Press parking at Yankee Stadium

Nope.. just pull the truck up, double park and go in and eat,.

 

How can you "go out and get" coverage of games? It is called being a sports reporter and again it is unique to any other business.

And further more, there are media policies by all four leagues mandating a certain level of access and yes, we can expect as reporters for these rules to be upheld.

As for public -- you miss the point, I don't know that any team is truly "publicly owned and traded" but moreso than just about any business, sports are reliant on public dollars and therefore their product is different and should be treated differently.

That is, unless you know of AIG meetings which require a large police force on duty and a shitload of police overtime, the building is almost always bought and paid for by taxpayers and only the business reaps the benefits, any time a team does really well a parade -- bought and paid for by taxpayer dollars.

But beyond all that -- are you really arguing that sports coverage in America would improve drastically if press passes were all revoked and there was no access to athletes and/or managers/coaches?

Is that what you are arguing?

 

When did we make the leap from a lack of free parking to the revocation of press passes?

 

Cranberry is glad they are charging for parking and internet -- even though it will exclude more and more outlets from covering teams --- and he is trying to make the argument that he hopes there are more things that are restricted and access is less and less because the less access we have as sports reporters, the better it is for sports reporting.

It is basically the old "the free hot dogs you get in the press box cloud your judgement" horse shit and it is usually spewed by disgruntled deskers or newsies who think we are in the toy department and think that somehow their pursuits of traffic accidents is far more noble than what we do.......

 

Epic fail by someone who ought to have been banned long ago.

 

Oh C'mon, stop being so hard on yourself.

 

Zag, seriously ... what physical shortcoming are you overcompensating for?

 

What are you talking about?

This discussion has been about teams limiting access in any number of ways -- charging for things like parking, wireless internet, press box seats being the new way of limiting access without actually limiting it -- and the fact that there are some so-called reporters like Cranberry who think that is a good thing.

That has actually been a good discussion, I can't help it that it didn't enable you the chance to get your silly little pictures and one-liners in, but it was actually a reasonably civil, good discussion about a topic that should be a very big concern for all of us.

I understand it is above your apparent comfort level of intellect, but I can't help you with that.

 

I have a scoop: This isn't entirely new. I covered a MLB team that had a limited number of media parking passes for each game. So when those were gone, everyone else was welcome to find their own parking and pay for it.

Given that the bigger papers might have five people there (writers, columnist, photog), guess who got shut out? Yeah, the guy on a daily credential from the Outskirts Gazette. Somehow he dealt with it. This was in the '80s.

 

I understand it isn't new. But the economics of our business are much different.

And the fact that, for instance, we had a lot less people covering the local NCAA Tournament (five years ago we sent the house) and mostly because the $60 wireless internet charge -- that isn't a good development.

Less isn't better.

 

Why do people constantly harp on the wireless internet thing?
People managed to write stories fine 20 years ago without the internet. How is it that so many sportswriters freak out when there's no wireless access or they have to pay for it?
Zag, I agree with some of your points, but bottom line is, you don't need press box seats or wireless internet to do the job. You can watch a major league baseball game from inside, then get your quotes after. It's not like the NBA or sideline access where you can gain a lot of information from being close to the field.

 

There are a lot of things people did 20 years ago that are outdated now. That doesn't make it right or wrong.

But I agree -- it isn't about the press box seats, it is about the access -- the interviews, the interaction with athletes and coaches (as brief as it may be) etc., etc. Of course, being in the press box sure helps when you are on deadline.

Have you ever been at a press conference and then read the transcript? Much, much different being able to hear and see the interview and the changes in voice and in tone (not too mention the accuracy of the quotes).