Reporters as fans

I know we've discused this before, but here is an interesting back and forth started by a former, longtime reporter. It's a fine line. We all at least started as fans, and many still are. I'd post about my team on my personal Facebook page but not on my professional account.

 

I tried my best to be a fan of the fast clock and a good game, for a good story. Otherwise I didn't give a flip.

Homers abound, though.

 

When working on deadline, I always was a fan of a fast clock. Hated extra innings, overtime, and especially shootouts in the NHL. For some reason, the AP would always take twice as long to send gamers for NHL games that finished in a shootout.

 

I always found it quite interesting how newsroom folks could be fans of sports teams, but if a sports person was a fan of a politician or a political persuasion, that was considered off-limits.

 

Hell, half the reason I became a Caps diehard was that I never covered hockey, at least not when I got back to Virginia. (Covered a handful of Coyotes games in Arizona, mostly in the playoffs.) I felt like I could be a fan without any restrictor plates. It was tricky in college sports, especially considering I spent a decent amount of time as a beat writer covering my alma mater and my alma mater's bitter rival. Never thought I let it affect my reporting, though when I voted for the AP Top 25 in hoops and had Virginia at No. 5 -- which many Cavs fans felt was too low -- they were quick to point out I went to Virginia Tech and gave me plenty of shit for it. Didn't bother me much, though.

 

Seems like he's trying to make an issue of it. His tweet alleging that newsrooms are full of people wearing gear of their teams seems false. The ones I was in weren't like that. Of course people had their teams, but they had the good sense to not brazenly root in professional settings.

Are there professional settings anymore?

 

Honestly, sports "journalism" empires have been built on being fanbois - ask Simmons and Portnoy.

I do think its odd how newspapers and such will advertise as "the official" whatever of X Teams fans (of course, they don't have to pay a dime for the designation) and also how fans expect the local sports news people to "root" for their team, publish nothing but puff pieces and go easy when bad news comes along. And we've also come to an era where someone will stake out the turf of the "anti-homer" just to get clicks.

 

I'm more annoyed by how that hat looks like it was worn for the first time in that picture.

 

If Tom Hoffarth is here, I have two things to say to him:

1. Don’t punch down (although in this case I’m not sure how far down this is).
2. And you are?

 

I'm a firm believer in no cheering in the press box. But I also understand that bias inevitably creeps in because we are all human beings. If you take a job somewhere and aren't remotely a fan of the team you cover, eventually you form relationships with the individuals involved. Maybe you connect really well with the linemen or hit it off with the coach.

Even by staying completely professional, you're going to eventually be in a position where a part of you will want them to succeed, just on a human level. Or, if they get fired, it's going to impact you more than if it was someone you never met.

We all have biases. The key is either disclosing those biases (dropping "AT&T WarnerMedia is the parent company of CNN" in news report by the cable network, for example) or by having checks in place to ensure bias doesn't color the story.

Unfortunately, with more and more cuts to newsrooms, those checks are disappearing.

I think you can grow up a Seahawks fan and still cover the team fairly. I don't think you should be cheering in the press box or wearing team gear.

Oh, and pontificating about this on social media gets you nowhere, Tom Hoffarth. The only people who care are other journalists, because all the fans can't understand how you're not a fan of the team in the first place.

 

Many many years ago I learned that one way to stop rooting for a team was to cover it for awhile. Exposed to the usual mixture of good, bad, and maddening experiences that surround any team knocks the stars from your eyes pretty quickly.