Sports Media: Chapters 1 & 2

Hey everyone, Professor Carnival. Here I am a little under the weather.

So I apologize for my voice, but I am here with a chapter one and two check in.

So hopefully you have been able to get

our book sports journalism by Catherine Stauffer,

James Shaffer and brian Rosenthal um this will be the

book that we will be using throughout the entire semester.

So if you haven't gotten it, please get it as soon as possible.

We are going to use it early and often.

Um, so here we go.

I want to start off with a couple of sort of thought provoking

questions that come up in the first chapter here and the first is,

you know, what is it like to be a sports writer?

Um what is the daily sort of routine for a sports writer?

Um, and does it seem appealing to you?

So you should have gotten some insight in reading chapter

one into what it is like for a sports writer.

It's, it's one of those jobs that you really don't ever turn on or off.

You're always working, you're always creating content.

You are always looking for your next story and so just sort of think to yourself,

is this something that sounds appealing to you?

You know, it's hard work.

It's in a lot of cases not going to make you rich or wealthy by any means.

Um, but it's exciting in that it changes every single day, right?

Especially if you are a beat reporter.

Like we'll talk about shortly and you are covering a

team and that team is traveling and that team is

having injuries and that team is having streaks and that

team is going for a playoff run or whatever.

The case may be every single game or contest

or whatever that they are involved in is different.

So just sort of think to yourself,

is this something that you could see yourself doing in the future?

Now I mentioned beat writer before.

Um,

but the book lays out the difference between a publication beat writer

and an in house beat writer and they are very different.

So a publication beat writer is someone who writes for a publication.

So they write for um, you know, it might be a newspaper.

It's probably more of a multimedia company nowadays.

Um, and they, they might cover a team,

but they are not the team sort of um, spokesperson.

If you will, the team's media um, channel they are, you know,

maybe covering the Phillies, maybe covering the eagles,

may be covering the sixers, maybe covering all of those,

maybe covering just college sports, Maybe covering high school in some cases.

Um, and then on the other hand,

and in house beat writer is just that it is employed by the actual team, their in house

and they are responsible for creating the content, putting out the stories.

So we're going to see this sort of blurring the lines of, you know, public relations,

media relations, um, news reporting.

It all sort of goes into one,

although they do fulfill different functions that we'll

talk about as we go through the semester,

but I did want you to know the difference between

a publication beat writer and an in house beat writer.

Chapter one also talks about some important rules that sports writers must follow.

And there is one that I want to point out and it is a difficult one.

And some of you in your introductory videos said, you know,

I want to write for a team one day or I want to be, you know,

a sports media member for a team or work for a team in some way.

And the thing that is really frowned upon is being a fan of the team, right?

So I remember

I had an opportunity, this was a long time ago, 2003 when I was in college,

I had an opportunity to shadow a reporter.

Her name is Dana Panetta O'neill.

Um, she wrote for, I believe it was the Enquirer at the time.

Um, and I was connected with her through a mentor of mine named Dick Girardi.

He's pretty famous sportswriter in the area covers

college basketball as well as horse racing.

Um, so Dina,

She brought me to Veterans Stadium in 2003 and I got to shadow her for the day.

So I got to see her entire sort of process of how she, you know,

Larry Bow was the manager at the time.

So I got to meet him. I got to meet Harry Kallis, which was a huge dream of mine.

I will never forget that.

Um, but I remember being in the press box and her telling me now,

I know you're a huge Phillies fan, but we don't cheer up here, you know,

we don't show emotion up here.

Um, and that was kind of eye opening to me and this was almost 20 years ago now,

so I think that the lines have been blurred a bit if you turn on a game quite often,

especially Phillies, I know many of you mentioned that your Phillies fans,

you know, you will hear,

Uh, you know,

especially the hometown guys commenting on things and cheering for the

team and bashing the homes and whatever the case may be.

So, so I know that things are much more relaxed than they were even 20 years ago,

but that is excuse me, one of the expectations of a sports media member.

Alright, moving on to some industry changes,

just like everything is changing and everything has changed.

I mean, this industry has changed quite a bit.

So going into chapter two now, there's a quote at the top here.

So I always turn to the sports section first and this is a newspaper,

the sports section records people's accomplishments,

the front page has nothing but man's failures, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Um, and that kind of just sums it up, right?

It, it sums up why sports are so meaningful to people. It really is an escape.

I know that I'm very sick right now and I am

very much looking forward to watching the Phillies every day.

It's like my highlight, I'm not leaving my house right now, I'm just

just kind of hanging out and stuff and they're kind of

like that friend that will always be there for you,

right?

So we've come to rely on sports to be um a big part of our lives and it

is escape from a lot of the harsh reality of life that goes on on a regular basis.

And so that's why it's huge, right?

That's why it's a billion dollar multibillion dollar industry,

uh a few different, you know, other aspects that have come into play in recent years,

our bloggers, right, so everyday fans who have created their own blogs,

created their own social media platform or their own

social media pages devoted to their team and everything.

Um

the big difference

between,

you know them and sports fans is access, so, you know,

when you are a confirmed media member, when you have that press pass,

you have the access right?

You have access to people, you have access to um players, coaches, managers,

families in some cases and that's a really important part of the job that, you know,

we're just kind of, and if we were in the classroom,

we would be doing a quick google on this, that

the everyday person isn't necessarily getting those press credentials.

So there's still that sort of line dividing the two in which

you are either a recognized media member or you are not,

but just like with everything changing, that is also starting to change as well.

Another thing that we've seen in recent years and

this has talked about on page nine is that,

you know,

there's all these other different aspects of sports aside from the games

and the results and the stats themselves that are being talked about,

so the medicinal sort of health aspect of it, and this is like physical injuries,

this is mental health which is being talked about a lot more in sports, you know,

we saw this certainly last summer in the olympics with simone biles

and and other such athletes that are coming forward about that,

the business side of it and and many of you are sports management major,

so I'm sure that you have explored this quite deeply, you know, contracts and

money and ticket sales and merchandizing and sports betting.

I mean,

it's just a huge new market that we're

seeing exploded right in front of us sociology.

So bringing together of people and how it affects our society,

all these different aspects that are being um,

you know,

connected to sports and it also is making for a lot more story opportunities, right?

So we might read a really in depth piece on our favorite player

and learn so much more than we ever knew about that person.

Um and that's that's pretty new learning and

knowing that much more about athletes lives.

Now, let's talk about the types of sports stories themselves.

So the first type is an advanced story and you can probably

guess by the word advance that it comes out before a game,

before a contest before, you know, some big event or something, maybe a draft.

And typically in that you will do you no interviews leading up to it, you will have,

you know, what is expected during that specific event or game.

Um let's see what else. Anything else.

Obviously the research plays a big role in it.

You want to read all of the information that you can,

this is with an advanced story as well as a game story.

So you may write your advanced story and you know, that might come out as, you know,

a story on the website.

It might also be a short little video that you edit together.

Maybe it's a quick um, podcast episode, maybe it's also a few social media posts.

So you're probably creating this sort of multimedia um,

package out of this one little story.

And then the next type of story is the actual game story.

So if you are, you know,

um a reporter who is covering a team and and writing about all of their games,

you are preparing as much as you can ahead of time.

You're reading all the information that you can um vital statistics.

You'll of course want to know who's playing, who's not playing, the reasoning,

the history of the matchups of the teams,

any other pertinent information.

Like if a team is going for a playoff spot or if a team, you know,

is looking like they're going to have a new manager soon.

You know,

you really just want to immerse yourself in that

team and everything that is going on with them.

Also, you'll want to get to know the players,

Excuse me.

So you'll want to establish those relationships and we'll talk

about this as the semester goes on and then when

we get to the gym gym great book as well because to give some great insight on sort of,

you know,

how to gain athletes trust and how to be a trusted source for them um in

releasing information and sharing information and sort of

having that report that you would want to.

So when I shadowed Dana 20 years ago, you know, she knew all the players,

all the players knew her,

I don't remember specifically like what the storyline might have been at that time,

it was 2003, so they weren't making the playoffs and I know it was in the summer.

Um but beyond that, you know,

I I just remember her rapport with the players and that standing out to me.

Um so that's an important aspect of being a sports reporter, of course,

Pages 12 through 17 have some other sort of tips and tricks and things as you are,

you know,

creating your game stories or immersing yourself in this

be or serving as an in house reporter.

Um just all the different things that you will want

to do in order to be successful at your job.

Last few things here. Finding the story.

This is important because you don't want every single

game that you cover to sound exactly the same.

Here was the match up here was the result,

here were the key players in that you have to find like what the

story actually was and sometimes it has nothing to do with the game.

Right?

So you know,

a player coming back from an injury or a player coming back from a

scandal or two teams that might have had a bra last time they got together

um or a player who was traded to another team or signed

with another team and now is um playing against his old team.

So you know, really,

what is the story that people are going to expect you to write about?

And sometimes what is the story that people aren't going to expect to hear?

I know I watched the Phillies yesterday, you guys, some of you probably did as well.

And one of the stories was about how a woman caught a bat

from a Pirates player and didn't really want to give it back.

Um, but she was convinced by security or required by security, I don't really know.

And that mickey Morandini happened to be a couple of rows back from her and got her,

I think bryce harper signed that.

So that was like a totally separate story from the

actual game and anything that happened in the actual game.

Um but nonetheless served as you know,

additional content as always as much as possible.

You want to support with descriptions and quotes.

So the imagery describe the scene. What are you seeing? What are you hearing?

What are you smelling? What are you, what are you feeling?

Is there electricity or excitement in the air?

Is it kind of flat because it's the end of the season,

This team is not making the playoffs, There's barely any people in the seats,

the quotes, right?

What people have to say about it,

the people who were involved in it as well as the people who played in it.

Use all of your senses,

bring the audience to the scene and page 19 has a good example of using those details.

So I want to return back to the very first question that I gave you in this.

Let's see if I can do this really quickly. Um

What do you think about the life of a sports writer?

Is it something that you would be interested in knowing that it's

a job that you can't really turn on or turn off,

but there's something new that happens every day.

So for your next journal reflection, essay writing assignment,

I would like you to answer that in 2 to 3 paragraphs, 4 to 6 sentences each,

and I look forward to seeing what you guys have to say.

Have a good one. Bye bye.

Sports Media: Chapters 1 & 2

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