The influence of George Vecsey

If I was going to list the books that were most influential in my career and my life, I think a rather obscure one would top the list: "A Year in the Sun" by George Vecsey. A week ago, if you had asked me that question, I would have answered "Sports Guy," Charles Pierce's anthology of sports writing, because it showed me the kind of writer I wanted to be. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it's Vecsey's book.

My mom got it for me when I was in high school at one of those bulk book sales. It's a diary of sorts of Vecsey's 1986, his travels, his writings, kind of a behind-the-scenes look at his life as a New York Times' columnist.

Even before I wanted to be a sports writer, that book influenced me and gave me my first look at life in sports media. Now, all these years later, I'm not a reporter anymore. But if I trace my interest in researching journalists' routines, this book - with its explanations of how Vecsey conceived, reported and wrote his columns - has to be at the root of it.

As wonderful a columnist as he was, he was a classier man. I e-mailed him not long after I got hired in Binghamton to thank him for the book, which led me into journalism. He responded immediately with extraordinarily kind and friendly note, inviting me to stop by and say hi if we shared a press box some day.

I never had the honor. And he is retiring now.

This week, he gave an interview to the The Morning Delivery. It's made some waves because he says, among other things, "There may not be much future for the kind of sports column I did" and that aspiring sports journalists should "minor in something else." (He also makes an unfortunate "bloggers-as-guys-in-their-underwear." At least he had them writing in their dens, not their mothers' basement).

Now, this is nothing new. In fact, in Vecsey's book, he writes that he would tell journalism students to try to find a non-newspaper job. This was in the mid-1980s. Way before the internet. Old reporters are always telling young people to stay out of the business, especially now. Let's be honest, a.) they want to keep their jobs and b.) being a sports reporter/columnist can be a brutal job. It can be the best job in the world - you are being paid to cover sports - but the hours are long and hard, the travel can be tiring and keep you away from your family, nowadays you're under the constant threat of layoffs and furloughs and pay cuts and getting beat by some guy on Twitter with a hunch and a faster internet connection.

But the naive, idealistic part of me thinks that there may be room for the kind of sports column Vecsey did. I believe in a large marketplace of ideas. I think that assuming "readers" are a one-size-fits-all group is dangerous and wrong. I think people can like different things on different days. I think there is enough room for Deadspin, Kissing Suzy Kolber, The New York Times and The Post. What makes the internet such a strong news source is that there is room for everyone.

I hope there's still a place in our sports culture for the thoughtful, measured commentary and storytelling that Vecsey brought.

I truly hope there's still a place for someone with his class, his thoughtfulness, his kindness.

The day that's the case is a truly sad day for our business.

Tim Tebow, soccer fans and social-media experts

A few weeks ago, I made the following analogy on Twitter - and Kate Brodock of Syracuse University suggested I turn it into a blog post. Soccer fans = Tim Tebow fans = social media experts.

Now, of course there are exceptions to every rule. This doesn't apply to all soccer fans/Tim Tebow fans/social media experts. But here's what I mean:

All three groups are passionate about their topic. The subjects of all three are often marginalized, covered in a overly critical manner or just looked down on by the establishment - be it the sports media establishment in soccer, pro football "experts" with Tebow and traditional media outlets with social media experts.

In turn, all three turn so passionate about their subject, they become almost evangelical. In their eyes, there is nothing bad about soccer, about Tim Tebow, about social media.

If you criticize it, you're not just wrong. You just don't get it. You are a hater. You are a dinosaur. You are an ugly American. You have a closed mind.

In turn, any kind of criticism seems to be delivered softly. "It's not that I hate soccer … yes, Tim Tebow is a winner everywhere he goes … yes, social media is becoming important … " Which also means that any criticism or honest questions or honest debate about the subjects get shouted down in blur of "You just don't get it …"

---

I'm far more fascinated by the media coverage of Tim Tebow than I am by either soccer or social media. The coverage of him seems to combine the atypical quarterback-angle of a Cam Newton or Donovan McNab, combined with the Great White Hope angle of Doug Flutie, mixed with the intangibles, "He's a winner" angle of Derek Jeter.

But more fascinating is the religion angle.

Tebow's devout, evangelical Christian faith is a major part of who he is, of his popularity and a major part of his coverage. Witness any columnist who criticizes Tebow and how he or she will hedge it with a "This is not about his faith …" and then inevitably there's a response column when he or she answers messages criticizing him for being anti-Christian.

I don't subscribe to the persecuted Christian in America storyline that seems to pop up every now and then, especially when some clerk says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Let's be honest - to paraphrase a post on sportsjournalists.com, if American religious life was a football game, Christianity would be ahead 59-3 in the fourth quarter and still have the starters in.

But traditional media doesn't do religion well  (a point brought up by Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead on Twitter) - and this is especially true of sports media. Part of it, I think, is the nature of the type of person who becomes a reporter. A reporter has to be, by nature, a skeptic. someone who needs proof, who needs confirmation, who needs to see it to believe it. Faith is the opposite of that. Faith is belief in things unseen. Blessed are they who haven't seen and yet believe, Jesus said to Thomas (the doubter, also my confirmation name. Clearly, there's something to the fact that I picked that name before picking a career in the media).

The skepticism is well deserved. How many public displays of faith have we seen from people using their religion as a cover? The notion of winning a football game because you prayed is hard to fathom (the whole "what if someone on the other team prayed to win, too?" question). And for those of us who believe that you should lock your door and pray in secret where only He can see us, public displays of faith are off-putting - even if genuine and heartfelt.

I've always wondered why so many Tebow fans assume he's being criticized because of his faith. And I'm not talking about specific criticism of his faith, like Jake Cutler's a few weeks ago. I'm talking any criticism of his game. Why do some fans believe that's supposedly motivated by an anti-Christian belief? It's a question I'm genuinely curious about, one I'd love an answer to.

For someone who's been in the spotlight for a long time, Tebow's a bit of a novelty in NFL terms. He's started six games, and he's made all of them fun, must-see events. I'm interested to see how the coverage of Tebow evolves as he becomes more established in the NFL. Will the novelty wear off? Will the reflexive, cliched "He's a winner" storyline morph into a breakdown of the specifics that make him successful? And will Tebow's faith continue to shape the narrative or just a part of it?

A view from a Syracuse Ph.D student

Scandal seems to follow me. After graduating from St. Bonaventure in 1999, I covered the school's basketbal team for five years - including the infamous welding certificate scandal that was the biggest story of my career. After leaving Olean, I spent five years covering Binghamton University basketball - which exploded in scandal a month after I returned to grad school.

In May I earned a Masters' degree, and I'm currently a doctoral student at Syracuse University, which is in a bit of a mess.

One of the other schools I applied to for doctoral programs, one I seriously considered?

Penn State.

---

I feel compelled to write something about the ongoing Bernie Fine scandal at SU. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm the wrong person to do it. Being a graduate student at a school is far different than being an undergrad, at least from my perspective. Part of it is, no doubt, my situation. I live an hour away with my family, so I'm only on campus a few days a week.

But there's also a vast difference between grad school and undergrad. When you're an undergrad, your identity tends to be wrapped around your school. It's the first place you've lived on your own. You are at school, 24/7. Your life is wrapped in the cloak of the school, including its sports teams. Your school isn't some place you go for four years. In a lot of ways, it becomes a major part of your identity. It becomes who you are. (Sidenote: I have this idea that college sports fandom, and by extension media coverage, is fueled by nostalgia for the viewers' college experience.)

Grad school is different. It's more of a job. This has been especially true at the doctoral level. The grind of classes, projects, papers, conference deadlines, publication submissions and Foucault, dear God, Foucault, is what overtakes you. It's more about your own work and research than the school you're at. (It doesn't hurt that, at SU, the athletics offices are mainly on South Campus, a half mile from the main campus. Aside from the Carrier Dome, there are no visible signs of athletics on campus).

So when a scandal hits the school you did your undergrad at, it hits you harder. It cuts to a part of how you identify yourself, both to yourself and to the world at large. You endure jokes and snide comments from co-workers (to this day, I still get welding jokes). To see your school on the ticker on ESPN or CNN, to see reporters dig up unsavory facts about your school, to hear national pundits rip the school and its reputation, can be crushing. It makes you want to say "That's not us! We're not the scandal!"

And of course, that's true. Any university is a collage of many pieces. At Syracuse, at St. Bonaventure, at Penn State, at every school there's an athletics' scandal, there is world-class research being done, world-class teaching going on. Students' lives are being changed for the better. The work my doctoral colleagues are doing, the work of the faculty at SU, isn't materially diminished by what Bernie Fine allegedly did.

But perception is reality. This is the price we pay for having high-profile, big-time college sports. Fair or not, Jim Boeheim is the face of Syracuse University. If we want to cheer our football teams on Saturdays, if we want to watch our teams in the NCAA Tournament, then we have to know that if a scandal strikes our sports teams, that reflects on the school. You can't have it both ways.

As I said, I don't have much of an opinion on the scandal or its impact on the school.Whether or not Boeheim gets fired because of this will not make Foucault any easier to understand. To me, it's a fascinating story on a lot of levels, but not one that strikes a deep, emotional cord.

But it's still weird to see so many satellite trucks on campus.

---

There has been some exceptional journalism this past month, especially on the local level. The Harrisburg Patriot-News and the Syracuse Post-Standard have done wonderful work, and it's been wonderful to see the crime reporter of a central Pennsylvania daily become a media star. At a time when people foolishly claim journalism is dying, it's a welcome reminder that not all great journalism is done by the New York Times.

That being said, there are questions arising about the Post-Standard and ESPN's handling of the tape featuring Bernie Fine's wife and one of the accusers and why they didn't report it eight years ago. I'm not going to try to speculate as to why. But I hope the news outlets welcome the questions and give honest answers. It won't convince everyone - especially when the alleged crimes are this heinous. Reason (and so often, the 6th amendment) go out the window in cases like this, understandably so.

But it's what news outlets should do, especially in this new media age. Don't hide. Don't shrink or get defensive. Be open, be honest, welcome questions and skeptics.

Fried chicken, beer and anonymous sources

There have been many, many words typed over the last week over Bob Hohler's story in the Boston Globe about the Red Sox's epic collapse at the end of the baseball season. And so I thought, here's an overcrowded marketplace of ideas ... me, too! First of all, some disclosure: A former colleague of mine at the Binghamton newspaper and a friend of mine, Scott Lauber, covers the Red Sox for the Boston Herald, the Globe's competition.

On to the story. First of all, there are two bombshell accusations (for lack of a better word) in the story. The first is the fried chicken/beer/video game habits of starters Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey. The second is manager Terry Francona's alleged marital and prescription drug problems. As many people have said, if the Red Sox had played better in one more game in September, the pitchers' behavior may have been an example of a loose clubhouse rather than players not dedicated to the cause.

To me, it was interesting that the story led with the fried chicken/beer/video games rather than the alleged drug problem of the manager. If you compare the two, there's no doubt which is more sensationalistic, more headline provoking. My theory on this (and it's my own conjecture) is that it's because Francona spoke to the reporter and denied the allegations. There is no denial of the fried chicken/beer/video game portion of the story, so that's the lede.

One more point on the players' behavior: Here's the actual paragraph from the story. It's the second graf of the piece:

Instead, Boston’s three elite starters went soft, their pitching as anemic as their work ethic. The indifference of Beckett, Lester, and Lackey in a time of crisis can be seen in what team sources say became their habit of drinking beer, eating fast-food fried chicken, and playing video games in the clubhouse during games while their teammates tried to salvage a once-promising season.

Before we get to anything else, what makes this story so memorable are those details. It's not just that the Red Sox pitchers are accused of being selfish and lazy. They're allegedly drinking beer, eating friend chicken (note that it's fast-food fried chicken) and playing video games during games. That's why I tell students that details are so important to writing and journalism. Those three details capture the essence of the story better than anything else.

Now, on to the anonymous sources. Here's the line from the story itself:

“This article is based on a series of interviews the Globe conducted with individuals familiar with the Sox operation at all levels. Most requested anonymity out of concern for their jobs or potential damage to their relationships in the organization. Others refused to comment or did not respond to interview requests.”

Over at Grantland, Chris Jones and Jonah Keri had a fantastic discussion about this story and the use of anonymous sources. From Keri:

This story is hardly alone in using anonymous sources to gather key material. You see it all the time, especially in political reporting, but sometimes in sports journalism, too. By offering a shield of anonymity, the reporter gives his source a chance to say anything he wants about anyone he wants without any accountability or concern for consequences. We can’t verify the motivation of the sources, because we don’t know who the sources are. And when we’re groping in the dark that way, it calls the veracity of the anonymously sourced article into question. ... Does this story qualify as important enough to the public interest that granting anonymity is justified, the way it would be if, say, corruption in the CIA were uncovered? One could argue that few matters are of greater public interest than baseball in Boston. I don’t share that view."

I disagree with Keri on the importance point. To agree with that is to say that nothing in sports rises to the necessary level of importance is a slippery slope. If you accept that, why have sports journalism in the first place? Why not just run the final scores? Why not have reporters act as cheerleaders instead of journalists (there are some who would argue that's always the case, but that's another study for another day). But the questions he raises about the sources are very good ones.

The general consensus is that this was Boston management leaking details which, as Keri and Jones point out, is horrible. Anonymous sources shouldn't be used to protect those in power. It should be used to protect whistleblowers, to give aid to those who are trying to get the truth out.

The thing is, we live in a media savvy age. It's telling that very quickly, people were publicly discussing who leaked the story, who the sources were. With this in mind, reporters need to be very careful in how they use anonymous sources. Here are the Society for Professional Journalists' ethical guidelines for anonymous sources:

— Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.

— Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.

These are good guidelines to keep in mind. Sometimes, anonymous sources are a necessary evil in journalism. But it's important to remember that using them will raise questions about your story, ones that you need to be willing and able to answer.

What's everyone else think of this story?

Buster Olney's routine

Those Guys Have All the Fun, the oral history of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, has been one of the biggest sports media books in some time (both in the pejorative sense and the literal sense, at 763 pages). While there aren't many surprises in the book, it's still a fascinating look at the growth and internal workings of the network. What stood out to me, though, was the one paragraph from Buster Olney in which he describes his daily work routine. From page 667 of the hardcover edition"

"I usually get up at 4:00 or 4:30 depending on what other responsibilities I have during the course of the day. I go newspaper by newspaper across the country, collecting the links. Most of the time I write the lead of my column in the morning. Sometimes you sort of play off whatever the news story of the day is. If there's some trade thing developing, you know, maybe something that's been reported on the night before, you sort of just rip off a lot of things that happen in the morning paper, collect all that, and put it out by 7:30. Then I start my day. I go up to Bristol, have Mike and Mike at 6:25 and 6:42, then do SportsCenter at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 and noon. Then here more reporting and planning the show. Baseball Tonight will be on from 7:00 to 8:00." (Emphasis is mine.)

Look that carefully. That's a 16-hour day (4 a.m. to 8 p.m.) every day. That's three hours in the morning of reading links, collecting links, writing a blog post and publishing it ... and then he starts his day. Remember, too, this is one of the most-respected baseball writers in the business, working for a company thousands of reporters would love to work for.

This is the life of a reporter in the new media world.

Yahoo!, newspapers, second-rate hacks and getting beat

There's no better feeling as a reporter than getting a scoop. I remember March of 2003, when I was covering St. Bonaventure basketball and the infamous welding scandal broke. I was the first reporter to interview Jamil Terrell's junior college coach, and I was the first reporter to report that he had informed St. Bonaventure coaches and officials that Terrell's welding certificate would not normally make him eligible by NCAA rules. I remember reading the Buffalo News the next morning and not seeing quotes from Gerald Cox and smiling.

There's no worse feeling as a reporter than getting scooped.

It happened to me twice in my final year in Binghamton. First, Pete Thamel wrote an expose of the troubling signs surrounding the Binghamton University basketball team, which I was covering at the time. I remember waiting for weeks for that story to come out (I know Pete professionally, and had seen him at a few BU games), talking to sources, trying to figure out what he was going to report. I remember the sinking feeling reading the story, the scramble the next day trying to write the me-too story, the chewing out I got from my boss.

A few months later, Adam Rubin broke the story that then-New York Mets official Tony Bernazard had challenged members of the Binghamton Mets to a fight in the clubhouse. I had been in the clubhouse that night (it was closed for the fight-challenging portion of the evening) and around the team for a week before the story broke, and I hadn't heard one thing about it. Of all my professional embarrassments, getting beat on this story is my biggest one. Again, the sinking feeling, the next-day scramble, the chewing-out.

---

In light of the awesome Yahoo story this week on the University of Miami (seriously, how amazing is that?), I can't help but think about the beat guys at the Miami papers. About how it must have felt to them to see that story, broken under their noses.

There's an excellent thread on SportsJournalists.com about the journalism of this story, how newspapers couldn't have done a story like this, how the Miami Herald could get beat so bad when they had a snippet of the story a year ago. Chris Jones, one of my favorite writers, had a related Twitter rant:

"And we wonder why newspapers are dying: because too often, they can't or won't do the heavy lifting anymore...

Leaving it to someone else to come in and steal the story out from under them. That's bad for journalism, and it's bad for business. When young writers ask me where I find my ideas for features, I tell them: newspapers. So often they find the gold but don't dig it up. Steal from newspapers. Strip mine them, the way their owners have. In every issue, there will be a vein untapped. The last blood left. There remain great stories in newspapers, and great writers working for them. But many stories are left half-done or undone. TAKE 'EM."

---

You can look at the following as either an excuse or an explanation. It either explains why I was unable to get the big story, or it's an excuse offered a second-rate hack who got beat. But let's take the story that Thamel dusted me on - and I give all credit to him for this. There are no sour grapes, no bitterness. He beat me.

At the time, I was covering a Division-I men's basketball team, home and away. I was covering a D-I women's basketball team, in fact an entire D-I program (I was responsible for keeping up with all the sports). I was covering a local community college, a local Christian college, writing a weekly column about local athletes playing college ball elsewhere and helping cover all our high school sports. All of that meant I was in the office for between 6-8 hours a night three to four nights a week, taking results over the phone. Oh yeah, I was blogging as well. And the furloughs. Don't forget the furloughs. And since it was Gannett, I had to work 37.5 hours, on the dot. Any overtime had to be approved in advance. (We won't even get into the management policy of not using anonymous sources unless approved by the higher-ups).

You may consider it an excuse. You may consider it an explanation. I'm not asking for sympathy, not looking for a "there, there" pat on the back. But where, in that schedule, do I find the time to dig out an investigative story? Where do I find the time to compete with Thamel, who has the resources and time of the New York Times behind him, and who is 10 times better at the job than I could have ever hoped to be?

--- There's a writer I really like by the name of Merlin Mann. He writes a lot about time and attention issues. He has a line I like about priorities: If something's a priority, what would you allow to die for it? The point is, if something is really a priority (as opposed to, say, just something on your to-do list), you will sacrifice for it. You will sacrifice almost anything for it.

This is an issue newspapers are facing these days. It's easy to say that reporters and newspapers should dedicate more time and resources to investigative stories and less time to the mundane, day-to-day stories about who's battling to be the starting tight end. But as was pointed out on that SJ.com thread, the mundane, day-to-day stories about who's battling to be the starting tight end are important to fans. They like reading that stuff, they want to read that stuff, and reporters should provide that information. Plus, it's hard to ignore the fact that in this new era, what matters is page views - and the day-to-day stories can provide page views.

I'm not a fan of framing this solely as a "why can't newspapers do this" debate. To me, that denigrates what Robinson did. Journalism is journalism, no matter what platform. This wasn't a great piece of online journalism, it was a great piece of journalism.

I don't think it's just a time issue, either. This comes back to the excuse/explanation I offered earlier - "man, I just don't have the time to do this kind of work." I think that degrades the work Charles Robinson did on this story. If I played basketball every day for 30 years, I'd never be as good as Michael Jordan. If I worked on this story for 11 months, it wouldn't be half as good as Robinson's, because he's a better reporter than I am.

But at the same time to ignore the time issue or to brush it aside as the excuses offered by second-rate hacks ignores the reality of the news business these days. It's easy for us in the academy or the blogosphere to say this, but for the beat reporters, these time concerns are real.

In a perfect world, this wouldn't be an either-or situation. In a perfect world, there would be the ability to follow the investigative leads and do the day-to-day stuff.

It's not a perfect world. Sadly, newspapers have to make a choice. Resources are limited. Time is limited. Reporters are doing more (writing stories, blogging, tweeting, inexplicably doing videos for their websites). When you're grinding on a beat, and your boss expects you to be grinding on your beat and filling space and doing the work of the guy who got laid off and the woman who's on furlough, it's hard to convince yourself, your boss or anyone at the paper to give you time and money to look into a lead that may be the next investigative bombshell but may go nowhere.

There's no better feeling than scooping the competition. There's no worse feeling that getting scooped.

Unless it's the feeling of being scooped and feeling like you never had a chance in the first place.

Yahoo's brilliant journalism

Most of the time, movies do a terrible job portraying reporters at work. But two scenes have stood out to me as capturing the essence of reporting and journalism at the highest level. The first is at the beginning of All the Presidents Men, when Robert Redford/Bob Woodward works the phones, trying to find out who Howard Hunt is. (Hat tip to Mike Vaccaro for pointing out the genius of that scene to me). The second, and my favorite journalism scene in all of cinema, is in Shattered Glass (the movie about Stephen Glass' frauds at the New Republic), when Steve Zahn/Adam Penenberg (Forbes) detailed to his editor how he deconstructed the existence of Junk Micronics, one of the subjects of Glass' articles.

I apologize, I couldn't find the clips online. But I love them because they show the work. It shows how much time-consuming, detail-checking, shoe-leather pounding, work-the-phones-til-you-get-the-story work goes into journalism at its highest level. I feel like we forget that sometimes, or we think that doesn't matter in this new media age.

Enter Yahoo! and Charles Robinson's spectacular piece of reporting on the University of Miami. You've read it by now, and read the hundreds of reaction pieces. But let's look at it again.

Here's the lead:

KEARNY, N.J. – A University of Miami booster, incarcerated for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, has told Yahoo! Sports he provided thousands of impermissible benefits to at least 72 athletes from 2002 through 2010.

The technical term for that is a Holy Shit Lede. You read that, your jaw drops. But as you read the next few paragraphs, you begin to wonder. A college sports team cheating? No surprise - really, this is news? And the story is based on the testimony of a convicted felon, and admitted con man? Not really a trustworthy witness.

Then you get to the fourth paragraph. Oh god, the wonderful fourth paragraph:

In an effort to substantiate the booster’s claims, Yahoo! Sports audited approximately 20,000 pages of financial and business records from his bankruptcy case, more than 5,000 pages of cell phone records, multiple interview summaries tied to his federal Ponzi case, and more than 1,000 photos. Nearly 100 interviews were also conducted with individuals living in six different states. In the process, documents, photos and 21 human sources – including nine former Miami players or recruits, and one former coach – corroborated multiple parts of Shapiro’s rule-breaking.

That's Woodward on the phone, trying to figure out who this Howard Hunt guy is, taking a third-rate burglary into the defining moment of 20th century journalism. That's Adam Penenberg listing to his editor all the facts, all the calls he made, all the information he gathered to show that this dynamite story in the New Republic may just be a fake.

That is journalism, straight, no chaser.

That's the standard everyone in this business should strive for.

That is the definition of good reporting.

Jinxing ... er reporting ... a perfect game

For the most part, I don't believe in jinxes. I don't believe that the city of Buffalo or the Buffalo Bills are cursed or jinxed from winning. I'm growing to hate the "God hates (insert rust belt city) sports" meme that seems to be more and more popular these days.

Of course, I do believe in jinxes. I believe that the second you say "Wow, this game's moving pretty fast" is when you're begging for it to turn into a 6-hour, extra-inning marathon. I believe that the second you say "Man, the weather's great. I can't believe the rain missed us!" is when a cold front swoops in and it pours. It's a belief that was emboldened in my days as a baseball writer.

No, of course I don't really believe that one person's words can make a baseball game change course or the weather to change. It's more for fun than anything else.

I will now go outside, turn around three times and spit.

---

More than any other sport, baseball lends itself to jinxes and curses. And there's no more powerful one than not mentioning a no-hitter or perfect game while it's in progress. I saw this last week on Twitter, when CC Sabathia had a perfect game going for the Yankees against the Mariners. Several writers mentioned this and apparently were immediately inundated with fan complaints that they were jinxing the perfect game.

I've always thought this is nonsense. I have no problem with the clubhouse/dugout tradition of not mentioning it. That's fine. I have  problem if fans do it either. But to me, reporters and broadcasters have an obligation to the audience and to the truth, not to baseball superstition. Imagine if Sabathia had a perfect game going and no one mentioned it. How mad would fans be that they weren't told about this chance to see history?

Part of this lore, I think, comes from the fact (if we are to trust Wikipedia) that neither Red Barber nor Mel Allen mentioned the fact that Don Larsen was throwing a perfect game during the game itself.

I took this issue to three baseball media members I trust. Here are there answers:

Mike Harrington (@BNHarrington), Buffalo News baseball writer, BBWAA member, Atlantic 10 conference call legend.

"We have a duty to report the news, good-bad-indifferent. We are not part of the game. We are not in the superstition business. If a guy has a no-hitter going or a perfect game going, that's news. You're obligated to report it. If you don't, you're bereft in your duties.

"For fans to think that TV-radio announcers or tweeting newspaper men are impacting the game is utterly ridiculous. If a no-hitter is broken up, it's because a guy made a bad pitch or a hitter put a good swing on a ball. Someone talking about it had nothing to do with it.

"I get castigated on Twitter about this ALL THE TIME every time I mention a no-hitter is going. It's absolutely baffling to me. I expect people who follow the media to have a small modicum of understanding of my job. I'm still hopeful that if I didn't mention it, for every person who was happy I kept it quiet, there would be 10 who were really PO'd at me. But a lot of times I wonder."

Robert Ford (@raford3), Kansas City Royals pre- and post-game show host, blogger, fellow father of an Elena.

"In 7 years of minor-league broadcasting, I called two no-hitters. I spoke about both while they were going on, even offering historical perspective (e.g. last no-hitter by the team, last no-hitter in the league). If I jinxed a pitcher working on a no-hitter, I'd wonder how he heard me and why he was focused on what I was saying rather than what was going on in the game. Also, as a broadcaster, it's your responsibility to let fans know what's going on in the game. This is especially true in the minors, where there is little to no information about an in-progress game from sources other than the radio broadcast."

Mike Vacarro (@MikeVacc) NY Post columnist, author, journalism mentor, fellow Bonnie.

"I'd love to know where it comes from in terms of media involvement, but I guess like everything it's a byproduct of a 24/7 news access cycle. ... I'll say this: John Sterling, who has been accused of being earth's most shameless homer, always lets fans know if a guy's got a no-no after the fifth inning. Even the other night, when CC was perfect. I'm speeding toward the stadium just in case and he's telling listeners 'Call your friends and tell em to listen cause CC is perfect thru 6.' Michael Kay is the same way. And the Mets primary announcers - Gary Cohen on TV, Howie Rose on radio - both know well that the team has never pitched a nono so if a Met has one as early as the third inning they may mention it. It was never a problem for scribes of course, since what we wrote would already have happened.

But Twitter has changed that. Now as real-time correspondents, if we 'jinx' a pitcher we hear about it. In traffic the other day, I tweeted 'CC might no-hit the awful Mariners right-hannded, but to throw a perfecto he might want to stick to lefty.' Some went nuts on me. I later followed as a joke with "My tweet didn't jinx CC, my getting in the car and driving to the stadium did."I don't think that soothed the afflicted.

I do get it tho: people believe what they want to believe."

If your mother says she loves you, ask @NFLDraftInsider

"If your mother says she loves you, get a second source." 

That's an old saying in the journalism business. It's always sounded like a crusty old bromide that a rumpled reporter would tell the new kid fresh out of college. But crusty old bromides become crusty old bromides because they're true. The point of the saying is that a reporter should never rely on a single source, no matter how trustworthy or knowledgable he or she may be. The valued information in newsrooms is information that's been verified by multiple knowledgabe sources. Do reporters always do this? Of course not. But that's the ideal.

And it's even more important in this new Twitter age, in which information is flying faster than ever and the thirst for instant information is even greater.

Which brings us to this provacatively titeld piece from Jason Schrier called "Why you should stop trusting Twitter" which revolves around the antics of @NFLDraftInsider. (The permalink is even more provocative: Twitter killing journalism). @NFLDraftInsider is a Twitter user who passes along NFL rumors, which are in high demand now that the lockout's over and free agency is starting. The problem is, he apparently doesn't independently verify any of them. He passes along the tips he receives. Schrier took full advantage of this, making up rumors and even inventing a player from Binghamton. Which is funny on two levels.

- As someone who covered Binghamton's athletic department, I can assure you the school has no football team and no NFL prospects.

- I saw on Twitter that the guys in my old newsroom had noticed this, too and had to check it out (of course, it was quickly found to be untrue).

@NFLDraftInsider responded to this and other falsities: Some idiots have slipped a few fake names/teams by me. All this info isn't one hundred percent official until tomorrow. I'm doing my best.

And today:

"BTW I'm not a journalist, just wanted to tell fans their teams (undrafted free agents) cause the weren't avail. I want to inform & was given 'confirmed' lies."

A few thoughts:

- If you've ever wondered by so many traditional media members seem to seize up when the phrase "citizen journalism" comes up, this is why. Think of the guys in my old newsroom in Binghamton. It's late Sunday night, on deadline, and now they're forced to scramble against the clock to find information about this guy they've never heard of from a school that doesn't even have a football team because someone posted it on the internet as fact. They can't just blow it off. They have to check it to make sure. They have to take time out of the night, on deadline (when they're crunched and trying to get a paper out) to look into this. All because somebody didn't check out a tip they received online and spread it as "truth" because "a source told them." This drives reporters bat guano.

- @NFLDraftInsider claims to not be a journalist. True. Problem is, on Twitter, he's acting like one. If you're going to act like a journalist, you have to accept the standards of the profession. Also ... the "I was given confirmed lies" portion of the program: We've all been there. We've all been burned by sources. We've all had sources lie to us, mislead us, or just flat out be wrong. But you know what that is? Often times, that's an excuse. I know. I used it myself, and was wrong when I did. A source being wrong does not absolve you of your duty to make sure you get it right. That's where the crusty old bromide comes into play.

- One of the more important points going forward isn't how one guy passing along anonymous rumors got burned by people screwing with him. It's the fact that mainstream reporters are apparently retweeting these. Retweeting is an interesting thing for reporters. In a way, it's the ultimate CYA. Someone puts a rumor out there, you retweet it. Hey, someone else said it, not me. I'm just keeping the conversation going. It's just Twitter. But that's how false information gets spread around like it's true. And once a reporter from a traditional outlet retweets something, it's given a boost of credibility.

It's a tough balance for reporters. On one hand, they want to be right. There's a strong professional desire to publish the truth. But on the other hand, one of the tenenants of social media news use seems to be that what matters is the conversation. Items like this generate conversation. But if they're not true, is that conversation meaningful?

This is not an anti-Twitter thing. Twitter's just the pipes, just the method through which information passes. This was happening on blogs and message boards before Twitter. Now, it's all just faster. Now, there's more pressure on reporters to not just find the information but manage a conversation about it. That conversation is usually great. But to think it doesn't come with a price is ludicrous. One of the things I'm finding in my research is that the reporting model seems to be shifting from the old "gather, sort, report" mindset (get the information, sort it all out than publish it) to "gather, report than sort." Which opens the door for all sorts of problems.

Ideally, I'd love for fans to become smarter consumers. To be able to tell a rumor site from a fact site. To not take what they see on Twitter as gospel, no matter what handle it comes from. No not demand instant information from reporters who have to try to actually report on the news (and also eat, sleep and see their kids sometimes). But that's not the fans' job. That's a reporter's job. I've often thought that one of the main roles a news organzation can play now is not so much the breaker of news but as the verifier of information. The mindset would be: If you see it on our site, on one of our Twitter feeds, you can be sure it's accurate to the best of our ability. Because we've done the legwork. We've done the reporting that you don't have the time or ability to do.

The lesson here: If Twitter says your favorite team's signing some one, get a second source.

What's everyone else think?

Who broke the news?

When I covered the Binghamton Mets, New York's Double-A affiliate, one of my primary resources for information was Mets Blog, run by Matthew Cerrone. It's probably the best fan blog I've seen in any sport and helped keep me up to date on what was going on with the big-league club and throughout the system. Two weeks ago, just before going on vacation, I saw a post of Matt's on his Tumblr. The subject: Does anybody outside of the media care who breaks news?

In sports journalism circles, people very much care who breaks the story. Part of it is ego, no doubt. But breaking news is career currency in journalism, the way publishing in peer-reviewed journals is in academia. The traditional measure of how good a reporter is is how many stories he or she has broken, or what stories he or she has broken. I got a job at a bigger paper in Binghamton in part because I was honored for breaking the St. Bonaventure welding scandal.

To be fair, this is inside baseball-ey of reporters. Do fans care? Anecdotally, I get mixed messages. Sometimes, fans will claim to not care. But if a media outlet is the last to report something, fans will often ridicule them for being behind or reporting "what everyone already knows anyway." (NOTE: This is not in reference to Matt or the fan he quoted in his post. It's my own independent observations). Plus, if a reporter is going to "build a brand," (Or, for Gene Weingarten, developed a reputation), one of the primary ways is to be known as a journalist who consistently breaks news (rather than a glorified stenographer).

That's why reporters care so much about who breaks stories. It's not just ego. OK, a lot of it is ego. But it's also one of the ways reporters define themselves. In this changing media landscape, it's one of the ways news organizations can differentiate themselves from other media outlets.

One of the things I'm finding in my research, though, is that the nature of a scoop is changing. In the print era, having a scoop meant having a story in the print paper that no one else did. This was a triumph, because you had a victory over your competitors for an entire day. You were the must-read, and everyone else was playing catch-up. Now, things are changing. Now, it's more and more a mindset of publishing breaking news online, via the website or Twitter. That means your victory is usually seconds or minutes long before somebody links to it or retweets it.

That may sound minor and petty, but this is a big change for reporters. There are still some I've talked to who want their big scoops to be held for the paper the next day. They still believe that a scoop in the paper is the ultimate. Plus, if your currency is breaking news, and the notion of breaking news is changing to the point where having a scoop almost irrelevant (since your competition can pick it up and share it right away, rather than the next day), that's a breakdown in your system.

The way to look at it may be to take a broader view. Do I care who breaks any one story? No. Because many times, that can come down to who types the fastest, who happens to get a call back first, whose Twitter app is fastest. But I do care what reporters tend to break the most news, the ones who are in front of the stories rather than behind it, who are telling me things I don't know and things I didn't know I wanted to know rather than just repeating stats and quotes, that I'm going to be following and reading.

What's everyone else think?

A boat without a rudder, or an engine ... or a hull

The National has always had a mythological place in the minds of sports fans and sportswriters of my age. The lineup of writers and editors, the stories that it produced, are the stuff of sports journalism legend - as is the fact that it closed 18 months after its first issue. Grantland (the much-hyped new Bill Simmons-edited long-form site) has two fantastic pieces about The National. Alex French and Howard Kahn have an oral-history of the paper, and The Official Favorite Writer of Sports Media Guy recalls his time at the paper. ("Launching a newspaper without a coherent idea of how you're going to promote it, or get it to people who might want to read it, is like launching a boat without a rudder or an engine … or a hull, now that I think about it.")

I'm not going to recap everything - I'm not sure of the headline assertion that The National changed sports journalism forever - but wanted to point the stories out because they are fascinating and fantastic.

Access denied, Wall Street Journal style.

Low, hanging fruit from Craig Wolff in The Wall Street Journal. My feelings on access are well-defined. I believe that in this evolving media landscape, access is one of the main advantages sports reporters offer is access. I've said it before, I'll say it again, but I can't be in the Buffalo Bills locker room. Mark Gaughn and Allen Wilson can. Also, the point of access isn't a one-time quote for a story on deadline, it's building a relationship. Joel Sherman, the brilliant New York Post baseball columnist, once gave me a great piece of advice: Every day, he tried to learn something new to put in the paper (a trade rumor, an injury update, etc.). He felt that by always being on the look out for the little stuff, you're more attuned/ready/prepared to break the big stuff.

A couple points jumped out at me in the story. First, there's the "Access is hardly a reporter's entitlement, unless the assignment is the White House or City Hall." Yes, because the sports department is just the toy department and not real journalism. Then there's "Imagine, too, the view of an athlete, not yet showered and still absorbing a blown save or a missed shot, confronted by a swarm of notepads and microphones and pressed to answer the brain-numbing question: How do you feel?" Well, I'd love to be in a profession with a union-guaranteed minimum salary of $350,000 a year. Answering a few questions? Fair trade.

Wolff mentions the banality of most quotes. He cherry picks a couple examples from recent Stanley Cup and NBA playoff stories without context. He quotes Malcolm Moran and Linda Robertson about how athlete quotes tend to be cliche and uninspired.

Lord knows I felt the frustration of bad quotes. I have 10 years worth of stories littered with bad quotes, cliches, banalities, etc. I covered an NHL Game 7 between Buffalo and Pittsburgh in which Darius Kasparatis scored the game winner. I was in the scrum for him after the game but never actually heard a word he said (another reporter held my recorder close up). But to use that as a hook to say that reporters should not be in the locker room is preposterous. It limits journalism to mere stonography.

Want better quotes? Ask better questions. Don't settle for the cliche. Ask a follow-up question. Ask "why" and "how" a lot. Avoid the scrum if you can. Wait for the cameras to walk away then move in to ask your question. That doesn't always work, but it works more than you think. Don't go into the locker room seeking a quote. Go in there seeking perspective. Try to learn something about the game or the player.

Look, the dirty secret is that sometimes, you just need a quote. You have a 10-inch hole to fill, 20 minutes to deadline, and you just need to get a comment or two from the locker room. Is that the best use of your time as a reporter? Maybe, maybe not. That's a routine for sports reporters. You get a quote from the coach and the "star player." It's the convention, the way things are done.

And in that regard, Wolff raises a good question. Is this convention a good thing?

Again, maybe, maybe not.

But at a time when, as Wolff notes, players are becoming less and less accessible to the media, I'd hate to see the cliched quote used as an excuse for closing off access. Because without access, reporters have one less tool to offer their readers.

What's everyone else think?

The Sports Guy, routines and the struggling newspaper

The New York Times Magazine profiled Bill Simmons recently. If you haven't used up your 20 articles yet, it's a good read. This isn't going to be an entry about Grantland, the new joint Simmons-ESPN project that will feature some fantastic writers (Ken Tremendous and Chris Jones, among other favorites). It's not really going to be an entry about Simmons' writing (I run hot and cold on his columns, but he does what he does well).

No, since this is my nerdy little blog, this is going to be about Bill Simmons, journalism routines and the struggles of the newspaper industry.

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I wrote my first newspaper column on April 8, 1999. I was two months into my job as a general-assignment reporter at The Times Herald, working three days a week while finishing my undergraduate degree at St. Bonaventure. It was the fifth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide, and as a college-aged Nirvana fan, I wrote a column about it. A week later, I asked Pat Vecchio, my editor, if he would be willing to run a column I had written for my opinion writing class. He said yes, and it ran.

The day the column ran, Pat walked through the newsroom. Hey Bo (my nickname in the room), how'd you like to write a weekly column.

I don't think I hesitated. Sure, I said.

That's how I became a columnist at age 21. I wrote a weekly column for the editorial page for five years. I got bombarded by Clay Aiken fans when I insulted  him in print. I wrote about graveyards in Charlotte, music in St. Thomas, punk rockers in Olean. When I moved into the sports department, I started writing regular columns for the sports page. One of the strengths of the Olean paper is that it has a local sports column every day. I wrote a column by watching a college baseball game in a bar in Port Allegany, Pa. I wrote about the Buffalo Sabres, the St. Bonaventure basketball team, about finding peace while playing ball in Butler Gym and about a former high school star struggling with life after basketball. (I'm sorry I don't have links to these. I will try to dig them up at some point).

Understand, 21 is an obscenely young age to have a column. It's almost unprecedented, except for the best of the best. I was not the best of the best. I had good editors who had a lot of trust and belief in me, who let me write stupid columns born of youth and inexperience and who supported me when my youth brought a fresh eye to my stories.

By the time I got to Binghamton, my column-writing days were pretty much done. Because of time and space issues, along with the culture of the newsrooms, there were not many chances to write a column.

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From the Simmons article:

“The only one way to get a column back then was to go through this whole ridiculous minor-league-newspaper system and then kind of hope that other people died,” he says.

Simmons had no interest in waiting his turn. A few years into a job in the sports department of The Boston Herald, a local tabloid, he quit to tend bar. Soon after, he noticed a “Boston Movie Guy” on AOL’s Digital City Boston Web site, and badgered its editor until he hired him as “The Boston Sports Guy” for $50 a week."

This is one of the reasons you hear from other sports writers as to why they hate Bill Simmons. There's a perception among some sports reporters that Simmons didn't want to pay his dues. That he wanted to be handed a top gig right out of college and not have to work for it.

When I say my research interests focus on journalists' routines, I'm referring to the individual level. I'm talking about the day-to-day behaviors and decisions that reporters use to do their job and construct news. But there are also routines on an organizational level or across a profession. One of those in newspapers - and this seems to be particularly true in sports writing - is the notion of working your way up from the small town paper. The classic trajectory is to start at a small-town daily (or weekly), move up to a bigger paper, then to a metro paper, and then to a major metro (or national paper). You can draw an analogy to baseball, where a player starts out at short-season A ball, then goes to full-season A, then Double-A, Triple-A and then the majors (I topped out at Double A.)

On one hand, this makes sense. It gives you a chance to learn the craft. It gives you experience. Once you've taken 34 high school football games over the phone on a Friday night; once you've covered a soccer playoff game in the freezing cold; once you've learned to keep your own stats at a basketball game, you develop a respect for the job. You learn to take every assignment seriously, that every game is the Game of the Night to someone. You make mistakes, learn from them and get better. You learn that it's easy to spout opinions about a game you watch on TV, and it's hard to work a source for a piece of information or write a column that's colored by your in-person observations and informed by good reporting.

The fact that Simmons apparently felt that kind of experience was beneath him has always been grating to me.

On the other hand, newspapers seem to be slaves to that routine. A column is something that is "earned." It's something that goes to an experienced reporter, one who has paid his dues and played the game, and a younger reporter can only hustle and work while the columnist cashes in. Some of the research I've done suggests that's why there is so much opposition to blogs in newsrooms. Blogs mean that everyone - beat writers and fans alike - can express opinions. Everyone's a columnist, without having to "earn" it.

And I'm not sure that mindset is incredibly healthy. I remember reading several years ago that the best thing a newspaper could do would be to give the brightest 27-year-old a column. Risky? Sure. But maybe great things can happen.

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Is this the reason newspapers are failing?

Is this stubborn insistence on sticking with this norm and routine the reason newspapers are struggling*? If newspapers had hired a bunch of Bill Simmons' back in the 1990s, would the industry be better?

(* - There's an interesting notion to consider. What do you mean when you say "newspapers"? The print product? The online edition? Is the newspaper the New York Times you buy in the store or the website you go to? Because while the print product is struggling and the newspaper industry is struggling, you can argue that newspapers online are growing and doing better each year. It'd be an interest concept to explicate - what is a newspaper?)

I don't think there's one answer for why newspapers are struggling. If there was a silver bullet, somebody would have come up with an answer and fixed the problem. I think it's a confluence of factors that has led to this struggle. It's the adoption of a business model that relied on repurposing the print edition online, including giving away content for free. It's the fact that newspapers were so far behind the curve in seeing that the Web was evolving into a social medium that they are just now starting to sort of catch up. It's the fact that they didn't see Craigslist coming.

It's also the fact that newspapers remain stuck in the routines they have always used. It's also the fact that newspapers didn't realize that there was an untapped audience for the writing style that Simmons uses. It's also the fact that newspapers were generally unwilling to take risks - be it playing with web coverage of events, using social media before it became ubiquitous or taking a risk on a young columnist who may not have paid the traditional dues but brought a fresh eye and new attitude to the space.

That's not to say there's not value in paying your dues. That's not saying that experienced columnists with institutional memory can't be must-reads. That's not saying that Bill Simmons would have been Bill Simmons had he been hired at one of the Boston papers 20 years ago.

But there is a value in thinking differently. There's value in being willing to take a risk. It's the difference between being two years ahead of the curve or five years behind it. It's the difference between being comfortable in this new media landscape and struggling to remain relevant.

What's everyone else think?

Access denied, Panthers style.

The locked-out Carolina Panthers held a team workout earlier this week. Reporters weren't allowed to watch or talk to players, and police stood guard at the gate. Michael Silver, Yahoo's NFL columnist, blasted the players in a column. A couple points of interest: - Let's start with Silver's ending:

If I sound angry, I am – not because I have a desperate desire to see the Panthers parade around in shorts in June, but because I think they’re fools for not enthusiastically welcoming anyone in my business who wants to watch. Access is something I take very, very seriously, and when people deny it for no apparent reason, I tend to be a lot less receptive when they or their agents inevitably hit me up for coverage down the road. I know there are many of you out there who think I’m merely whining and profess to prefer a reality in which reporters are routinely denied access and stonewalled at every turn. And I think you’re delusional. I demand access because, in most cases, you, the fan, seeks information. From what I can tell, many of you have a ravenous appetite for stories and rumors surrounding your favorite NFL teams and players, even in the middle of the offseason. Would you be cool with subsisting on team-issued press releases and players’ Twitter feeds? To be totally honest, the Panthers’ decision to put a cop outside their practice session is but a minor annoyance to me. On a metaphorical level, however, it’s infuriating. My job is to care because you care, and you should be thankful that I’m good at it, even when people put up barriers. ... Nice work, Panthers. On a positive note, once the lockout ends and the games begin, you’ll have to play a lot better than you did last year to merit any coverage whatsoever from reporters like me.

As I've written before, I'm a huge defender of access. Reporters should be given access to the locker room, to the practice fields, to talk to players, coaches, team officials and referees. Access is one of the advantages journalists still have in the marketplace of ideas. Journalists don't necessarily corner the market in knowledge, nor are their opinions the only valid ones. But what journalists do have is access. They can be there when we can't. I can't be at Buffalo Bills practice every week, so I rely on the guys at The Buffalo News to be there and tell me what they see and hear and what they're told. That's the value they bring.

In this vein, of course the Panthers were dumb, stupid and shortsighted to not allow reporters access. For one thing, it just engenders ill will among the press (see that column). For another, they could answer any question any way they want. They can say "I'd rather not talk about this. We just want to play football" and that's it. No grand statements. No shots fired. But let reporters do their job.

The one issue I would have with Silver's column is the tone. Yes, he's angry, and angry journalism is wonderful. But there's a fine line between being legitimately aggrieved and sounding like you're whining about your job being hard. The threats of non-coverage make the column feel petty. That's the danger in writing "They won't talk to me" story. It's easy to take a legitimate complaint and come off as complaining that your job (which involves typing and talking) is hard. And Silver crosses the line into condescension - "I think you're delusional" " "You should be thankful that I’m good at it, even when people put up barriers." Oh really? I should be thankful you're good at the job that pays you incredibly well and gives you an enormous amount of prestige?

Also, I worry about a backlash against the local beat guys. Silver doesn't have to cover the Panthers. He's got 31 other teams to cover, and as a national columnist, he's paid for his thoughts and his words, not his access to the Panthers' locker room. But I wonder if the local beat guys will be punished for this column. I wonder if once the lockout ends, some players will hold Silver's column against the Charlotte reporters. "You guys crushed us over the summer, no way I'm talking to you." that kind of thing.

It has to be said - I think Mike Silver's one of the best NFL columnists writing. He always has a different take. He reports well. He talks to people, goes to games. He puts a lot of original thought into his stories - even the ones I disagree with.

But here, I thought he crossed the line a bit with his attitude. His overall point is on-target, but he lost me on some style points.

Then, there's this note from higher in the column:

Letting reporters film a little video and take a few notes during these player-run practices would seem to be a no-brainer. Pausing on the way back to the car to give a few innocuous quotes for the cause doesn’t seem like an especially painful price to pay, either. Trust me, the reporters being kept out by the police officer weren’t there in search of some sort of sneak peak into new coach Ron Rivera’s playbook or a blow-by-blow account of the impending quarterback battle between No. 1 overall draft pick Cam Newton(notes) and 2010 second-rounder Jimmy Clausen(notes). Rather, they were looking to give their readers and viewers a glimpse into how the Panthers’ players are handling the lockout and coping with the challenges of this unusual offseason – and a chance to enunciate their views on a very contentious issue.

OK, now we're getting into my turf. Here's a simple-sounding question: If the reporters were just there to get "A little video" and "take a few notes" and get "some innocuous quotes," why were they there?

Seriously. Because what Silver describes isn't something that's really newsworthy (prancing around in shorts, etc.). If that's the case, why go there at all? The answer lies in routines.  Covering something like this a routine for sports journalists. The players assemble, be it for an OTA or a workout on their own, the reporters go. It's part of the routine of covering a beat.

But it raises the question: In an era where reporters' time and attention is limited, when newsroom staffs and news holes are shrinking, when reporters have more to do and less time to do it, is it worth covering an informal workout in an attempt to get a few innocuous quotes?

The routines, the norms, say yes. And there's merit in that attitude. But is that routine still viable?

What's everyone else think?

A Ph.D., paying college athletes and changing my mind

This is a post about the future. This is a post about what's next for me and how I got to the point I'm at. This is also a post about paying college athletes. And, it's also a post about changing your mind. ---

I always opposed paying college athletes. I wrote columns about it when I worked in Olean and got into Twitter arguments with prominent sportswriters about it. I was one of the people, like my good friend and journalism mentor Mike Vaccaro, who believed that a full scholarship to a very good school was payment enough. I struggled to pay for college, struggled to pay student loans throughout my low-paying journalism career, so why should athletes who got the same education I did and didn't have to worry about paying for it also get extra? They were already getting paid, with a full scholarship.

Part of my opposition was also what I believed was an issue of fairness. Let's be honest - when we talk about "paying college athletes," we don't mean the women's tennis team. We don't even mean women's basketball. We don't even mean low and mid-major basketball teams. We're talking Division I men's basketball and football. I never thought that was fair. Why should these guys get all the benefits? Don't athletes for the others sports work just as hard, put in as many hours? Why should they be, in effect, penalized simply for playing a different sport?

As I said, that was something I believed. Past tense. I now think college athletes should get paid. I don't have a fully formed system in my mind, but I generally think that individual schools should choose what athletes get paid and how much.

What made me change my mind? Not the tidal wave of coverage against Reggie Bush when his story blew up in November. Not the recent Jim Tressel stories.

Nope.

I decided to get my Ph.D.

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The plan wasn't always for me to get a doctorate. When I first started looking at grad school back in 2008, I was toying with the idea of going back part time to a local school, slowly get a masters. But the way the play broke down, I began to realize that a doctorate is what I wanted to get. I want to teach journalism, to be a college professor teaching professional schools, and you need a Ph.D. to do that. As I kept moving through the media studies program at Syracuse, I began to realize how much I loved doing research, solodfying my decision.

Which leads me to the announcement that's not an announcement, because it's been out there on Twitter for months. I will be starting my doctoral studies in Mass Communication at Syracuse in the fall, continuing my research into journalists' routines.

What does this have to do with paying college athletes?

Well ... after I started getting accepted into programs, for about a two-month period I was, for lack of a better word, recruited. I visited three schools (the University of North Carolina; Syracuse; Penn State) on their dime, meeting with students and faculty, getting taken out to breakfast, lunch and dinner, staying in nice hotels. It was the equivalent of an official visit. I got offers from five schools - and they all included information on stipends. Of the six schools I applied to, I got into five. Four of them offered me full funding. That means, basically, a salary on top of my tuition being paid for. I'm getting paid to get my Ph.D.

Like an athlete, I received offers from the schools. I spoke with faculty at each school. I got a number of emails from schools, upping their offers, trying to get me to pick them. There were days of confusion, of stress, as I tried to make sure the decision I made was the right one. It was, at a very small level I image, like a high-school athlete being recruited. And, it's worth noting, I'm a 33-year old man with a wife and a daughter and a mortgage and a decade of work experience and a clear picture of what I want to do in the future. Not an 18-year-old whose future is tied to his ability to throw a pass or get to the rim and who has the admirable cockiness, tunnel vision and indestructible attitude that all great young athletes have.

In the end, I picked Syracuse - because in every aspect, it's home. The fact that it had the highest financial offer? I can't say it was irrelevant, because it wasn't. But of the three schools I considered finalist, they all had very competitive packages. In other words, money was just about equal across the board, so it wasn't a deciding factor.

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My mind on paying college athletes changed when I read a column on ESPN.com. I believe it was Tuesday Morning Quarterback, but I was unable to find the specific reference in an archive search. A reader suggested that college athletes be treated like doctoral students.

And it made so much sense to me, that instantly, my mind changed.

Doctoral students and athletes have more in common than you may think. An athlete's value to a school is a specialized skill in a specified area. My value to the Newhouse school is my specialized skill in a specific area. We both work long hours honing our craft. Our work is judged publicly (while there probably won't be 100,000 people attending the poster session I'm presenting at at AEJMC's national conference in July, in my academic world, that's public). If we don't live up to certain rules and standards, we'll be forced to leave our schools.

Because of my perceived specialized skill in a specific area, I'm being paid to further my education and prepare me for my career - on top of the having my tuition paid for.

Despite his specialized skill in a specific area, Brandon Triche at the same school is not getting paid.

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The issue of fairness comes up here a lot. Advocates for paying college athletes argue that it's not fair that schools, coaches and administrators make millions while the athletes, the ones the fans come to see, don't get a piece of that pie.*

(* - Two asides here. 1. It's inescapable to note the fact that this is a largely black work force not being paid while a largely white administration is. 2. Interesting study to be done - are people coming to see the players, or the school? Are college players more anonymous than pros, because people cheer for their school?)

On the other side, opponents argue that athletes are already getting a free college education (at my school, that's $50,000 a year) and that that is more than fair.

I'm always leery about the fairness argument. Because life isn't fair. If life was fair, the phrase "pediatric cancer ward" would not exist.

But going through the doctoral recruiting process changed my mind on this. It does seem like players are getting the short end of the stick here. If I can be paid for my specialized skill in a specific area, why can't an athlete?

Because it would create a caste system? Because the rich programs would get richer and the poor programs would disappear? That's a fair concern. But then again, it's not fair that Newhouse has such a well-funded doctoral program and other schools do not. It wasn't fair to the one program that accepted me but offered me no money that I immediately dismissed them. Life isn't fair. It's hard to ignore the fact that 100,000 people aren't paying to campus to see a sophomore present a biology paper, but they are to see a sophomore running back plunge right through that line.

Again, there's a difference. I'm a 33-year-old married man with a daughter, a mortgage and decade of professional experience. I'm able to make what I like to think are rational, mature decisions. I'm not an 18-year-old cocky athlete who would look at dollar signs and potentially nothing else.

--

Like I said, I don't have a plan in my mind for how to pay college athletes. I don't know how to break it down by sport, school or gender. (and this doesn't even get into the Division II, Division III and NAIA aspect of this). I don't know how any system of payment would work, or how it would stand in court when the inevitable litigation comes.

But conceptually, I don't see the difference between me getting paid to get my doctorate and a college athlete getting paid to play his or her sport.

Why should we care?

There's a concept in defamation law known as the "vortex public figure." Basically, this is when a private citizen voluntarily injects him or herself into an issue of public importance. When this happens this person is considered a public figure in regards to this issue - which means they must prove a higher standard if they wish to bring a libel lawsuit (they have to show actual malice, which means the media had knowledge of falsity or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. This is a very high standard, one private citizens don't have to reach). I thought of this when reading some of the reaction pieces to the Rashard Mendenhall-Bin Laden Twitter controversy. Jason Whitlock, as well as Ty Duffy and Jason McIntyre at The Big Lead both criticized the traditional media for criticizing the Steelers' running back. Duffy writes: "Rashard Mendenhall’s job is to carry a ball forward. He’s not trained to handle weighty topics. He and other athletes will make ignorant and possibly  ill-informed comments." Whitlock writes that a 23-year-old is an easy target for comments made in a medium that doesn't lend itself to deep thought. "LOOK WHAT A FOOTBALL PLAYER SAID ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY!"

Now, I think Mendenhall deserves to be criticized. I don't think he needs to be punished, or suspended, or kicked out of the league, or tarred and feathered or whatever. He said some dumb things on Twitter. He apologized (very eloquently). It's done. It's a story, but it's a small story.

But I'm having trouble reconciling the attitudes of Whitlock and the guys at The Big Lead. Two reasons:

1. The whole vortex public figure thing. In this case, Mendenhall voluntarily put his opinion out there to be read by the public. This wasn't a case of a reporter calling him up and saying "hey, what do you think of the US killing Bin Laden." (That would be problematic) Mendenhall, of his own free will, put his opinion into the marketplace of ideas. When you do that, you open yourself up to criticism from people who don't agree with you. The fact that he's "just 23 ..." Well, he's a 23-year-old man who is a public figure and a multimillionaire. He's an adult.

2. The "Why should we care" question. To me, this is a very dangerous slippery slope.

Why should we care about who an athlete is dating? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care about whether or not a pro athlete sends pictures of his penis to a team employee? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care if an athlete used performance-enhancing drugs illegally? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care about an athlete's poor upbringing? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care about an athlete's charitiable work? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care if an athlete wants to work for or fight for equal rights? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care that day in the near future when a prominent athlete inevitably comes out? His job is to carry a ball forward.

Why should we care? Because athletes are people. People are complex. That's what makes storytelling so wonderful -  showing the fans the human being  behind the jersey and the helmet. For too long in sports media, the players have been portrayed as two-dimennsional interchangable cogs. They've been reduced to a series of statistics and stereotypes. One of the great advances in sports media in the last 10-15 years has been the work of writers like Dan LeBatard, J.A. Adande and those who give us more of the players' perspective (this is often called being an apologist, which is a study I want to do in the future)

To say why should we care is to ignore the messy humanity of the players. Which is one of the most fascinating things about sports.

Mark Cuban on the role of sports reporters

Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban set my twitter feed on fire last night/this morning with his blog post on what he believes the role of sports reporters is. One of the "headlines" here is that he thinks newspaper reporters have to be in the locker room and credentialed, whereas internet reporters do not. I won't make this a point-by-point look at Cuban's post. Dan Shanoff at the wonderful Quickish has a nice counterpoint to Cuban. But two points from my perspective:

- Cuban, as Shanoff points out, is looking at this from his own business perspective. Which is fair. His job is protecting his organization and his bottom line. And I guarantee you that many sports owners (and business owners, and politicians for that matter) feel the same way. Cuban's just outspoken, and has a blog, and is articulate enough to say it. But Cuban's perspective isn't the same as the media's. The research of Weaver, Wilhoit and their band of merry men and women has shown four roles the media believe they play - dissemenators of information; interpreters of information; adversaries to the powerful (aka, guys like Cuban) and mobilizers of the public. Just because Mark Cuban thinks its good for his business doesn't mean it's good for the media.

- Cuban raises an interesting issue, one that's going to continue to haunt the sports media. To quote the owner:

"I think we have finally reached a point where not only can we communicate any and all factual information from our players and team directly to our fans and customers as effectively as any big sports website, but I think we have also reached a point where our interests are no longer aligned."

This is one of the great unspoken fears in the sports media world. Teams, through their own websites, are able to communicate directly with fans. As a Buffalo Bills fan, I don't need The Buffalo News. I can get the stats, the raw interviews and other information right from the team's website (as well as the players' own Twitter feeds, although Stevie Johnson really needs to think before he Tweets). Now, I like that The News provides me with news and analysis that may not align with the team's best interest. But I would not be surprised if, at some point in the future, a team cuts off press access, citing this very reason. And would there be a big fan uproar over this?

What's everyone else think?

Arrogant, selfish bastards

The rumors had been circulating for a few weeks.

Corporate had ordered massive company-wide layoffs. We had no idea how many people at our newspaper in Binghamton were going to lose their jobs, but we knew that job losses were coming. D-Day was in late December, 2008. I was scheduled to work a night shift, 4 p.m.-12 a.m. I knew that I wouldn't know anything until I got into the office. I spent the afternoon refreshing SportsJournalists.com and Gannett Blog, seeing the numbers stack up from across the company. I heard from people working the day shift about how people were losing their jobs in our newsroom, how our sister papers in Ithaca and Elmira were getting decimated. I incredulously read that Scott Pitoniak - the great columnist in Rochester, one of the most decent and good people in our business - lost his job.

At that time, my first round of grad school applications were in the mail. But school wouldn't start for about 9 months. I did not know if I would arrive at work at 4 p.m. and go home unemployed a half hour later. I spent the day on the couch, watching Bourne movies, trying to keep my mind off things.

I got to work at 4 p.m. I saw my editor, saw the paper's executive editor, and neither said anything to me outside of hello. I was safe. I still had a job. About the same time, my friend and co-worker Bobby came in. He was just out of school and a good young reporter, who treated his Section 4 Field Hockey beat the way Pete Thamel treats college hoops. Great guy, even for being a Jets fan.

As soon as he sat down, the executive editor came over. Asked him to come back with him.

As Bobby walked away, I turned to Kevin, the slot guy. We both muttered, "Shit ..."

About 15 minutes later, Bobby walked slowly back to his desk, holding a folder. The guys in the sports department, we all convened around his desk, huddling around him, circling the wagons. He was OK, but out of a job.

Just like that.

---

I saw too many things like that happen in the last few years I worked in newspapers. I saw the company demand all of us to take furloughs. Some people in the office were able to take their five days at a time (we called it a fur-cation). I had to space them out, one day every two weeks, so the loss of pay wouldn't destroy us financially.

I saw good people, good reporters, good editors, lose their jobs. I saw a clerk/page designer - a Marine veteran who had served in Afghanistan who had a baby on the way - get laid off one afternoon. I saw institutional knowledge, journalistic skill reduced to lines on a spreadsheet for no reason other than satisfy the dividend demands of faceless investors.

And today, I saw that the CEO of the company I used to work for, Craig Dubow, had earned $9.4 million last year. He also earned a $1.8 million BONUS for laying my friends off - because those layoffs helped cut the company's cost.

This man is being rewarded for ruining newspapers across the country. This man had the opportunity to help guide the newspaper industry out of the jumbled mess and into the future. He has done nothing about this, and yet he was rewarded ... for cutting costs.

He was rewarded for laying off my friends Bobby and Jay. He was rewarded for laying off a veteran with a baby on the way, for running a bright, talented young reporter out of the business.

There is only one way to describe people who would do this:

Arrogant, selfish bastards.

Should we care about the UConn women?

The UConn women's basketball team made headlines and history tonight with their 89th consecutive victory. It's one more than the famed John Wooden-led UCLA teams of the 1970s had. This story, of course, brings up all manner of interesting questions about how women's sports are covered. There are questions of whether or not the coverage is adequate for such a milestone. There's the interesting notion that's struck me at just how much women's sports accomplishments are compared to men's. I know, people like the Sports Media Sister and Marie Hardin just slammed their head on their desks at the duh-ness of that statement, but for someone who doesn't really study from a feminist perspective, this has really stuck out to me here. Not just that this is a women's team beating a storied men's record, but also other aspects of this story. There was a segment on ABC News tonight with Christine Brennan, who compared Maya Moore's vertical leap to the average NBA players - as if her 26-inch vertical isn't impressive on its own compared to those of us who can barely jump over the Binghamton phone book.

There are also, no doubt, the idiot neanderthals who are probably shocked that these women are playing sports and are wondering what the big deal is and when can we get back to the real sports.

(* - Simmons' whole argument against women's sports seems to be that he hates the fact that there were a lot of WNBA ads on when the league first started. Which is like me hating singing because Fox advertises "American Idol" a lot. It wouldn't be a big deal except that, with the size of his platform, Simmons is an opinion leader for a segment of sports fans.)

What interests me the most, though, is this question: Should we care about the UConn women?

By we, I mean the media, newspapers. Should we care? Should we cover it?

This speaks to the question of what a newspaper's role is. In a sports sense, the question can be framed like this: Should we cover the stories and teams that people want to read? Or should we cover the stories and teams that we think people should know about? What kind of responsibilities do newspapers have in terms of story selection?

On the face of it, this is an easy question. Of course, newspapers should cover the UConn women in their streak. It's history. The team is pathologically good. There's no reason not to. Also (and this is kind of an important point) if it was a men's team, we'd be all over it.

But there's this counter argument. It's not one I agree with, but it's one I can kind of understand. Do sports pages readers care about the UConn women? Do they care that they've won 89 consecutive games? Are they really interested beyond the passing "Oh wow, that's neat" reaction? And if they're not, why should the paper cover it beyond the "Oh wow, that's neat" kind of brief?

Keep in mind, the news business is dealing in finite qualities. There's an even more limited amount of news hole space available these days. There are fewer writers, fewer columnists. There are fewer resources available across the board. That hurts all sports coverage, but especially women's sports coverage. Is it right to dedicate those resources to a story people might not be interested in in favor of one they would be? At a time when circulation is falling, is it smart to dedicate time and space to a story people might not care about in favor of one we think they should?

Also, the larger issue here isn't the coverage of the UConn women. They're on the front page of ESPN and of sports sections today, and rightfully so. I don't care how little depth there may be in women's hoops. You could be playing games against my late grandmother, two ladies who make perogies at the Broadway Market, my dog and 11-week-old Sports Media Ellie, and winning 89 consecutive games would be damn impressive.

But the larger issue is coverage of other women's sports. The teams that aren't UConn. The teams that aren't, to borrow a phrase from Official Sports Media Thesis Committee Member Pam Shoemaker, deviantly good. What space does day-to-day coverage of women's sports deserve in newspapers?

It all comes down to what kind of role newspapers should play. Should they advocate, or should they reflect?

Should they cover what we want to know about? Or what they think we should know about?

What's everyone else think?

Milkbone underwear

My feelings on Michael Vick are known to readers of this site. I'm not a fan of his at all, don't like the fact that he's making millions of dollars after what he did. I don't like the "redemption story" that's been all over the football press this season. I don't think playing very well and not doing anything stupid redeems a person from running a multi-state criminal organization that involved killing dogs, and I think the redemotion angle is an easy one for sports writers to take. But he is playing insanely good football this year. Can't take that away from him. And then, the New York Post uncorks this cover today:

What gets to me isn't the appropriateness of the cover. I'm a dog person, so you know how I feel.

What gets to me is that the cover doesn't make any sense.

The story of the game wasn't Vick. It was the punt return at the end of the game, a true "Holy (bleep)" moment at a time when sports seems to suck all of those dry. It was the Giants' soiling themselves in the final eight minutes. Vick played a part in that, but his play was probably the third biggest storyline of the day.

Granted, it's the Post. They go for shock value. It's what they do. That's fine. I love them for it.

But this just seemed like a stretch, like a copy editor had it in his mind to do this all day, or all week, and was going to do it no matter what. And it was a "shocking" cover that didn't have much shock value - and, to me, undercut the stories of the day.

What does everyone else think?