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!

Sports Travel. Seriously.

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Joe Williams, Jul 7, 2007.

  1. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    If you're missing half of the team's games how is anybody supposed to take you seriously as a beat writer?
     
  2. boots

    boots New Member

    If you cover preps in a metro area, are you at EVERY game. No. But you are still the beat writer. If you know how to make contacts, it can be done. Travel is great for getting special stories done. You can talk to guys on the road without the local rif-raf sneaking in on interviews.
     
  3. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    I think something is being missed here. The question isn't about whether or not missing road games hurts coverage. I think everyone would agree it does. The question is whether the loss in coverage is worth saving someone's job and how much it will hurt readership.

    A lot of papers are already making decisions about what travel is a priority and what isn't. At my paper, we'll staff every road game for the college football teams, but we're not going on the road for our minor league baseball team. I think we monitor some of our college basketball road games, too. And even with college football, a road game doesn't get the same attention a home game does. At a home game, you'll have two beat writers, a columnist and at least one photog almost every time. Road games, you can almost always count on the columnist not going along, and rare is the trip that we send a photographer since we can almost always get AP or a freelancer to shoot it for us.

    I think in an ideal world, you'd want beat guys there every game, home and away. But we don't live in an ideal world. Sacrifices have to be made. In those cases, the best bet is to decide which beats you have to spend the money to travel and which can be sacrificed. Does it hurt the coverage? Sure. A beat guy will always bring more to a story when he's there than when he's not, and he'll definitely bring more to the table than a freelancer simply because of his familiarity with the team.

    But maybe missing a couple of games on the MLS beat and a few more on some college or high school beats is worth it if Joe over on the news side isn't booted onto the street.

    The key is prioritizing where the money needs to be spent. In Dallas, they won't be trimming Cowboys trips, but maybe FC Dallas misses out. In Arizona, you can bet they'll probably cover every Suns game, but maybe they miss an Arizona State hoops trip. It's a matter of figuring out what readers want and knowing where the sacrifice can be made.

    I'm not saying it's the way to go. I hate the idea of cutting back sports coverage, and I'd argue that even on mundane road trips that good beat reporters can get something that would be beneficial to readers and would be more than freelancers could get. The question is how much is lost and whether it is worth losing that to save someone's job. Or even if cutting the travel budget even matter when it comes time to cut jobs.
     
  4. Just_An_SID

    Just_An_SID Well-Known Member

    Many, many thoughts about this topic.

    First, if you are serious about covering a sport, than you need to travel. It might be expensive, but if you want to do a good job, your beat writer needs to be there.

    I have worked at places where newspapers lined up stringers on the road and -- with apology to those of you who string -- I have been forced to deal with many, many asshats. They come to the game with no knowledge of the team and expect me to spend all my timing spoon-feeding them a story. When the first question I hear from a stringer is, "who do you play next week" then the day isn't going to go well.

    Ultimately, the story that is filed is usually re-written because the writer doesn't have a grasp of what the team is like and picks something very basic for the lead (as if it were something unusual).

    MODDY: I would bend over backwards to help out a beat writer who couldn't make a trip (for a legit reason) but still wanted to file. If a writer goes the extra mile for me, I will do the same. Especially since in most cases, the problem doesn't come from the writer but instead from management. I don't expect a beat writer to grant me favors. . . I just want them to work hard and be fair about their coverage. I've had too many beat writers who really didn't care about the beat and it showed in their coverage. Unfortunately, it is usually the lazy writers who need the most favors (and then I'm forced to deal with the dilemma of helping them to get a story done right or denying them something because they are lazy and then screwing the story over.)

    BUBBLER: The AP story generally sucks and it makes me laugh about how many schools will run the AP story on their website, even though in some cases, the story rips their school. If I get my ass handed to me by USC in football, the last thing I want to see is a pro-USC story on my web site.

    SOME GUY: Don't blame the SID, blame the coach. More schools are going away from giving complete access, usually because the coach in question has been burned before by the media and he/she wants to limit the possibility that a media member can become friends with an athlete which could create an unique access point.

    I have watched coaches go from total access to limited access because of media incidents. For example, one athlete had a charge lodged against him early on a Thursday night and the media frenzy that followed was amazing. One radio guy went on the air to urge the kid to turn himself in (and no do an O.J.) and all of the late news opened with the story and pretty much crucified the kid. The next day, the kid turned himself in (and he was quickly released) with a hearing set for the next week. When the hearing finally came, the charge was tossed out (the girl who made it was mad at him for breaking up with her so she made the story up). Now, after almost a week of being murdered in the paper, the charges proved to be nothing and the subsequent reporting (TV mentioned it in sports -- not as the lead story & newspapers put in page 1 below the fold and being lead story several times) didn't really give the kid his due.

    Now the coach wants to cut off access to the media because. . . in his logic. . . he had allowed the media access as a way to get to know the players and when something came up, not one writer or anchor said, "I know this kid and he isn't a bad guy so let's wait before we convict him." (I know what you are going to say but this isn't an unreasonable request)
     
  5. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    That sounds eerily like my beat, except neither of the football coaches let you get close enough to get to really know a kid. If they'd used that argument with us, it would have been back-assward. We'd love more access to allow us to do stories that show these guys as real, three-dimensional people instead of as jersey numbers, Rivals.com stars (3, 4 or 5) and statistics, but the lack of access won't allow it. Unfortunately, the coaches (and SIDs) don't seem to understand that we have to report the arrests and suspensions and other failings whether we get their help or not, but they're tying our hands when we would love to provide what they call "balance": stories that show them as people when there isn't a police blotter reason for doing so.
     
  6. FlipSide

    FlipSide Member

    Fantastic post -- exact same situation here.
     
  7. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    We can't even view practice on my beat during the season.
     
  8. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Who would want to?
     
  9. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I wholeheartedly agree with the masses here that say travel is crucial for good beat reporting.

    But I fear for non-team beats such as golf. One major metro recently decided to turn its golf focus more "local" and parted ways with its longtime writer. So that means no trips to the majors, The Players, Ryder Cup, etc., which certainly saves big bucks. As a journo of course I hate that, but if I'm thinking as a beancounter maybe it makes the smallest bit of sense. The baseball beat guy, for example, can argue that all the road trips keep him/her abreast of everything and help maintain key relationships, but does the golf guy get better access to Tiger because he's out there for a half-dozen big tournaments? What if there's no local guy to follow or other local storyline? Are there big stories to be broken on the road that no one else is gonna get? Just playing hypotheticals. I love, love golf and there's a lot of guys I'll read during big events. But I wonder if that's one area that's gonna stick out pretty far on the chopping block at a lot more shops.
     
  10. CollegeJournalist

    CollegeJournalist Active Member

    Working a low-budget college paper, I didn't travel with any of my beats last year. I covered hockey and tennis and helped with baseball. The baseball team was a top 25 team for much of the year and is growing in popularity at the school and the tennis team was ranked all season.

    But we couldn't afford to travel with anything but basketball and football unless it was a special occasion or a short trip.

    The SID was great and the teams couldn't have been better, but it sucked missing nearly half of the games/matches and then having to write gamers or even briefs on them. It's just tough to keep up and write a good story when I wasn't even at the game.
     
  11. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    SixToe, if I can find a Days Inn, Red Roof or Super 8 that is in a good-enough area I'm taking it. Management won't care about prices like that. If I want to find a higher-quality hotel in a big city, I'll warn them that I'm getting the rate through Hotwire/Priceline/name your own service. As long as I can produce some sort of receipt, it isn't a problem (at least not at my paper)
     
  12. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    Really good thread, and I think editors are thinking a lot more about this possibility than the beat writers defending their travel because it's what's been done in the past.

    As a beat writer, I want to be at every game I can, absolutely. I'll lobby to travel, report extra features off beat while I'm on the road to justify a trip, and I'll stay cheap, but at this point, it's hard to argue when you're told it's not worth the trip.

    Papers aren't cutting back on travel right now as much as they are cutting back on travelers.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page