NASCAR wire service debut

While NASCAR is a controlling entity, there is no way it would ever eliminate local access to races. So the local paper in Joliet won't be credentialed to cover the race at Chicagoland Speedway in 2007? Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll jump at using TSN's coverage. That's silly and bad business.

I'm not a full-time Cup writer, but I've cover many Cup races over the past decade and realize how much writers and team/driver PR folks love to gossip. Who doesn't?

 

You think 43+ sponsors will mind not having a story on Kurt Busch driving drunk or Tony Stewart starting a fight with name-your-driver-and/or-crew-chief here.

 

HoosierLoser wrote:

You think 43+ sponsors will mind not having a story on Kurt Busch driving drunk or Tony Stewart starting a fight with name-your-driver-and/or-crew-chief here.
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I'm presuming a question mark was meant for the end of your sentence.
I think they will mind not having a story.
Failure to issue credentials to, say, the Associated Press, in 2007 would, in fact, be tacit revocation of the credentials from previous seasons.
How about newspapers in Charlotte? Atlanta? Miami? Tribune Group (which is to say, Ed Hinton)? Any paper which covers its local track?
Do you really think NASCAR would be that stupid?
Do you really think individual tracks not controlled by ISC (Bruton Smith, hello) would stand for it?
Think again.

 

Hey, I generally don't like to pimp myself so blatantly.

But I live about 30 minutes from Daytona and would like to cover the Pepsi 400 for someone.

I can give you an alternative to AP, and I'm flexible on the rate. I'm just breaking into NASCAR for the first time this year and have plans to cover all races at Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Chicago and Miami.

If interested, PM me.

 

I've already posted there. ;-)

And I know of at least one reporter at my last stop who would fall into the category of reporters that you've just described.

He seems like the kind of guy who's more likely to ask questions that showcase his own knowledge of racing than to ask something germane to the subject at hand.

 

Also consider how far the major sports entities are going in trying to control the message - NFL, MLB, etc. - they're trying to have their own voice heard above all else. Most people on this board are traditional journalists who support an almost church-and-state like division between the leagues and news outlets. But this is the way things are trending so maybe NASCAR is trying to get out in front of everybody else.

 

How hard is it to get credentialed to most NASCAR races? I know a guy who was trying to get credentialed for Daytona about 10 years ago, and they had a requirement that you must have covered at least 30 or so Cup races to get in.

And who controls the credentialing? I would imagine NASCAR doesn't have total say; the promoters/track owners must have something to say, too.

As the sport expands, I would reckon NASCAR sees more national-level papers fully staffing the series and is trying to make room for them. I don't know if that ever will happen in this age of cutbacks, but I'm sure that's what NASCAR is trying to push.

 

Hey man, the FIA isn't that strict. I mean, I got a pass.

 

I was a little bit insulted by this. In my experience, the ones with the dumb questions are like the backup/sidebar guys who come in and are trying to get material that everyone's already talked about a zillion times. Like, "Hey Ryan, do you think the Chase is a good idea?"

I guess this struck a nerve with me because I was one of those "podunk" guys for two years. I'm sorry if I took up space in the media center or asked dumb questions. However, I also covered more races in those two years than many people with a hard card and often did so on my own dime.

That was valuable experience that can't be replaced, and certainly helped me get to my next job. If NASCAR is going to limit the smaller papers from covering races, I think that would be a real, real shame.

 

Gee, they can't limit the circulation too low ... Gaston's only 32K

I believe individual tracks are responsible for credentials.

As far as the press box/interview room goes, I don't think you can blame the Podunk Presses of the world for ruining those. Every sport I've ever covered has had people from papers large and small who are either posers or who cause everybody to cringe when they ask a question.
Heck, I've mangled more than one inquiry in front of everybody -- nothing like Kevin Harvick looking at you blankly and telling you, "I don't understand the question. But I've also asked a question in a post-race that nobody else was talking about and then woke up to find the driver's answer wound up being the lede to the AP story.
Dress code? Please. Again, this is not a big paper/small paper deal. Yes, I go over the top with a tie, but I've also witnessed some of the inner circle wearing college football throwbacks to cover the Brickyard.

 

espnguy wrote:

If this sport is to become professional, the people who represent the media should act, look, dress and behave themselves as professionals.
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NASCAR is professional, in that it awards prize money. The rest of the point is on the mark. But where will acting, looking, dressing and behaving like a professional leave Bruce Martin? In Podunk?

 

It's interesting to see where this project is going. I've talked to several buddies at papers around the country who have told me their editors are declining the service, despite it being free because of the NASCAR heavy publicity smell of the whole project. Using Lee Spencer and her NASCAR credentials seems acceptable, but her husband is a golf writer and he's involved and this third writer is a basement website producer who must be doing it for free. Again, the idea has merit but it has to come from an entity completely free of NASCAR's ties or it will have absolutely no credibility. "Independent" website writers with deep NASCAR ties and credentials that come to mind such as Bonkowski at Yahoo, or Ashenfelter at ESPN or Pistone at RacingOne, which is an ISC-owned entity so maybe that has credibility issues with NASCAR ties, would be a better route. As for the media credentials issue, we keep hearing ESPN is going to force NASCAR to "clear the decks' and eliminate "podunk' papers and online entities from being inside the tracks and media centers next year as it tries to reap as much as it can from the heavy dollars paid to get back into the picture. NASCAR.com is said to maybe wind up as part of the ESPN properties or may go in-house at NASCAR, giving the sanctioning body more control over all the news that goes out.