Fans who get press passes

Not a fanboi story, but just a press box story that Bradley's tale of woe reminded me of.
Covering a rivalry game once, and the visiting team's coaches' booth is adjacent to the press seating in the box. As in, the door for the coaches' booth opens into the press area and is very thin. You could hear the coaches making their play calls and noticing things, which was kind of interesting to hear them tell the head coach how a play that lost 2 yards should have been a touchdown if one guy had made his block.

It was also interesting to hear when they got pissed. Those coaches could make a drunken sailor blush. They got going at one point and it seemed like they were swearing for a good five minutes straight, alternately out of annoyance at bad plays and excitement over good ones. All of this could be heard as if they were in the room with us, which they pretty much were. After a few minutes, one of the women knocked on the door to ask them to watch their language.
It didn't work.

 

Had a high school game like that last fall. One assistant coach from the visiting team had a favorite four-letter word he used early, often, and loud enough for people in the stands to turn around and look.

Unfortunately, the local radio p-b-p guy was right on the other side of the wall from him, and apparently his mic did a great job of picking it up. The texts started hitting my phone before halftime: "Who's that guy swearing on the radio?"

 

At a recent press conference, I was on a deadline working a fairly original angle, yet couldn't get my question asked because a couple of fanboy bloggers asked three of four questions in a row about completely unrelated shit, like "your favorite childhood sports hero?" and "your biggest inspiration?" Was actually more pissed at the conference moderator for giving them the mic.

 

I covered a game at Virginia Tech recently and they would not approve credentials for the fanboy websites like Rivals, Scout, etc. It was nice to know that some universities still have a standard for what really is journalism and will shudder the fanboys to where they belong. Those of us doing real work got to actually do it in a working pressbox atmosphere.

Wish I could say that for a lot of other programs, but that's not the case. Still, I'm a closet Hokies fan to this day because of that experience.

 

Not forgiving the fanbois, of course, but the thing to do next time is let the PR folks know what you need and, if they're good, they'll accommodate you. Have done that a couple of times in boxing when a fighter on the undercard was my story.

 

Interesting, I've met a ton of reporters from those sites who I'd call pretty good journalists and actually do real work.

 

So, here's a question for some of you "vets" here. What do you make of aspiring journalists - not the fan boys - who write for sites like those listed above?

I've been stuck in design/pagination hell for the past 2+ years, so I started my own site. I have a ton of contributors, but nobody makes money, myself included. We cover Notre Dame, Michigan, mid-major schools, MLS and ICC soccer, minor leagues and then music and entertainment stuff in our coverage area. We do podcasts, videos, photo galleries and written articles. I'm hoping to be able to compensate my people soon, but all of us do it for exposure, portfolio and brand purposes at the moment.

 

To be honest, I doubt the "vets" think much of what outlet your write for, unless the one with a press pass is acting like an ass.

 

Let me put it this way. I started at an alternative weekly in the '70s. I would never, ever rip somebody just because of their outlet, only because of their own behavior or lack of same, What I remember most about my early days is that I was given the benefit of the doubt from the older established writers and by the teams I covered. I would hope that's the standard that applies today, when the media scene is so much more framented,

 

I place all the value in the world on what I am doing. Especially after my work has helped those around me land jobs doing what they also love. I get disheartened every single time I come on this message board when I see all of the bitterness.

 

I'm sure it's a range. It also can get kinda weird when there's someone with a little too much rooting interest, but is well sourced enough to just crush the mainstream outlets on scoops. That said, being in print doesn't preclude some petulant fanboy tendencies (for some reason, writers getting mad at teams is way more irksome to me than showering them with praise).