Who Should Cover the World Series?

Tim, if you cover baseball all season, you ought to know everybody else. A week at the WS clusterfuck isn't going to be as valuable as a season's worth of travel.

 

Networking and professional credibility seem to be the biggest arguments for, say the Kansas City Star, to send a writer to the World Series.

But how much networking is done during this week that couldn't be and isn't done during the other 162 regular season games?

Just wondering

 

Everyone is in the same place at the same time. If Tim Sullivan's writer friend took the Phillies' trip to Cincinnati as his vacation week (or, these days, his furlough week), maybe the two don't see each other until the World Series or All-Star Game.

 

You know, they have these things now called "e-mail" and "cell phones."

 

The face time is valuable. How valuable is up for debate and probably very different in every case.

If you want your MLB coverage to have credibility, however, you can't fake it. It requires dedicating people to working the beat, developing sources, and getting to know people on more than a "hello" basis. Good reporting from good reporters -- Gordon Edes, Tim Brown, Ken Rosenthal, Buster Olney, Richard Justice -- is the way to establish credibility, and those guys aren't reporting from the TV.

On the other hand, why bother sending someone just so you can say you sent someone, especially if that someone isn't already covering the sport on a daily basis? You don't gain credibility by having someone there; you gain credibility by having someone there who has already invested in coverage of the sport and who can provide unique content to your readership.

 

I think we're overestimating how much readers care about the "credibility" of MLB coverage. I could be wrong.

 

Depends on your publication and your target readership, I suppose. Casual fans probably aren't even looking for a byline. Hardcore fans definitely consider the source.

 

Tim was making the argument that he wouldn't have met the guy in the first place if it weren't for national events like the WS, ASG, etc.

 

Well, Dan, it seems you aren't the only one. Because as far as I could tell, neither Cincinnati, Detroit nor Atlanta had a guy at the World Series.

 

What a great idea. I can't believe none of the six New York papers thought of this. You and King George sitting in the living room with a bag of Doritos.

 

I find it hard to believe you've seen that in any of the major metro papers that cover baseball. I don't want it to seem like I'm shitting on you, Dan, but I guess that's exactly what I am doing. This suggestion is irrelevant, because it only pertains to papers who long ago stopped covering the World Series. You're telling me that in place of a writer at the World Series, the L.A. Times is going to run a story about a groundskeeper from the Valley who happens to be there?

Fry's overall point has some merit. Are there papers sending people to the World Series when they would best be allocating those resources elsewhere? Absolutely. But the solution lies in allocating those resources elsewhere. Many papers would be better served sending a writer to keep tabs on his organization's prospects in the Arizona Fall League than on a World Series between two non-market teams. I think the AJC did this. The solution does not lie in saving that money and having a writer cover the game off of television.

But as those in the ivory tower are apt to do, Fry paints with a broad brush. The Boston market is a lot different from the Kansas City market. If you are in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago or St. Louis, your baseball coverage is part of the backbone of your section. And even if you aren't, there are huge benefits to being present at a title game that don't show up in the daily paper. You get face time with league officials who somewhere down the road you will need a callback from. You get face time with other writers, who somewhere down the road might be able to help you with a contact or a rumor that might have legs.

The question SEs need to ask is whether these benefits are worth the costs. But many SEs already have, which is why Fry's column seems poorly-timed.

 

You forgot the blue sarcasm font, I assume?