Sports Bloggers in the Press Box

No, I said that bloggers for the most part don't aspire for access, and snarkily put down the value of it. You can't put down the man and want to be the man simultaneously.

A newspaper is an established journalistic enterprise, which has earned access. If the paper doesn't want to fully use it and let Lupica write from home, it's the paper's choice. Just because you write on a subject and rig yourself a page count doesn't mean you should have access. By that standard, the press box should be filled with creative writing majors. And you use the free-lancer argument. Well, free-lancers aren't guaranteed access, either.

And, lastly, tell me exactly why a blogger should have access? What are they doing different than a newspaper? Express opinion? Papers have that. Snarkily? Lots of papers have that, too. Break news? An exception that bloggers are trying to make sound like the rule. I'm not saying that no blogger should ever get access, but there are far too many and far too many ways to rig prominence and page count to make it super common.

 

yeah but than again, what are papers doing that bloggers aren't? Game reports? check. Opinions? check. Interviews? Some. I'll admit most blogs aren't doing jack other than collecting links and bragging about page hits, but there are some top notch blogs and the lack of an editor doesn't detract that much from the overall quality for well-done blogs. You get a sense of journalistic quality that you don't always get from blogs, but I think there does need to be some sort of change in terminology, or at least specification because there is a huge gulf of quality between the blogs that are run by Joe Fan who just collects a bunch of links and posts a few random thoughts and the top notch ones that are well run.

 

Well, with a newspaper, you almost always will get someone who's trained in how to cover games, how to ask the right questions, how to do the job ethically, how to interview well, who has a track record (usually for the better, tho not always), and they have editors who are for the most part strongly grounded in how to edit a story well. On the other hand, given how espn.com has such an utter lack of editing that shows through time after time, what can be expected from a blog with much more meager resources?

The bottom line is, when there potentially could be tens of thousands of bloggers going for precious press-box space, the bar has to be damn high for a lot of unknown quantities.

 

Re: questions, etc.....

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/42043/

Just saying. Some reporters ask some stupid fucking 'questions', if you can call it that. It's not always the bloggers hanging on a coach or player's nuts.

 

Unfortunately for the newspaper business, I think bloggers are the future of the sports media business. Once their is competition in the field of bloggers you will see the competence of those bloggers improve. There are already signs that bloggers are making major head way into the sports media business. Newspapers have lost a big deal of their business due to the Internet to begin with and this is the next step in the evolution. That being said there should be some established credentials that all bloggers should have to adhere to before they can enter a press box, press room or have interviews. Some good examples of blogs are here: http://www.sbnation.com/ , http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/ , http://baseballcardblog.blogspot.com/ and http://www.minorleagueball.com/

 

Like your contention that newspapers are merely in the midst of a bad business cycle, your above observation is at best wishful thinking and at worst patently untrue.

Read the threads elsewhere here: This entire board is full of stories about supposed professional newspaper journalists who do things like wear team colors, accept all kinds of swag from the people they cover, don't know how to ask questions and behave like morons.

I work a highly competitive pro beat and there are a lot of great people on the beat, folks I have tremendous respect for. But there are also a lot of asshats who dress like bums, act like they're in junior high school and have ethics and demeanors that would embarrass a common street pimp.

That's not to say bloggers do or don't deserve credentials. That's an entirely different argument..

But there are a lot of legitimately credentialed newspaper people covering sports who have little or no training, aren't any good at covering games, rarely if ever ask good questions, have little or no ethics and are terrible interviewers.

And the newspapers have no one but themselves to blame, given that so many are run like sweatshops.

 

Shouldn't all media folks have to adhere to some sort of "established credentials" before being allowed into the press box?

Why should these "standards" apply only to the "bloggers" of the world?

Right now, those standards simply do not exist. The only standard that should matter, according to some on this board, is the age of the publication for which you work. And that's a pretty weak "standard."

There are "blogs" and web sites out there with bigger audiences than many established newspapers. Certainly, it's more rational to base credentials upon the size of a publication than it is its age of publication or method of delivering information.

Hell, it's the way the NFL determines SB credentials ... just ask anyone here who works for well estabalished newspaper with a small readership. You are SOL when it comes time to getting a SB credential. It's the bigger media outlets that get them ... the "standards" of the publcation are irrelevant. The NFL has issued SB credentials to guys in Batman outfits and American Idol losers with no journalism experience ... they simply issued credentials because these people represented big media outlets.

Hell, if standards mattered when it came time to issuing credentials, certainly the NYT and CBS, each of which have been busted for manufacturing stories in recent years, would not be given credentials. But they're big media outlets. So they get credentials.

Bottom line: when some sort of "standards" are created for older media outlets than maybe we can apply those same "standards" to bloggers and web sites.

I sit here on pins and needles awaiting the day those standards are established.

 

Why would MLB want to do this? They've got the most successful website in pro sports. They want to drive people to mlb.com to get "accounts of the games" -- and buy tickets and T-shirts from the site at the same time.

Would a blogger agree to work under the mlb.com umbrella in exchange for access?

 

Last year at SEC Media Days (Kickoff 2006), there were several bloggers there, but there were also a few empty chairs left, but if the crowd out newspaper (this was the newsroom, TV, radio and internet had their own rooms set up) reporters then that's a problem.

 

Yes, because the NYT and CBS should be defined as news operations by their worst mistakes.
You are not the future. You're barely the present.

 

maybe knowing the proper way to use the words then and than are a starting point. but THAN again, maybe people who read blogs don't really expect quality writing, just some random idiot's random opinion.

or maybe that's just one guy's opinion that works for an ESTABLISHED PUBLCATION.

thanks for stopping by.

 

TP, you have an error in your post as well.