What game has odds like 1,200 to 29? See
below
For a couple of years now, I've
been cautioning sportswriter wannabes in my news writing classes that
the "pro/am" trend in journalism itself might affect the future of
their intended profession. "If anyone can go to a game, blog a
play-by-play account, and upload pictures and stats from a cell phone,"
I suggested, "how many news organizations will continue to shell out
money for the same old sports journalism?" The same goes for
Monday-morning quarterbacking in print.
Perhaps "professional sportswriting" might
shrink down to things like sports as celebrity gossip, sports as
business reporting, sports as marketing, and sports as a
crime-and-corruption beat. (Or has it already?)
But maybe
there's some reason for optimism in the latest attempt by a sports
organization to control the media -- if sports organizations try
enforcing a "no blogs" policy to protect their franchises from
"unauthorized" reporting like this week's flap about Brian Bennett's
NCAA baseball blog. The irony: Bennett is a
professional sportswriter -- for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal. Here's the story:
Newspaper
Blogger Ejected from NCAA Game
AP via Business Week
and ESPN
A reporter was ejected from an NCAA baseball
tournament game for
submitting live
Internet updates during play.
Brian
Bennett, a writer for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal,
was
approached Sunday by an NCAA
representative in the bottom of the fifth
inning and told that blogging from an NCAA championship
event is against
NCAA
policies.
Bennie Ivory, the
newspaper's executive editor, told AP the paper blogged the Orange Bowl
and the NCAA basketball tournament and considered Bennett's blog ban a
First Amendment issue.
Lucy Dagleish,
executive director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,
gave USA Today
(NCAA
criticized for ejecting reporter...) a different take: "This is appalling, but in no way am I surprised... The
television networks pay a lot of money for the rights to live
reporting, and the NCAA makes a whale of a lot of money. This is all
about money and not about the First
Amendment." The New York Times reported Bloggers
Ejection May Mean Suit for NCAA, quoting Northwestern
University new media journalism prof Rich Gordon: "The law, as happens in many cases, has not kept up
with the technology... As a journalist, you're inclined to
wave the First Amendment flag. This is going to get messier before it
gets figured out. The media trends are at odds with the leagues' goal
of controlling distribution and extracting a
ransom."
This Courier Journal column
agreed: NCAA
Showed What It's About - Cash and Control.
Knoxville News Sentinel blogger
Michael Silence said, "What
next, are they going to confiscate cell phones?" He also
collected plenty of links, plus a statement from the Media
Bloggers Association. In fact, a Google search for "blogger
bennett ncaa" was producing more than
100,000 hits after just a couple of days.
Searching
for "live
blogging" and "sports" yielded more than a half-million hits.
This one won't go away in a hurry.
Watchdog
alternative: Thinking outside the (press) box
If this case or one like it ever leads to
an "anyone can blog from the bleachers" ruling, maybe journalism
professors can convince wannabe sportswriters to think about "watchdog
journalism" as a more important
sport. They could trade their dreams of the press box and locker room
for the press room (or the bleachers) at City Hall or the Statehouse...
investigate investigative
reporting... learn to ask more
questions... put those batting-average statistics skills to work on campaign
finance numbers or the stories buried in other public records... in
short, write about civic affairs.
Whether they do that for a living or as a
citizen journalist,
they can go write sports
blogs on their days off. (They'll have company.
That last link goes to the 1.2 million Google hits on the
phrase "sports blog." In comparison, a search for "watchdog journalism" gets
29,000.) Note: The Google-zeitgeist statistics scattered throughout
this essay are in no way scientific or precise. I am ashamed of using
them just to grab your attention, but intrigued by the possibility that they might
mean something. If
I were doing this as a paid journalist with an editor looking over my shoulder, I'd try
to find an expert with some better numbers.
Honest.
3:57:02 PM 
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