Shaughnessy: "We now have a bad connection"

Great post, cran.

In the large markets, that's what's happened. Like New York, for sure.

In the smaller markets, I think the reverse has happened. The media has acquiesced-- for fear of being shut out altogether. The media doesn't rabble rouse and churns out very bland coverage. In that case, the team knows it's got the media where it wants it. It's become a relationship where the team has the power and knows it.

 

We have a guy who's been one one particular pro beat for 20 years.

He and team's broadcaster were on the tennis court one morning, where I overheard a few stories about the team.

Stories that never made our paper.

In those 20 years, I can remember exactly one honest-to-goodness "wow" scoop that actually mattered . . . and that our readers actually got first.

A lot of access . . . without a whole hell of a lot to show for it.

 

well, then, that beat guy's done an awful job. access means nothing without payoffs. you develop relationships so you have tales to tell that are not for print because the payoff is you get more important stories INTO PRINT.

if all the access has done is given you tales to tell your pals, you're a huge failure.

 

Great post cran.

I would take slight issue with your comments about bloggers though (lower case letters).

I think journalists who consistently add insight or wit are by and large praised by bloggers. The ones who get skewered by bloggers are the ones who use faulty analysis, biased views or who are just plain lazy. Take Ron Borges for example. He was adversarial as they got when it came to the Patriots but he was skewered by bloggers because he was guilty of all three (faulty analysis, biased views and being plain lazy). Or take Pete Prisco - he is constantly the target of The Cold, Hard Football Facts for his analysis and historical understanding of the game of football. TCHFF brings as much to the table or more than any of the traditional outlets for NFL information and they have no access to players. Same is true of Baseball Prospectus (although they have morphed to some degree).

As far as small market teams - bloggers have become a very viable alternative to small market papers who have cut back on coverage and who regularly rely on AP for road game stories. Take Aaron Gleeman for example. He became almost the go to place for any analysis regarding the Minnesota Twins and he was able to parlay that into some pretty good paying gigs with more traditional media.

 

The part of the quid pro quo that much of the public will never understand is that beat reporters cannot spend an entire season trying to uncover dirt about players AND maintain their access to and relationships with performers. Media members are compromised in their ability to report hard news the moment they accept the basic access granted by the league/sport.

Chris, point taken on BLOGGERS! criticisms. I agree. Maybe it's simply individual mainstream reporters' knee-jerk reaction to the industry being under siege from all directions in recent years?

 

Hard to say. The guy almost never gets beaten, either. And he writes clean, never misses deadline and knows the league inside-out.

Team is just very hush-hush about news getting out. So are readers really getting screwed? I don't think so.

And it's an ongoing balancing act of "Do I report this today . . . and risk pissing the team off and having them spoon-feed the next 12 scoops to my competition?"

 

I find that "picking your battles" is a phrase that should be uttered in your mind every time you have something that can be seen as confrontational with your beat. You have to evaluate the costs and benefits of doing something.

For example, I recently had an issue where I didn't like the way a school I covered handled a coach's search for a minor sport. Not any thing in the search particularly, just on the way they were dealing with the media with it (no talking, 5 p.m. press releases if there was a development, making everybody involved unavailable for comment).

I let a lot of it slide though because it was not one of the revenue sports (down here, those are football, football, basketball, football, football, baseball and football). If I'm going to have them circling the wagons, it's going to be over something worth circling the wagons over.

I've dug in on some larger stories often enough that there are people around there who call me "negative" and think I'm out to get them there are people around there who understand what I'm doing, but wish I was a homer.

I think if I dug in on every issue, it would lead me and, as a result, our whole paper, into having constant fires to put out and you'd be using all your energy on a pissing contest rather than learning and telling the stories of what's happening out there. The last thing you want is your pissing contest to become the news.

 

Funny story, Tim. I initially cringed, thinking the last thing we need is another story about some millionaire athlete who grew up in harsh conditions, because I can throw a stone in every direction in my life -- at my plumber, at my third grader's teacher, at my cousin, you name it -- and hit someone who grew up in harsh conditions. That is one of the worst elements of our business, the aggrandizing of people with one particular set of skills and the tendency to then dwell on and overstate their joys, their sorrows, their challenges, their setbacks . . . BFD. Everybody's got it hard, and I'd rather read about the linebacker's tactics on the field or analysis of opponents.

But I stuck with your anecdote and, yeah, got a classic payoff. That's who we cover.

All most of us have to do is check our reader e-mail to be reminded about who we cover them for.