The Final Documentary!

After over a year of research, interviews, recording and editing, I have finished my radio documentary on ethics in sports journalism!

Click the link below to listen!

A Survey of Ethics in Sports Journalism.mp3

Graphical Trouble

You may have heard of or even seen the Indianapolis Star article about the Duke men’s basketball team last week.

Being the site of the Final Four and National Championship this year, there was a responsibility on the area newspaper to cover all of the teams in the running; West Virginia, Michigan State, Butler and Duke.

A sports reporter for the Star wrote up an article called “Despising Duke” which looked at some of the reasons why Duke is a polarizing team that is usually either hated or loved.

The controversy came when the graphic created for the article (not by the journalist himself) went perhaps a bit too far in portraying the idea of hating Duke.

Here’s a link to the original newspaper page - http://i.usatoday.net/communitymanager/_photos/campus-rivalry/2010/04/02/coachkx-large.jpg?loc=interstitialskip

As you can see, the graphic is supposed to emulate what a Duke despiser might do to a picture of the “Duke ambassador”, Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski with a pen.

The idea isn’t too bad, but the execution was very questionable. The bullseye on the head, in particular, brought a lot of criticism to the Star, and they pulled the image from their subsequent editions.

Duke is pursuing the matter, and is none too pleased.

This is a prime example of a newspaper or media outlet making themselves (in this case, probably unwittingly) part of the story.

It should be obvious why this one is a problem.

Jayson Stark Thoughts

ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark was up at Penn State recently. Here is my review of his speech:

As a fan of his already via ESPN.com, I greatly appreciated the insight that Jayson Stark was able to impart to us during both his class discussion and the Foster conference speech he gave.

The first thing that Mr. Stark mentioned was how much the Internet had changed the sports media landscape. He grew up wanting to be a newspaper writer, and in achieving that dream years ago, he had to become very proficient at writing stories very quickly to meet deadlines. While it is very possible to write great stories under this pressure, Mr. Stark happily notes how writing for the Internet has given him the ability to take his time to write a story the way it deserves to be written.

I must confess, since starting my foray into the study of sports journalism ethics for my honors thesis, I have fallen into the habit of evaluating each speaker’s own ethical model. Mr. Stark is very clearly cognizant of the ethical challenges facing someone in his position. He stressed in the speech that he is not a Phillies fan, but that he covers all teams in baseball with an objective eye. This is an important distinction between not only commentary and journalism, but between the average fan and journalists. If our prominent journalists are actually die-hard fans of a certain team, the only thing separating them from Joe Schmo writing an article is a more refined style and skill set.

Before he even started to read his first excerpt, it is obvious from Jayson’s demeanor and conversational style that he is a down-to-earth, likable guy. As he later alludes to, his speaking style mirrors his writing (or vice versa) in that it is extremely conversational, often funny, and easily digestible. You don’t need to be a Rhodes Scholar to dissect his prose, and this proves writers do not have to posture in this way to create effective, successful pieces. It’s about connecting emotionally with your reader, not about impressing them with your vocabulary.

I felt I could identify with Jayson in how he strives to find a unique angle to each story he attacks. This is the way that my mind works as well. I see that Garrett Jones has hit his 3^rdhomerun in his first six at-bats, and I wonder who the last Pirate was to approach that level. The fact that Mr. Stark often insists on figuring his numbers on his own time is further proof to his humble nature. With his job position, he could very easily delegate such menial chores to interns or low-level employees, but he instead does the leg-work on his own.

When he reads from his book, it is hard not to be swept up in the imagery and descriptive language he employs. He says his goal is to write a piece that makes people feel when they read it how they felt when they watched it. On this goal, I think he succeeds way more often than not.

Mr. Stark gave a great piece of advice near the end. He let us in the audience know that we should study the writers and broadcasters we look up to, and try to emulate them at first. I already do, and will continue to take this to heart.

I’ll end on this Stark quote, “What makes sports great is not the sports story, but the life story.” This is the sentiment I often go to when outsiders belittle my chosen profession.

Book Review Part 1

For my one of my sports journalism classes here at Penn State, we are reading “The Rise and Fall of the Press Box” by Leonard Koppett.

I found the material to be very interesting, and fortunately quite applicable to this blog’s subject.

And so, here is the first part of my review:

My immediate reaction after finishing these first 50 pages was great respect for the author. There is an effortless way in which Mr. Koppett is telling this story that makes me want to keep right on reading. It is easy to see, even in this early stage, why he had such an accomplished career throughout multiple fields.

As an aspiring broadcast journalist, many things struck me in this reading. I suspect that things are somewhat different, considering I have not had any prior experience as a print journalist in a press box. However, I have been fortunate enough to do broadcasting work for ComRadio.

The description Koppett offered regarding the prized status of the press box during the “Golden Age” still hit a personal note, as even with my comparatively meager gig of broadcasting PSU Icers hockey games, I’ve had requests from friends to ‘get them in for free.’ In addition, in the few Penn State football games I have attended either as a play-by-play man or spotter for ComRadio, my friends have nagged me to sneak them up to the booth. And trust me, the stuffy box we’re saddled with is hardly prime viewing real estate, especially when compared to the senior-level student section seats I had to forego.

I also realized that I understood what Koppett was describing when he said the press box/room is no longer as upbeat and friendly. Perhaps it is only because I’m a collegiate broadcaster, but I have always felt excluded and roundly ignored by older and more experienced journalists while in Beaver Stadium’s press area.

Another point made by Koppett that I felt the need to respond to was his intimation that the “new mode” of sports journalism coverage regarding athlete/media relationships is detrimental to finished products. While I can agree, in part, that the loss of informal, open relationships with athletes is potentially a detriment, there have been some marked benefits.

“Back in the day”, athletes were able to hide any indiscretions in plain sight of journalists. Simply because you don’t “out” a friend. The fact that there are far fewer buddy-buddy relationships between writers or journalists and athletes has led to more investigative (although sometimes needlessly invasive) sports journalism. Take baseball, for example. The fact that many players were abusing steroids in the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s was almost completely unreported, despite evidence being right under reporter’s noses. The division in the clubhouse between athletes and journalists has uncovered some of these ugly truths, as journalists no longer feel a sense of familial obligation to their subjects. Sure, sometimes the results aren’t pretty, but then again, the truth isn’t always pretty by necessity.

Interestingly, while investigative journalism has taken a few steps forward as the press box and journalist/athlete relationship has evolved, in some areas it has taken a few steps back. When Koppett asserted that press conferences have become wholly canned events with little individual initiative taken by reporters, I was beside myself in agreement. I have felt that way about press conferences for years. They have become formulaic, with the only noteworthy cracks in the dry shell being certain coaches’ or athlete’s personalities breaking through the drudgery.

Overall, I felt that the reading was interesting and very relatable, and I am excited to read the next few chapters.

Sports Blog Review

I am an avid reader of many Pittsburgh sports blogs.

One of my favorite blogs is managed and written by Pat Lackey, who is not a journalist.

I find it to be very interesting that such a rich and in-depth blog is written by a non-journalist, and so here is a review I wrote of his site:

The owner and blogger of the website www.whygavs.com is Pat Lackey. Lackey is not a journalist. In fact, he doesn’t have any kind of formal schooling in writing or journalism. He is foremost a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Lackey majored in a science field at Duquesne, and realized in 2005 that he enjoyed talking about the Pirates whenever he had the chance. So he started up a blog that he called, “Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?” It was an appeal to the last era of glory days for the Pirates, which unfortunately happened to be 17 seasons ago.

According to the ‘About’ tab on his blog, Lackey explains that he had only initially intended his family and friends to read his entries, but that it quickly found a dedicated audience online. In fact, in a yearly Pittsburgh sports blog “tournament”, WHYGAVS was voted as the second-best Pittsburgh sports blog; just narrowly missing out on 1^st place by a 50.7% to 49.3% margin.

But the great thing about WHYGAVS is that Lackey is by no means any less passionate about the Pirates just because they are terrible, and have been for a long time. For someone who no longer even lives in the city of Pittsburgh, it would be easy for him to pick a new, contending team to follow.

Blogs are important in today’s media landscape because they fill a very specific hole in sports journalism. Now, this is not to say that bloggers should be considered journalists. There are gaping differences between the two camps, and rightfully so. But what blogs do so well is integrate a topic into the social networking nature of the Internet.

WHYGAVS has twitter feeds integrated into the sidebar, opinion polls, links to dozens of other top-notch Pittsburgh sports-related blogs, and an RSS feed. This means you are not just reading someone’s opinion on the Pittsburgh Pirates, but you can interact with the author and hundreds of other Pirates fans who are reading the same things. Discussion is at a premium. WHYGAVS’ twitter account and RSS capabilities also make it available to be read even when away from a computer, due to easy integration with today’s inundation of cell phones.

Being on the Internet also affords WHYGAVS other privileges over mainstream sports media outlets. More freedom means that embedded YouTube videos, pictures, and polls can accompany posts. This allows for a change of pace, visual complements, and yes, even humor to be injected into what could otherwise become tiresome walls of text.

As was previously mentioned, Lackey is not a journalist. Because of this, it is somewhat easier to relate to his perspective as a fan. Some journalists can take on a persona of their own, due to a perceived or real level of stardom. This is problematic, because fans often just want to read about the team, and not a documentary starring the author and his subjects. But Lackey, and most other bloggers, are just like us. They are die-hard fans, but ones with an ability to describe their opinions in a cohesive, written manner. And Lackey is among the best at this.

Because there are virtually zero restrictions on what bloggers can do with their web-space, some often devolve into crass, name-calling, childish mediums for expressing fan angst. Fortunately, Lackey has kept WHYGAVS free from such temptations. Each one of his posts are well-thought out, coming from a fan with an impressive comprehension of the team and sport, and easy to understand.

In fact, there are some elements to Lackey’s blog that I have not found on any of the professional Pirates blogs or websites I frequent. For instance, Lackey is a self-proclaimed statistic enthusiast, and when he feels intrigued about the direction a Pirate pitcher is moving in, he’s likely to plug in the information from each of their pitches into Excel charts and crunch the data.

A recent flurry of interest in whether Zach Duke’s production tailed off in 2009 due to fatigue prompted Lackey to analyze the break on Duke’s curveball in the first and second halves of last season. After explaining and showing his findings, he concluded that Duke indeed was not throwing as sharp a curve in the last two months of the season, as evidenced by a wider range of break than was present from April to July.

I have not seen such dedication and creativity on the columns or blogs of paid journalists, yet I am able to consume it free of charge from www.whygavs.com. If I fall behind in following the Pittsburgh Pirates by a day or two, I can just navigate my browser to Lackey’s 5-year-old site and be caught up in a manner of minutes.

While sports blogs may often receive a bad reputation, it’s clear from blogs like WHYGAVS that they have an important role to play in the upcoming sports media culture shift. And, with more and more newspapers instructing their regular columnists to start blogging on the side, or even hiring degree-less bloggers straight from popular websites, it is also clear that mainstream news outlets are realizing this.

And as long as quality sports blogs like WHYGAVS outnumber the irresponsible ones, the future relationship between sports journalism and the sports blogosphere looks very bright.

Fantasy in the Newsroom?

Time to broach a topic that I find very interesting personally.

If you aren’t familiar with fantasy sports (football, baseball and hockey seem to be the most prevalent), they are essentially run in leagues where each person picks (via draft or auction) a team of players from different actual professional teams. They then follow those players statistically in real life, and the team that does the best combined job wins the week.

It’s a chance to be a general manager, of sorts.

These leagues are sometimes run for money, and sometimes just for fun.

These are very popular, and as you might imagine, many sports journalism outlets have reporters that are hooked on the activity, and they wish to make work leagues.

I know personally of some outlets that have their own fantasy leagues, usually with a cash incentive.

So is this an ethical problem?

That’s a tough question to answer.

When money is involved, it almost seems to approach gambling, but not quite.

In the end, I’m probably a bit too invested in fantasy sports myself to give an unbiased opinion.

I will just say that I can see where someone might see this as a potential conflict of interest or problem when conducted within the newsroom.

Meanwhile, can you believe I managed to get Joe Mauer, Evan Longoria AND Roy Halladay in my auction draft league?!

Marty Kaiser Lecture

I went to see Marty Kaiser speak about journalism ethics a few days ago. Here is my review of his speech, given through the Oweida Lecture series here at Penn State,

“Immediately the first thing that stood out to me about Marty Kaiser’s speech (and what I repeated to a student who interviewed me for her reporting class) was that he was refreshingly optimistic at the very beginning.

It is very common to hear about the death of our industry, the doom-and-gloom outlook, the rise of the blogosphere which will consume us all, and deteriorating ethics. In fact, because of this usual cautionary tone, I was expecting a lecture titled “Journalism 2010 and Beyond” to be depressing, finger-wagging, and for aspiring journalists, yes even frightening.

But it wasn’t. As he should have been, Mr. Kaiser was realistic about where he felt the industry stood. He didn’t stand on his pulpit and only praise the current direction and standing of journalism. But he certainly didn’t trash those either.

He gave a number of very uplifting examples of reader appreciation for his newspaper. I was excited to hear that some people out there are still getting their news from ethical, responsible outlets, rather than from E!

I think my favorite quote from Kaiser’s speech was, “The best journalists will always be, first and foremost, storytellers. Sharing stories that reveal new information that shine a light where there was once darkness. What we must do is invest in people with integrity, character, talent, and yes, in that order, who can pursue the kind of journalism that strengthens our communities.”

First, Mr. Kaiser emphasizes the priority that should be placed on integrity and character over talent. Solid news and sports journalism ethics aren’t built on talent in the least. To survive as the field we claim to be, without devolving into entertainment or commentary, we must continue to cultivate a culture of integrity in journalism. I thought Mr. Kaiser was spot on here.

Kaiser made an important distinction between reporting and commentary, one that I think the general public may not be fully aware of. He said, “Reporting employs verification and fairness, and an ethical framework all focused on seeking the truth. The screaming of commentator’s opinions and the blather about balanced news coverage has little to do with seeking the truth. Reporting comes from working sources, asking questions, and trying to learn more. It isn’t pontificating on talk shows or blogs…”

Kaiser emphasizes the role that journalists must play within the local community. He told stories of how his newsroom’s reporting has sought out stories that can inform readers and impact the community in a positive way. He outlined the power of journalism when working correctly. Commentary can do no such thing.

When Mr. Kaiser took questions, I asked him where he felt the current state of sports journalism was, as compared to news, because I felt that was an area he did not address, and it is one that I have a personal interest in (with my thesis). He responded that he feels sports ethics in journalism have been improving since he started, and a big impetus has been more sports business stories that have brought sports closer into the activities of news journalists.

I felt this was an interesting perspective, and honestly, one that I hadn’t given fair consideration to previously.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Marty Kaiser’s Oweida lecture. He did a great job of illustrating the important role that journalists play in society, the importance of ethics to that role, and the bright future we have ahead.”

What do Colin Cowherd and Glen Beck have in Common?

To answer this post’s title, they have the same profession!

What is that profession? If you answered “journalist,” you’d be wrong! But you’d also be the reason I have for writing this entry.

There is no doubt that many people tend to take the word of these men as credible fact.

To be honest, I enjoy them both to a point. Cowherd is very entertaining and opinionated about sports. There is much that I agree with him on, and much that I don’t.

Beck is certainly polarizing, but he is not wishy-washy. He has his convictions and sticks to them.

However, they are not journalists. Both are a form of commentator. Their job is not to be strictly objective and critical of an establishment, but to inject opinion, questioning, and even humor into their body of work.

Interestingly, the set of professionals like Glen Beck seem to have been spawned from the set of professionals like Colin Cowherd.

While ESPN has always employed commentators who work right alongside their journalists, the 24 hour news cycle has only relatively recently welcomed commentary into their fold.

While not being journalists, both camps have their place in the media world.

I would just implore the public to recognize that these commentators are NOT the representatives of journalism.

Unfortunately, I don’t know if they can really tell the difference anymore.

Journalists in Celluloid

One of my favorite shows on television is “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS.

It is a very funny show, often irreverent, and even occasionally heartwarming.

So imagine my surprise when the show from a few weeks ago (which I just saw now online) factored right into my blog.

For who was staring back at me but sports broadcaster Jim Nantz!

Now, this is an interesting situation because many people do not consider play-by-play guys to be “journalists” in the sense that this blog seems to regard journalists.

However, I would argue that Nantz is still broadcasting sports for an outlet (oftentimes several) and that his conduct outside the booth should be just as scrutinized as the conduct of more traditional journalists is.

Nothing involving his time on the show was particularly offensive. Sure, there were some slightly off-color jokes, but that’s the nature of the show itself.

What was interesting, if not unethical, was the fact that Nantz was portraying Nantz. An actual sports broadcaster within the confines of the show.

To be fair, he was in the character Barney’s imagination.

But does this involvement cross any sort of line?

It’s complicated, but I suppose my answer would be “tentatively no.” It is true that Nantz is somewhat more of a celebrity than the average sports journalists, and because of this, such offers will come up because he is recognizable.

I think he still runs the risk of bringing negative attention to whichever outlet he happens to be representing, but this is not really a terribly dangerous ethical situation in the long run.

Moneyball

I have taken the last few weeks to re-read one of my favorite sports books of all-time, “Moneyball”.

Now, the subject matter of the book itself is not entirely the purvey of a blog like this.

It follows the Oakland Athletics baseball team of the early part of this decade in its quest to be more efficient by preying on less-utilized statistics and theories than other MLB teams.

It is a revealing look into the intricacies of the front office and the subcultures in baseball.

Now here’s the rub.

This book is not written by a sports journalist!

That’s right, it’s possible to have an “insider” story come complete with editorializing without a sports journalist at the helm, damaging their own objectivity.

I bring this point up because I have heard the argument that if not journalists, who can write sports books that are entertaining and from an insiders’ perspective.

This is clearly inaccurate, as Michael Lewis does a phenomenal job in “Moneyball” and also in “The Blindside”, both done from the perspective of someone outside the industry.

I’m not cold-blooded, and I know that sports journalists are people that once had their own rooting interests. If they want to write a book, that’s okay with me.

I just wanted to point out that they are not the only professionals that can think to write a compelling read on the matter.

Recruiting and Blame

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/04/kiffin-offers-13-year-old-qb-scholarship/

The above link is a story regarding the 13-year old named David Sills whom Lane Kiffin has offered a college football scholarship.

Lane Kiffin is the head coach of the football team at the University of Southern California.

Take a step back for a second. Does this seem just…wrong to you?

We’re talking about a child here who has not come close to figuring out what he really wants to do with his life; and now he’s being badgered and promised a scholarship for something 5 years down the road!

Five years in teenage years is an eternity. So much can change. What if this kid gets hurt?

What if he never develops how Kiffin envisioned he might?

His heart stands the very real possibility of being broken here.

What does this have to do with journalism ethics, you may ask?

I submit that Kiffin is the not the only one to blame for this situation.

I’d argue that the ever-increasing coverage of high school athletics has placed additional pressure on young athletes and will continue to push recruiting ages lower and lower because the notion is that America loves young phenoms.

I implore the field and journalists to think about the implications this stance could have on kids like David Sills.

Notice I didn’t say “young adult.”

Social Media Pitfalls

This one might technically fall under a subheading of sports journalism. But the takeaway from this story is important for the future of the industry, so it bears discussing.

ESPN2 created a new show this year called ‘SportsNation.’ It features the increasingly popular Colin Cowherd (interestingly a sports talk radio star who is now transitioning into the television platform) and Michelle Beadle.

The distinguishing factor between ‘SportsNation’ and other ESPN sports programming is a heavy reliance on ‘the Nation’, or the social conglomerate of the everyday fan. Via online polls, questions, and twitter interaction, fans are directly involved in the content of the show.

As with most things Web 2.0, this also means that the show relies on a great deal of social video. The clips they show on the program range from insane basketball shots, strange sport combinations, and of course, failed extreme sport stunts.

Typically, everyone has a good laugh over these. But on Tuesday, ‘SportsNation’ showed a video of a BMX rider hitting a ramp, flying roughly 20 feet into the air, and plummeting onto the pavement. The crew in the studio, including Beadle and fill-in host Marcellus Wiley, had a great big laugh over the video, which indeed did look comical.

Beadle concluded the segment by saying,

“He’s fine, just in case you wondering.”

Unfortunately, what the crew and hosts of ‘SportsNation’ did not know, was that Colin Winklemann, the BMX rider was not fine, and in fact had committed suicide 5 years earlier as a result of the injuries suffered in the failed stunt.

On today’s show, Beadle read a statement on behalf of the show and ESPN apologizing for running the video in light of the consequences the accident had.

ESPN’s statement was,

“Given the larger context that we were clearly unaware of at the time, we should not have shown that video and we apologize. We will make every effort in the future to prevent something like this from happening again.”

Now, I am not trying to pile on ESPN or ‘SportsNation’ here. They made an error, and apologized for it. I simply feel it is important to point out how easy something like this can happen in today’s sports news climate.

If ESPN or other sports outlets plan on expanding their coverage into social media, it is important they stay diligent and sensitive when running user-generated content.

“Tyypoos” and Statistical Errors

We have covered topics from conflicts of interest, gender relations and commentary.

Considering the heavy-hitting nature of those subjects, today’s discussion may seem to be somewhat trivial, but I can assure you it is not.

Typos seem like a minor issue. As does a slight statistical error. But they are actually deceptively damaging.

I can’t count how many times I’ve been reading a newspaper article or watching ESPN and I noticed a small typo in an athlete’s name.

Or I noticed that they had calculated a pitcher’s ERA incorrectly.

My initial reaction, even as a journalist myself, is to think, ‘Wow, even I know that! How could they mess that up when they’re paid so much.’

In actuality, even though I may think I do, there is no way I’m more knowledgeable about sports than journalists working at ESPN.

It’s very possible that the mistake was just that, an actual typographical error that anyone can make. Or it may just be a misspelling that I happen to know is wrong that someone missed in proofreading.

But regardless of the real reason for the mistake, I am proof that a viewer, reader, or listener will pounce on that and the mistake could mar their opinion and perception of the journalist’s or outlet’s credibility.

All because of a small, stupid error!

These lapses in perceived credibility can be fixed just by spending a bit more time looking over your work.

That seems like a small sacrifice for such a big potential payoff.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

I was thinking today about the role that Twitter (and to a larger degree social media in general) plays in the sports journalism industry.

Many outlets have given their reporters full autonomy in this area and even implore them to be active on Twitter.

There are a more than a few sides to this issue.

On one hand, there is much that a journalist can relay through Twitter that they may not have a chance to work into a story.

On the other hand, sometimes they can get carried away and post opinion that colors their objectivity as a reporter.

Clearly, columnists will be a bit more free with the postings they choose to talk about, and that’s a fair thing for a commentator.

But I would stress that if Twitter is used by beat reporters, they should take great care not to overstep the boundaries of their profession.

People are reading your tweets (sometimes even more than your articles) and they can still make judgments about your credibility from them just as easily.

Don’t be fooled into thinking your tweets are not an extension of your profession.