1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Why do the national media now own sports scoops?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Dick Whitman, Jan 29, 2013.

  1. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Keep in mind too that if you're working at Yahoo or ESPN or SI, you also have a big network of other writers you're connected with. Not only do you have the time (and typically experience) to pursue something, but you can bounce ideas off other national writers who might say "You should call my guy at [blank]. He might have heard something about this."

    I think I've said this before, but I'm always in awe of the stuff Adrian Wojnarowski breaks. He gets people to talk, and is a really sharp writer so he can put it into perspective too.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I know that Katz and a lot of other national writers are really known to develop relationships with assistant coaches. In a lot of cases, the assistants are flattered to get the attention. That's a case where the writer is actually more famous than the source, and it's an interesting dynamic. Also, I think that assistants with ambition think - probably not incorrectly - that guys like that can help get their name out there into the various pipelines.

    Fans are certainly star-struck by big-name writers or TV guys. I remember being in a hotel lobby on the road with my friend on the beat and Joe Schaad. We were gathering down there to go out for the night. A couple fans strolled up to us and started asking Schaad what he thought of the team we covered. He says, "Ask these guys. They cover them every day." The fans, though, didn't even ask us as a courtesy thing. They clearly just wanted to know what Joe thought.
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    This is true and especially when you consider that a very large portion of scoops are about signings and coaching searches, and every power agent has his own guy. Mort is willing to be whipped around and say whatever the agent just told him even if the agent knows it's just a negotiating ploy. Getting it on the ESPN Sunday show is a way bigger deal than any local outlet.

    Then you have the cases like Trace Armstrong, who is the agent for both Adam Schefter and many of the coaches Adam Schefter is chasing during searches. Gee, who's going to get that scoop?
     
  4. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Having access on both ends of the story (and at every stop on the pipeline in between) helps. The only major beat I've ever covered was a college team, in which the biggest news is generally a coaching change.

    If you're covering State U and Tech coach is about to resign to take State U job, the national guy is going to have a source at Tech he can call for verification. Or someone at a school that plays Tech or State who would know.

    The Bielema-to-Arkansas story is a good example. No one in Fayetteville or Madison had a clue about that until Forde broke it. I imagine the tip didn't come from someone at either school, but someone in between, be it an agent, a rival coach or whomever.
     
  5. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    I had that happen to me more than once when I was toiling at suburban papers. Very little pissed me off more than having the major metro or a national outlet take a story I had a few days before and make it sound like their dogged reporting had broken it wide open. The worst was when one of them ran such a story under a headline that read, in part: "Now it can be told." Yeah, now after you read it in my paper last week, you fucker.


    Sorry. It's an old wound that has never completely healed.
     
  6. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    I remember when Nick Saban left LSU for the Dolphins in early 2005, Auburn's Tommy Tuberville — in the midst of a 13-0 season — was among those being mentioned for the LSU job. Every Auburn beat writer in the state (including our guy) had a story the next day with quotes from Tuberville denying he was interested.

    Auburn went to the Sugar Bowl that year, and (then) ESPN's Tony Barnhart interviewed him shortly after his arrival in New Orleans a day or so later. A few hours later, it comes across the crawl: "ESPN's Tony Barnhart reports Auburn's Tommy Tuberville not interested in LSU job."
     
  7. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I think a lot of it in the pro leagues has to do with agents and league officials and team executives being the ones with the knowledge. The daily beat reporters, for whatever reason, rarely tap into those sources properly. The same could be said of many beat reporters and college administrators. Those are the people with the in-depth knowledge.

    It's also a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy. One beat reporter I worked alongside while I was in college routinely said he didn't worry about those big scoops, things like recruiting scandals and coach firings, because his readers wanted him to cover the team. He let others do the leg work on the real, worthwhile stories that could have brought him national attention. Meanwhile, he wrote 500 words on a backup tight end's hip flexor.

    And there's the issue of being too close. As with Peter Abraham in that Boston sports story, beat reporters often know so much on backgroun that they become unable to see news value properly. I have had conversations, fights even, with reporters about moving key paragraphs up in the story. To them, it's old or unimportant news. To the readers, it's the best part of a long-winded story.

    Twitter largely has killed that bullshit.
     
  8. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Look at how the national news media blew out the Katie Couric interview nugget with Manti Te'o the other day.

    "Te'o admits to Couric that he lied."

    Tons of headlines to that effect.

    Except he had told Schaap exactly the same thing a couple days before.
     
  9. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    You're acting like it's the local reporters' fault. But it isn't -- it's the way things are set up. The agents and league officials are only talking to people because they want something. The local beat reporters can't give them anything.
     
  10. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    My phrasing was "for whatever reason." That's one reason.
     
  11. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Years ago, I called an agent to ask about some news about a player, and before he would talk to me, he asked me, "What's your paper's circulation?" If your outlet wasn't big enough, he wouldn't talk to you. He eventually talked to me, but only after I convinced him we were running with the big dogs as far as how we covered the team. It was ridiculous.
     
  12. RonClements

    RonClements Well-Known Member

    This is so true and I saw it first-hand covering the St. Louis Rams for three seasons. The USA Today, NFL Network and ESPN folks get the first-class, celebrity treatment from the team's media relations staff while I spent three years not even knowing what the second floor, where the offices are, at Rams Park looked like.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page