There were two stories today that taken together signal another death knell to the primacy of the press box in sports reportage. The first appears in one of the leaders of old journalism, the New York Times, and involves the shabby treatment traditional reporters are receiving from the teams they cover. Richard Sandomir is concerned with the displacement of press boxes from prime locations in favor of the ever-increasing number of club and luxury seats in American stadiums and arenas.
“We were giving the press the best real estate in the building, slightly elevated behind home plate, which they don’t need,” said Jerry Reinsdorf, the real estate investor who is chairman of the White Sox.
When asked why he moved the press to a much worse vista two levels up and along the first-base and right-field line, Reinsdorf unhesitatingly said, “Financial.”
Reporters complain that the seats limit their ability to do their jobs well because they can't describe what's going on with the same clarity that they could in better seats. There's an easy answer to that. Just watch them on TV. Seriously. In a time when every game is on television in and out of market via cable packages or accessible via internet and able to be taped and watched at a fan's leisure the need to describe this pitch or that catch is less and less important. Increases in technology have made game telecasts uber-inclusive. Replays catch things that the naked eye never could, no matter how good your seats are, and the whats of games shouldn't be as important to people covering them than the hows and whys. We can't get so upset over owners maximizing the financial payout from their teams at the expense of writers who aren't adding all that much to our understanding of the game. The writers still have access to the players after the game, that's the thing that they claim makes them more able to relay information about sports than you or me, and it's easy enough to figure out a way to say Bobby Abreu had three hits whether you are ten rows or two hundred rows from the field.
Meanwhile the bigwigs at the College World Series ejected Brian Bennett of the Louisville Courier-Journal from the press box because he was liveblogging the game. He had received a memo before the game from the NCAA explaining that they were outlawing live blogs because they interfered with the exclusive TV and internet broadcasting rights held by others.
The College World Series Media Coordination staff along with the NCAA Broadcasting group needs to remind all media coordinators that any statistical or other live representation of the Super Regional games falls under the exclusive broadcasting and Internet rights granted to the NCAA's official rights holders and therefore is not allowed by any other entity. Since blogs are considered a live representation of the game, any blog that has action photos or game reports, including play-by-play, scores or any in-game updates, is specifically prohibited. In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game.
At the same moment old-school writers are having part of their job eclipsed by the easy availability of the games themselves, new-school bloggers are being told that they are taking eyes away from those same broadcasts. Does the NCAA really believe this? Bennett and other bloggers, especially those lucky enough to just be in front of the TV at home where no one can stop them from RELAYING FACTS, are shining a light on an oft-ignored sport. Instead of being thankful for the interest, the NCAA is stopping the people who can't sit in front of a TV for whatever reason from following a game that presumably has great interest to them.
Asian share markets fell on Monday as investors digested disappointing US jobs data and European debt woes resurfaced amid concerns Portugal might need a bailout.
Hong Kong fell 0.19 percent and Sydney edged 0.10 percent down while Seoul was 0.39 percent lower and Singapore was flat.
Shanghai gave up 0.33 percent on lingering uncertainty over whether China will hike interest rates again in the short-term.
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Posted by: puntercalls | January 10, 2011 at 02:43 AM