special location.

It feels almost like a church. It feels like it is meant to be a sacred place. The baseball holy of holies.

It's a wonderful room. The Hall of Fame is one of my favorite places in the world. My dad and I used to take annual summer trips there . The Plaque Room is one of the highlights of every trip.

And it's also the problem. I believe that room, what it feels like, what it's meant to convey, is one of the reasons the annual Hall of Fame debate - the results come out today - has gotten so contentious, so fierce, so ... tiresome.

I hate saying this, because I love the writing that Joe Posnanski has done on the Hall of Fame. I love seeing the debate over the PED era and how that is playing out. But the whole "Who's a Hall of Famer, who's not" debate, the annual push and pull, the yelling, the opining ... it's just grown tiresome.

It feels like baseball has this problem more than other sports. The football hall of fame has its annual "who got snubbed" complaints, but that's quickly swallowed by the season. Basketball and hockey don't have this problem, at least it doesn't feel like it to me. Part of that is, no doubt, the process. Basketball and hockey have committees that vote which include former players, executives and media members. Football voting is done by a committee of writers, but at least it's done in a meeting where everyone talks face-to-face. But baseball, any BBWAA member of at least 10 years is eligible to vote. At last count, 581 voters submitted ballots. That's a lot of opinions to account for.

We can argue all day over whether it's the role of journalists to be bestowing honors like the Hall of Fame onto people they used to cover. That's a post for another day.

But to me, a big part of the problem comes back to that room. Baseball, as has been often pointed out, is the sport with more of a direct connection to the past. It's the one sport where we think that the past was better. Baseball, more than any other sport, is built around mythology.

The high altar of baseball mythology is that room in Cooperstown.

When voting for the hall, it's got to be easy to be influenced by that. It's got to be hard not think that enshrinment in that room is the sporting equivalent of sainthood. You get elected, you're in the room with Babe Ruth and Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson* forever. That's the hall of fame we have in our minds. That's the hall of fame that makes us pause over guys accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. That's the hall of fame that makes us think that certain players should be relegated in that horribly named "Hall of Very Good." That's the hall of fame we argue so vociferously about.

But as Posnanksi points out, the Hall of Fame that actually exists includes a bunch of guys you've never heard of who were not the best of the best. They were voted in by the veteran's committee, they were umpires and club owners, they were racists and bigots and cheaters in their own rights.

So which hall of fame does a voter keep in mind? The Hall of Fame that exists? Or the Hall of Fame they believe in?

I actually have no opinion on the Hall of Fame ballot. I don't have a mock ballot. I don't have a strong opinion on Clemens or Bonds or any of the steroid guys. I feel like their numbers warrant induction. I feel like many writers are using this chance to condemn guys after the fact, after they (and the rest of the sports media) missed out on accurately covering the steroid era.

But having them in that room, with Ruth and Robinson and Mays ... honestly, there's something about it that doesn't feel right.

I blame the room.

RIP Richard Ben Cramer

Richard Ben Cramer may not have been a household name, but he was one of the best journalists of our time. He died last night at the age of 62. Links and quotes from his Ted Williams profile, his Joe DiMaggio biography and his opus on the 1988 presidential campaign, What it Takes, are making the rounds today. With good reason. They're all sensational works that are worth your time and attention. A few friends of mine had the pleasure of meeting Cramer, and they report that the Rochester native was a great guy, one who loved talking about his craft.

Instead of quotes from his stories, I'm going to share quotes Cramer shared about reporting in Robert Boynton's excellent book "The New New Journalism."

On the difference between writing for newspapers, magazines and books: "The difference is pace. You've got to move a newspaper story at a breakneck pace since the reader is only going to be with you for five minutes. A magazine story has to make the reader want to commit more time. If you get a magazine reader to commit to only five minutes you've failed. A book is something else entirely ... a book ought to alter the reader's life, add to the reader's life, in some fundamental way. ... A newspaper story informs, a magazine article entertains, and a book has to move you.

On his relationship with his sources: "I learned pretty quickly that I had to be straight up with sources. I'll do anything for my sources! I'll wash their damned windows if I have to. This is just plain adaptive behavior. You do a lot better as a journalist if your sources help you than if you don't. And if you're going to have to f*ck 'em, then you let them know man-to-man ahead of time how you're going to f*ck 'em so they can be prepared."

One of the best things in this interview is his reporting method for What it Takes. Along with spending months off the campaign trail (interviewing everyone in the candidates' lives), he would sit next to each candidate as they did their daily interviews with the beat reporters: "I'd sit there for the first day, and the second day, and the third day, and on and on. And sooner or later, the canddiate is going to get so comfortable with my being there that he will lean over to me after one of his interviews and say, "Damn, I f*cked up that agriculture question again! And at that moment I've moved from my side of the desk to his side of the desk ... I'm always trying to be on his side of the desk. If I come in with my notebook and my list of questions, then I'm just another schmuck with a notebook and questions to be brushed off with the "message of the day" or whatever form of manipulation is in vogue. But if I don't have any questions - except for the basic one of What the Hell is Going on Here? -  and I'm willing to hang around forever trying to see the world from his side of the desk, then I become something else entirely."

RGIII, playing hurt, and the Sport Ethic

It's not often you get to see one of your research interests play out in real-time. But last night, during the Seahawks-Redskins playoff game, we saw The Sport Ethic clearly illustrated.

Quick refresher: The Sport Ethic is a concept from sports sociology (Hughes & Coakely, 1991) in which they found four traits that elite athletes believe. One of them is accepting risks and playing through pain. The point of The Sport Ethic is that elite athletes are so dedicated to it, believing in it with an almost religious intensity, that it leads to what the sociologists call Deviant Overconformity. They confor

m somuch to this ethic that it leads them to deviant behavior. Like using performance-enhancing drugs. Like eliminating everything from their lives that doesn't revolve around sports.

Like playing while injured.

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“I’d probably been right back out there on the field. You respect authority and I respect coach Shanahan but at the same time you have to step up and be a man sometimes.There was no way I was coming out of the game,” Griffin said. “It’s an awkward conversation you never want to have with a head coach. You don’t want him to ever feel like you’re lying to him. I wasn’t lying to him, I was able to play. Period. If he would have pulled me out, I would have been highly upset but that’s his prerogative. He kept me in.”

-Robert Griffin III, Sunday night (quote courtesy Pro Football Talk).

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One of the things that interests me is how the sports media portrays and reinforces The Sport Ethic as normal, desirable behavior. I've only done one pilot study so far, but what that study suggested is that the media reflect the Sport Ethic mainly by giving it a voice. The Sport Ethic is primarily reflected in quotes from players and coaches, rather than in the coverage itself (subject to change with future research).

But think about this: Think about what the coverage would have been like had RGIII stayed in the game and the Redskins had won?

Would the coverage have been as critical for allowing an injured player to continue?

Or would he be lionized for playing through pain, playing while injured, putting his team ahead of himself?

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What Griffin's quote from after the game shows (and what Dan Wetzel so brilliantly points out) is how deeply RGIII has apparently accepted The Sport Ethic as a part of his life.

It also shows, to me, one of the big challenges facing sports in 2013. The culture around sports is changing, with more attention being paid to the long-term physical toll sports like football and hockey are taking on players. Look no further than the concussion debate. Player safety is important. But one of the challenges facing it is the fact that the culture of sports is at odds with a culture of playing safety.

Mike Silver raised this point in his Yahoo column today:

"Before you rail against Redskins coach Mike Shanahan for allowing Griffin to play through obvious knee discomfort and exposing him to a potentially serious injury, ask yourself how you reacted when Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler left the 2010 NFC championship game with what turned out to be a torn medial collateral ligament. Did you question Cutler’s toughness? Did you feel like he let down his teammates in that home defeat to the Packers? Did you laud him for being honest with coach Lovie Smith about his condition, for realizing that playing hurt might negatively impact his team’s chances, and for not putting the Bears’ team doctors in a potentially compromising position? Think about the answers to these questions, and then decide how you feel about RG3 and the Battle of Wounded Knee."

What was interesting about the Cutler story last year was the fact that it was fellow players who started the issue by criticizing the QB on Twitter. That's how deep the Sport Ethic runs in the sports culture. And trying to change a culture that is so ingrained and pervasive is not easy.

And when reporters value players' opinions because they are the experts in their field (journalism routines' research has consistently shown that the media favor official sources because of their perceived expertise), that culture will continue to be reflected in sports media.

Which makes the debate over player safety all the more challenging.

Tark the Shark, and Bama/Notre Dame

Two outstanding stories out today that are worth your time:

1. Sam Borden in the New York Times on Jerry Tarkanian. I covered one game Tark coached in. It was 2000, when he was at Fresno State. St. Bonaventure played at Fresno's season-opening tournament, beating Tark in the title game. I don't remember many specifics about the game - I remember it being a coming-out party for then Bona-freshman Marques Green, and I remember briefly getting into it with Tark in the post-game press conference (nothing major at all. He just dodged a question of mine, so I pressed him a little). What I do remember, and what's vivid now, is how much of a coach in exile he felt like in Fresno.

(I also remember being excited to learn the story of Tark's towel. I was 23. Things like that excited me.)

Anyway, the story is sensational not only in its detail now but in how it assesses Tark's career and legacy. It doesn't shy away from the bad stuff, but addresses it from his point of view. The Calipari comparison is interesting - flawed, to me, only because Cal is now at Kentucky and Tark never had a job with college basketball royalty. Otherwise, it's a great balance of reporting

2. I'll admit it: Pat Forde had me when he discussed sociology in a sports column. But his look at Alabama's fans' long-standing hatred of Notre Dame is fascinating. I love it when a writer is brave enough to tackle the issues like class, religion and sectionalism and go beyond cliches in doing so. What makes Forde so strong as a columnist is that his columns include real reporting, not just bloviating.

My wife lets me write about music. Sort of.

My wife keeps a wonderful blog about being a mom to our daughter. She wrote about our year in music and was nice enough to let me write a few paragraphs about some of my favorite music of 2012.

Check it out here. And please consider checking out my wife's blog. She's much better than I am.

Austin, PBS, Facebook and the end: What's new in 2013

Happy New Year! I hope the holiday season was healthy and happy time for you and your family. There are some posts that I have in the works that I hope to be publishing in the next few days. In the meantime, a few updates:

• I'm pleased to announce that I'll once again be taking part in the Summit on Communication and Sport, sponsored by the International Association for Sports Communication. This year's summit is the last weekend of February in Austin, Texas. To sayI'm excited to make my first trip to Austin is an understatement. I'm also excited to spend three days with some of my favorite people in academia.
• I will also be continuing to blog for the PBS IdeaLab and the Journovation Journal, as part of my job as the research assistant for the Peter Horvitz Endowed Chair for Journalism Innovation at Syracuse University.
• I'm hoping to do a little bit more with social media and this blog. I'm getting us set up on Facebook, and I hope to be up and running there soon,.
• If I'm a little more quiet than usual, it's because I'm hitting the home stretch of my doctoral studies. This is my final semester of classes, which is followed by qualifying exams (essentially finals for your entire doctoral program), which is followed by my dissertation. I'm super excited about my classes in the fall and with where I am in the program. If this blog has to be quiet every now and then because of that, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. When I write, I want it to be good. I want to make sure my time and attention are focused where they need to be. Sometimes, that's here. But when it's not, I hope you'll understand.

Antiquated thinking leads to Twitter limits

On Monday night, Todd Dybas of the Tacoma Tribune was reprimanded by the University of Washington sports information staff for Tweeting too much during a Huskies basketball game. According to the university's policies, reporters are limited to 20 in-game Tweets for basketball games and 45 in-game Tweets for football games. The school has reportedly threatened to revoke Dybas' credentials for this violation. Getting this out of the way: Yes, every reporter who gets a press credential signs a release that includes the rules. No, none of them ever read it. Seriously, when's the last time you read the terms and conditions when you update iTunes?

This is nothing new for the NCAA. Several years ago, a Louisville reporter was kicked out of an NCAA tournament baseball game for liveblogging play-by-play.

Look, reporters should not be Tweeting play-by-play. It's pointless, it clogs up users feeds, and is a waste of reporters' time and efforts. Reporters should use Twitter to point out in-game news (score updates, injury news, analysis, etc.), not as a stenography tool for play by play.

The reason the NCAA is so sensitive to this is, of course, broadcast rights. There's a belief that if reporters are live-tweeting play by play, then fans won't watch the games on TV. The TV networks pay a lot of money for the NCAA rights, so they want to guarantee viewership.

The problem with that reasoning is that it's flawed and outdated. It's 20th century thinking in a 21st century media world.

There's a growing body of research looking into how people use Twitter with broadcast media. What this research is showing is that people don't use Twitter as a replacement for watching games (or TV shows, or awards shows, or news events). They use it as a complement to the coverage. They use it to share their thoughts on what they're viewing with others and build an online community. A paper I did last year suggested that people who are active on Twitter during games feel increased feelings of social presence (feeling like they were with others even if they were alone).

Limiting Twitter is antiquated thinking. It's the attitude of a scarcity model - in which there was only one was to get the news, watch the game, or experience  something. But we live in a surplus age right now. Media organizations and sports leagues need to understand and embrace this, rather than limiting user experiences.

There are better ways reporters can use Twitter than play by play. But they shouldn't be limited in the number of Tweets per game.

I'd love it if, at the next Huskies game, every reporter there sent out exactly 21 Tweets. See if anybody notices. I bet, if they're done wisely, fans would enjoy that game more than any other regular-season game in recent memory.

Statistically significant

There are few things I hate more than false dichotomies. I hate the ongoing debate in my world about print vs. online journalism. I hate the free vs. paywall debate. I hate the traditional vs. new media debate. I don't think these are debates where you should be forced to pick one or the other. I think the forcing of false choices leads to division for division's sake. I feel the same way in the stats vs. "gut feeling" debate.

This is in the news, after Nate Silver (whose blog I'm a big fan of) has become kind of a whipping boy lately. Silver's statistical projections have President Obama as a 75-80 percent favorite to win next week. This puzzles many political pundits, who claim the race is "too close to call, 50-50, etc."

One of the nice things about grad school is learning basic statistics. I'm no expert, but I know a little bit. And Silver is not claiming Obama is going to win. He's claiming Obama has a 75 percent chance of winning. Which means Mitt Romney still has a 25-percent chance. There is a difference.

But in reading this debate online this week, I realized I've been reading the same debate for years in sports. It's the stats-vs.-gut argument that's in sports, primarily in baseball. You've got the sabremetrics guys one side, and the grizzled old vets on the other. The math nerds vs. the baseball lifers. Moneyball vs. Old-Time Ball.

I hate that debate, too.

I believe in stats. I believe that statistics show you what happened, not what you think happened. I believe stats can and should inform sports writing. I believe that stats don't always tell the entire story. Statistically, the Baltimore Orioles were, at best, an average team this year. But they had a logic-defying record in close games, made the playoffs, and were a fantastic story.

It doesn't have to be one or the other.

The other day on PTI, they were talking about a story that pointed out that Andrew Luck had better advanced stats than Robert Griffin III. Michael Wilbon said that it was easy to go by the stats, and harder to watch the game and think for yourself.

Let's think about that for a second: A prominent sports writer - an incredibly smart and gifted writer - said that it was easy to break down advanced stats and hard to sit back and watch a game on TV.

The fact is, journalists are scared of math. We hate it. It's true. We're word people, not numbers people. We did great in English and passable in math. We like the poetry of words, the universal nature of narratives. We don't like numbers, because math is hard for us, and it's not our native language. I'm generalizing, but there used to be a web site called "math for journalists" for a reason.

But with the vast amounts of data that's available, we can't afford to be afraid of math. We can't hate math and statistics anymore (I know they're not the same thing). Sure, sometimes statistics can infringe upon the poetry of a baseball game. Sometimes, statistics can contradict what we think, or what we want to think. But it can also enhance our understanding of a story. It can explain why a team is doing well, or why a team's success is so stunning and interesting. The math can help make the poetry a little prettier.

In political journalism, in sports journalism, it doesn't have to be an either-or debate. We shouldn't  have to pick between statistics and gut feelings.

Doing so just diminishes our product. It gives our readers a lesser product.

The NY Post/Daily News Caravan of Hope

Unconfirmed rumors and Twitter journalism

When I was in journalism school back in the 1990s, there was a formula we learned that defined the reporting process: Gather, sort, report. We were taught to first gather all the information we needed for a story, then sort it (organize it, structure it, etc.), and then write the story or go on the air. One of the main ways journalism is changing in the digital age, especially with Twitter, is what's called "news as process." Rather than building a reporters' work around one story, a reporter's work is structured around publishing the story piecemeal, as it happens. The process is the story. One way of looking at it is that it turns around the formula I learned 15 years ago. It's not gather, sort, report. It's gather, report, sort. You get information, you report what you hear, and then you sort it into a story, either for print or to post online.

It's easy to criticize this. But if we're being honest, this is happening because it's how we're consuming news. We're more likely to consume news in bits, as it happens, rather than wait for the one story at the end of the day or first thing in the morning.

But there's a dark side to news as process. People can stretch that and think that throwing things out into the marketplace of idea counts as journalism, or that it's OK to publish anything because it's part of the "process."

Which is how we get to this idiot.

Dan Tordjman is a TV reporter in North Carolina. On Wednesday afternoon, he posted this to his Twitter account (which used to be public but is now private and locked down):  "Can’t confirm this but I’m hearing that Robinson #Cano tested positive for PEDs. Announcement from #MLB coming shortly.#Yankees"

A little while later, he followed up with: "Take a deep breath folks. I stated I “could not confirm” the #CanoPED report. Just.a rumor. Stay tuned. #MLB." He later asked everyone to calm down, that he had just posted an "uncofirmed rumor".

(Note: Because his account is now private, I couldn't access the actual Tweets, even though I tried to bookmark them. Big props to The Big Lead for posting them earlier.)

OK ...

First of all, I thought all rumors were unconfirmed. In fact, I think rumors are pretty much by definition unconfirmed. Moving on ...

This is perhaps the most irresponsible act of alleged journalism I've seen on Twitter. To publish an unconfirmed rumor accusing a player of using performance-enhancing drugs and to admit that it is unconfirmed is ... it's unthinkable to anyone who has ever cared about this business. It's terrible. It's mortifying. It's awful. It's embarrassing for the entire business. If you can't confirm something, why are you reporting it? Why aren't you confirming it?

Here's the thing, though: No matter what anybody says this week, this is not an indictment of Twitter journalism, or social media. It's an indictment of lazy journalism. It's an indictment of somebody who heard a rumor and instead of following up on it , making some phone calls, checking what people are saying on Twitter (you know, doing actual reporting), decided to post it on Twitter. Because it's just Twitter, it's fine. And hey, I labeled it as unconfirmed, so it's cool.

It's an indictment of somebody who was going for, in the words of Jay Rosen, an "ego-scoop" rather than doing real work to benefit his audience.

As a reporter, all you have is your credibility. All you have is the audience's trust and belief that you're getting things right. I hope Dan never has a real scoop, because if he does, who's going to believe him?

There is wonderful journalism happening on social media these days. But every time something like this happens, every time somebody thinks "news as process" means "put everything I've heard out there in case it turns out to be right and then I'll look awesome," it just gives fodder to people who mistakenly think this is not a platform for real reporting.

Three years after -30-

It was early in baseball season — May 2006, I think. My first year covering the Double-A Binghamton Mets. A little bit before the game started, I got an IM from my girlfriend (now wife) with a video clip of her niece (now my niece) performing in a dance recital. As the grounds crew watered the infield and the crowd started to file into the stadium, I watched my niece dance. And mixed in with pride was a wave of sadness.

Would this be how I connected with my daughter some day? Would I be watching her dance recitals on a laptop in the press box rather than from the front row? --- Three years ago today, I walked out of the Press & Sun-Bulletin's newsroom for the last time, ending my career as a sports writer. I still love my farewell blog post, because it so accurately captures my feelings at the time.

Leaving that job was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

It's also the third best decision of my life, behind only asking my wife to marry me and our decision to have our daughter.

Funny how the decisions that are so hard at the time turn out to be such no-brainers in hindsight. --- It was early in baseball season — now, it's 2007. My fiancee (now wife) and I went to visit one of her former college journalism professors and a classmate. We spent the night at a bar in the middle of Madison County, not far from Turning Stone Casino, sharing stories long into the night over excellent wings and plenty of beer.

Watching the three of them — my fiancee (now wife), her friend and their old professor — I was inspired. The bond that they had, the connection between student and professor, ran so deep, was so real. It reminded me of my connections with my favorite professors. It had nothing to do with how well they were prepared for the job market, or what kind of success they had had. It was a real, personal bond.

Watching the three of them, I realized how much I wanted to teach. --- Do you miss it?

I used to get that question a lot. Now, not so much, but in that first year or two, people would ask me if I missed being in the newsroom, missed being on the beat.

There are only two times I've truly missed it. The first was September 2009, when the Binghamton University men's basketball team began to implode in scandal. I've got a thing for covering college sports scandals, and this was a good one. Every day brought a new revelation, a new piece of the story. While that was breaking, I missed it. I missed being in the middle of a story, trying to track down the source you need, trying to confirm the rumor you've read online or heard from somebody on the desk. "The chase" is how Charlie Jaworski, my old editor in Binghamton, referred to it. And dammit, it was intoxicating.

Of course, not being at the paper allowed me to attend a U2 concert and spend a weekend with my wife (now wife) instead of spending all hours on the phone or the computer ...

The other time I've missed it? The first Thursday of the NCAA Tournament. God, that's such a fun day to be a college basketball reporter.

Otherwise?

I miss parts of it. I miss writing every day. I miss the moment when you're writing a story and suddenly the whole thing makes sense, everything unfolding in front of you like a chess board. I miss writing on deadline, pounding out a story in 15 minutes, so focused on my keyboard that I never once saw the fireworks that the B-Mets often had after games. I miss the small level of celebrity that being a reporter brought. I miss the camaraderie of the old newsroom.

---

Let's get real for a second:

One of the reasons I left was that I wasn't good enough to move up the career ladder anymore. Let's be honest. This isn't self-deprecation or a ploy to get compliments. I wasn't good enough for the big leagues of journalism. I didn't have it. I've been told that I didn't have enough asshole in me to be a truly great reporter, and it's true. I hate making people mad. I didn't have the ability to do that job at the highest levels.

That started becoming clear to me around 2008, 2009.

It was around that time that things started to go from kind of bad to really bad in our industry. By that point, moving up in the industry was already difficult. Fewer jobs were available. Bigger papers weren't hiring feature writers anymore. More beats were being consolidated, so there were fewer beat jobs. The ones that were out there got hundreds of applicants.

But things kept getting worse. The layoffs started, followed by the furloughs. Wondering every six months if you were still going to have a job was bad enough. Wondering every six months if you were still going to have a job while trying to figure out how to make ends meet when you lose a week of pay each quarter. Then the job cuts kept coming. The industry still hasn't figured itself out.

More striking — it stopped being fun.

The newsrooms I worked in used to be fantastic, vital places. There was an energy to the room, especially when news was breaking. Being a reporter could be, above all else, fun.

That was long gone by 2009. The layoffs, the furloughs, the space cuts, all of it, sucked the life out of the room, out of the industry.

For this, I blame newspaper owners. By their actions, by their slavish devotion to print profit margins at any cost, by their desire to maximize profit while minimizing the quality of the product, by their inability or unwillingness to embrace digital news, they have sucked so much of the soul out of a business I love.

It's telling that when anyone leaves the business, my first reaction (and that of almost everyone else I know) is "Good move. Smart decision." ---

But more than any of that, more than the economic problems of the industry or the changing culture of newsrooms, it wasn't just that the industry had changed or that the job had changed. I had changed.

Being a sports reporter had been my dream job since I was 18. But dreams change. There's a great line in High Fidelity, where Laura tells Rob "You have to allow things to happen to people, most importantly yourself." Gradually, I realized I didn't want to be a reporter anymore. I didn't want to be a beat writer first and a husband (and father) second. I know a lot of reporters who can do that balance and do so marvelously. But I couldn't — or, more accurately, I didn't want to. I didn't want to spend my nights at stadiums and gyms anymore. That night with my wife's former professor inspired me. I found myself being drawn more to the notion of being a professor than of being a reporter. That excited me far more than writing for a news organization.

I wasn't 18 anymore. It was time to put the dreams of that 18-year-old, and the dreams others had for me, to rest.

I had new dreams to follow. ---

Monday nights this semester, I have a late class that runs until 8 p.m. During the class' break the other day, I got a text from my wife. It was a video of our daughter, nearly 2 years old, saying "Hi, Daddy" and then leaning in to give the phone a kiss.

After steadying my knees and stopping myself from bursting into tears in the Newhouse 1 men's room, I flashed back to that video of my now-niece at the dance recital. Here I was, working late, getting videos sent to me of things I was missing. Have things changed at all?

But this feels different. Being in school has given me the chance to be at home with our daughter most days since she was born. (And I can't complain at all, when my wife works nine-hour days supporting our family while I'm in school. She's making the real sacrifice, and I'm in awe of it daily.)

This didn't feel like anything I was missing.

This felt like something waiting for me. Something new. Something good.

It felt like the future.

-30-

Syracuse, Harrisburg and the problem with newspaper ownership

The news is unsurprising but still a bit of a shock to see. Both The Post Standard in Syracuse and The Patriot News in Harrisburg, Pa. are adopting new, reduced print schedules. The Post-Standard will still print seven days a week, but only three of them will be for home delivery. The other four days will be smaller editions in Onondaga County. This will likely lead to job cuts at both papers. It's the latest move from Newhouse/Advance, which announced a similar move in New Orleans and Alabama earlier this summer (full-disclosure: I attend the S.I. Newhouse School for Public Communications at Syracuse University).

(Naturally, there will be the same kind of natural uproar over the Syracuse paper as there was over New Orleans. I know everyone loves New Orleans, New Orleans is cool, but that city has no more natural right to a daily home-delivered newspaper than snowy Syracuse, right? I'll wait for the petitions to start, for the famous national writers to chime in ...I digress)

In a lot of ways, this move is inevitable. It makes sense. And it's the right move. If you're upset about it, answer me this: When was the last time you bought a print newspaper? If you're a subscriber, good on ya. But if you're like me, you read the news online or on a mobile device. Your sadness is, on some level, about nostalgia as anything else.

Nostalgia's not a business strategy. The media world has changed, and continues to evolve. Digital isn't our future. Digital is our present. All of us in the industry - writers, editors, teachers, researchers, consumers - need to think like this. Newspapers are becoming news organizations. That's the evolution of the industry. All of us who read news online, we're part of the reason that's happening.

The problem isn't the fake print vs. digital dichotomy. The problem is media ownership. The problem is an ownership mentality that has tried to cling to old business models without creating sustainable new ones. The problem is an ownership mentality that looks at digital news and sees not limitless potential but only a way to cut overall costs. The problem is an ownership mentality that views digital news as an excuse for cutbacks, layoffs, furloughs and other job losses, draining newsrooms of talent and vitality.

There's no reason why a digital newsroom must be a barebones, barely staffed place churning out copy for page views. There's no reason why a digital newsroom can't be the kind of vital, electric room that anyone in newspapers fell in love with and that creates reporting that's meaningful to readers.

But as long as newspaper ownership views digital as an excuse for a cheap product put out by the leanest staff possible, there's no reason it will happen.

Final post to the Press & Sun-Bulletin

(Reprinted from pressconnects.com). This has been one of the hardest sentences I've ever had to type. I've spent the last couple days starting, stopping, starting again. I've worn out the backspace key on three computers. It's been a challenge to find the right notes, to get the words right.

Saying good-bye is never easy. It’s not supposed to be. If it is, something’s wrong.

First, the facts: This is my last day as a full-time employee of the Press & Sun-Bulletin, my last post as Binghamton Mets/Binghamton University beat writer. A new opportunity has arisen, a chance to study at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Opportunities like this don't come around too often, and when they do, you've got to take them.

But moving forward also means you're leaving something behind. I'm leaving what was, in many ways, my dream job, the gig I've wanted since I was old enough to read. They pay me to go to baseball games, basketball games, and write about them afterwards? Seriously? How great is that?

I'll miss the games - the great ones, the lousy ones, the meh ones. As he usually does, Charles Pierce wrote it best: Thousands of actors have played Hamlet, but Hamlet always dies. Every game is a unique piece of theater.

I'll leave with the memories. Of snowy trips to Orono, Maine and sweltering afternoons at En-Joie. Of Shea Stadium and Greensboro Coliseum. Of Mike Gordon winning the game with the single coolest play I've ever seen. Of Daniel Murphy's swing, Mike Pelfrey's fastball, Jon Niese's curveball, Carlos Gomez's speed around the bases. Of that Saturday morning in March, when the Events Center floor shook and they cut down the nets. Of the night the coaches fought at the Events Center, and the night the managers brawled at NYSEG Stadium, of Tony Bernazard's meltdown and the story that raised so many questions about the Bearcats.

I'll miss Scotty Brown's incurable friendliness, Steve Kraly's old-school wisdom, the insights of Sebastian Hermenier and the singular grace and class of hall-of-famer Roger Neel. I'll miss talking baseball with Juan Samuel and Mako Oliveras, hoops with Kevin Broadus and Al Walker. I'll miss everyone I've had the privilege of shared press row, press box or media tent with.

I'll miss the room. The newsroom on the Parkway. It's no secret that this is a tough time for our business. But this room is still filled with some of the best and brightest - particularly the guys the sports department who don’t get a byline but saved me from looking stupid on a nightly basis. It’s a room that, when the day is right, still cackles with the kind of energy that reminds you how this is still a business that gets into your blood.

It’s the room where I met my wife.

And l’ll miss all of you, who've read the paper and the Web site, who've let me into your lives and your kids’ lives and trusted me with your stories. All of you who've followed me on Twitter, and all of you who've answered the question, what's everyone else think?

Thanks. It's been an honor writing for you.

(originally posted on pressconnects.com, Aug. 29, 2009)

Why are you there?

Professor Jeff Jarvis wrote a marvelous post over the weekend questioning why reporters are in Tampa covering the Republican National Convention. The point is: What work are reporters doing there that justifies the expense of sending them there rather than using that money elsewhere in the newsroom? "We can see whatever we want to see on C-SPAN ...Commentary? There’ll be more than we can possibly use this year on Twitter and Google+ and blogs and everywhere. We don’t need to pundits’ palaver. Citizens will comment this year. So enjoy yourself, hacks. You’re living off the last dollars of your business. And for what? Tradition? Where has that gotten us?"

(I'd point the question more toward editors, who make the coverage decisions, rather than reporters. A good reporter will always want to be near the big story. It's the editors who make the decision, not reporters).

This post came out the same week that the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune announced that they would not be sending their Mariners beat writers on the road the remainder of the season. "Like all news organizations, we try to get the biggest bang for our limited dollars," Times editor Don Shelton wrote Deadspin in an email.

As a former beat writer, of course I think beat writers should attend as many games as possible. Watching on TV or online isn't the same. You're at the mercy of the TV director, not your own eyes. Yes, the press conference may be streamed. But if you're not there, you forfeit your ability to ask questions, which is kind of what we do for a living. Our main advantage as newspapers/news organizations is being where the fans are not, using all of our senses to find the story. Barry Petchesky writes it best:

"The beat guy's job is different. He's in the locker room every day, making friends, learning secrets and gaining trust. He's tipping off his paper's other reporters and columnists to the real juicy stuff, the stuff he can't write himself without poisoning his relationships. He's there to notice trends from at-bat to at-bat, game to game, month-to-month. All the rewritten wire copy in the world isn't going to replace someone whose informed context gives a gamer meaning."

But Professor Jarvis' question is always worth asking.

Why are you there?

Why are you covering this game? Why are you making that road trip. Why are you sending your columnist to Augusta, to the Super Bowl, to the Olympics?

Is doing so in the best interest of the readers? Is your writer/reporter really giving providing the kind of content that relies on all of their senses? Is he or she giving your readers a story that they can't get anywhere else? Or are they doing the kind of commentary/writing/reporting that could be done by anyone watching the game on an HD TV?

It's hard to ask those questions. But this is a time when we in the media have to ask hard questions of ourselves? We can't pretend it's 1983 or 1997 any more. Every decision we make, every story we write, every choice we make, we have to keep our readers' best interests in mind. We have to ask ourselves the question Professor Jarvis asks reporters at the RNC.

Why are you there?

The danger of "People don't care"

Last week, Yahoo broke a story about accusations of fraud leveled against NFL agent Drew Rosenhouse by one of his company's former vice presidents. The Big Lead wondered last week why the story wasn't getting more attention in the mainstream NFL press. He e-mailed Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk. Florio's answer to The Big Lead: A mainstream NFL audience doesn’t care about pissing matches between agents over money. If there’s a physical altercation between agents or if an agent is arrested or if an agent runs down the street drunk or naked or both, then it registers on the radar screen.  The overriding goal is to write what I think people want to read, not what I think a handful of agents or anyone else wants me to write.”

Now, let's set aside the access issue for a second, the belief/hint that reporters like Florio (and Peter King and the ESPN guys, all referenced in The Big Lead's post) rely on agents like Rosenhouse as sources for stories, and that reporting these allegations would jeopardize that access.

What stands out is Florio's quote. He's not writing about it because people don't care.

There's no quicker way to shoot down a potential story than those three words. Of all the dimensions of newsworthiness that scholars have identified throughout the years, relevancy is one of the most important. For a story to get covered, journalists have to think people will care about it.

The problem with this, of course, is that it creates such a slippery slope. Why cover women's sports? People don't care. Why cover concussions in the NFL? People don't care. Why keep writing about PEDs in sports? People don't care. Why worry about whether college athletes should be paid? People don't care.

Why cover a third-rate burglary in Washington D.C. People don't care.

It's such a sucker's argument, and a dangerous assumption for anyone in the media to make. Our job in the press is not just to present what people do care about. It's also to present what people should care about. Maybe a "passing match between agents over money." is not a big story. But maybe it is. Maybe it influences which players sign with which agents, which can affect which team they go to, which can affect which teams win or lose, which can affect which teams get new taxpayer-funded stadiums and which ones move to new cities.

Maybe Florio's right. Maybe people don't care.

But that alone doesn't mean it's a story that should be ignored.

JoePa and JoePos

On Nov. 4, 2011, Joe Paterno was a nominee for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The main library at Penn State was named for him, and a statue of him stood in front of the football stadium. He was admired by American presidents — Republican and Democrat — and beloved by business leaders and clergy, football junkies and academics. There had been countless glowing stories written and told about him. 60 Minutes had done a piece on him so favorable that Paterno himself claimed to be embarrassed by it. Sports Illustrated had named him Sportsman of the Year. The Big Ten Conference named a trophy after him. Paterno had won more games than any big-time football coach ever and was on any short list of the greatest coaches ever. People called him Saint Joe, and only in recent years — as Paterno got older and crankier and less effective — had there even been much sarcasm in the title. That’s how it was on Nov. 4.

- Joe Posnanski

I should start this off by saying I have been a long-time fan of Joe Posnanski. He's been one of the better sportswriters in America for a number of years. He's as lyrical a writer as there as, and he was also one of the first mainstream writers to embrace advance stats in baseball. I'm friends with him on Facebook, though I've never met him face-to-face (and he has about 5,000 friends on Facebook).

Ever since the Penn State scandal exploded, I've felt bad for Posnanski in a way. He was in State College researching a biography on Paterno when, suddenly, Paterno's biography changed. Now, anything Posnanski wrote would be scrutinized like never before. Anything short of a confesson or admonition would leave him accused of being an apologist. I'm surprised that he didn't drop the project after the story broke. There would have been no shame, at least to me, in saying "This is no longer the same project that I began working on, and I feel like it's best served to put the project on hold."

I haven't read his book yet, but there's one scene making the rounds in the reviews that struck me:

“So, what do you think of all this?”

I told him that it was crazy, but that was not what he was asking.

“What do you think of all this?” he asked me again.

I had not intended to include this in the book. It was a personal moment between writer and subject, but as the story has played out, I decided it was important. I told him that I thought he should have done more when he was told about Jerry Sandusky showering with a boy. I had heard what he had said about not understanding the severity, not knowing much about child molestation, not having Sandusky as an employee. But, I said, “You are Joe Paterno. Right or wrong, people expect more from you.”

He nodded. He did not try to defend or deflect. He simply said, “I wish I had done more,” again .

(emphasis added).

Of course, that last line begs for the follow-up question we're all asking: "Why didn't you?" Those three words are the crux of this story. Why didn't Joe Paterno do more? He had his reasons, but what were they? I understand the reluctance to ask such a probing question giving the setting - the kitchen table of a man dying of lung cancer (I've asked myself if I'd have been able to ask the follow up, and I can't honestly say, with 100 percent certainty, that I would have) - but it's the question that, for now, remains unasked and unanswered.

I also want to focus on that part of the excerpt that I bolded. About Posnanski not wanting to put this scene in the book because it was a personal moment.

We're taught that often in journalism. Keep yourself out of the story. You are not the story. It's a norm in our business. And with good reason. But there are exceptions to almost every rule, and this was one of them.

I'm shy about telling another writer what they should have written, especially one as good as Posnanski. But I think there's a wonderful book in this struggle to reconcile the Joe Paterno beloved by Penn State fans and the one reviled by so many now. In the struggle between the Paterno of Nov. 4 and the Paterno of Nov. 5.

There's no shame in admitting that's a struggle. Does his inaction in the Sandusky case negate all the good he did over the years? How do you reconcile these two poles?

I'm interested to read Posnanski's book about Paterno. But I would be fascinated to read a book about Posnanski's struggles in writing about Paterno.

In this case, the writer can be the story. And I think it would be an illuminating one.