Sports Media Guy

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

There was one part of the George Vecsey interview on The Morning Delivery that I didn’t have a place for in yesterday’s post. Here’s the exchange:

“Q. How has the culture of journalism changed since you first stepped into the Times’ newsroom over 40 years ago?

A. The 24-hour cycle means there is no natural rhythm of trolling for contacts, details, writing a first draft, wandering out to lunch, revising — the cycle that still makes sense to me. Somebody always wants your copy for the Web. So you rush — maybe not at the expense of basic accuracy, but surely at the cost of writing and structure and fullness. On the other hand, we live in a 24-hour cycle, so I guess journalism needs to reflect that.”

This quote illustrates some of the things that I’m finding in my research. In a lot of ways, “The Web” is radically changing how reporters do their job. If you will, it’s revolutionizing journalism. Now, by “The Web” I mean that as an all-inclusive phrase – publishing online, social media, convergence, all of it. These are huge changes to how people are doing their jobs.

This is real. This is a big deal.

I feel like this point is glossed over or ignored in a lot of talk about the future of news, the future of journalism, the future of sports reporting, etc. These changes are viewed in some circles as a good thing, a break-up of the hegemonic cartel that mass media has held over the marketplace of ideas. At the very least, I’ve sensed a “too-bad, so-sad” vibe from digital advocates about these changes, kind of the “suck it up, soldier. Change, or get out of the way.”

That attitude’s always troubled me. Not because it’s wrong – digital is obviously the future, if not the present. But because of a general lack of understanding and, frankly, compassion for the reporters who are seeing their jobs completely change all around them.

Read Vecsey’s quote again. “There is no natural rhythm … the cycle that still makes sense to me.” That’s real. That’s a veteran journalist who had the ground move out from under him. That’s someone seeing everything he thought he knew about his job change on him.

There are many, many, many reasons the newspaper industry is struggling with its evolution from print to digital. There are business reasons, bureaucratic reasons, technological reasons. But if you’re wondering why so many journalists themselves are struggling with this evolution, remember what Vecsey said. The natural rhythm that is a part of so many journalists’ DNA is gone, and the new cycle that so many of us demand from sports reporters isn’t second nature to many in the business yet. That evolution takes time.

If I was going to list the books that were most influential in my career and my life, I think a rather obscure one would top the list: “A Year in the Sun” by George Vecsey.

A week ago, if you had asked me that question, I would have answered “Sports Guy,” Charles Pierce’s anthology of sports writing, because it showed me the kind of writer I wanted to be. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s Vecsey’s book.

My mom got it for me when I was in high school at one of those bulk book sales. It’s a diary of sorts of Vecsey’s 1986, his travels, his writings, kind of a behind-the-scenes look at his life as a New York Times’ columnist.

Even before I wanted to be a sports writer, that book influenced me and gave me my first look at life in sports media. Now, all these years later, I’m not a reporter anymore. But if I trace my interest in researching journalists’ routines, this book – with its explanations of how Vecsey conceived, reported and wrote his columns – has to be at the root of it.

As wonderful a columnist as he was, he was a classier man. I e-mailed him not long after I got hired in Binghamton to thank him for the book, which led me into journalism. He responded immediately with extraordinarily kind and friendly note, inviting me to stop by and say hi if we shared a press box some day.

I never had the honor. And he is retiring now.

This week, he gave an interview to the The Morning Delivery. It’s made some waves because he says, among other things, “There may not be much future for the kind of sports column I did” and that aspiring sports journalists should “minor in something else.” (He also makes an unfortunate “bloggers-as-guys-in-their-underwear.” At least he had them writing in their dens, not their mothers’ basement).

Now, this is nothing new. In fact, in Vecsey’s book, he writes that he would tell journalism students to try to find a non-newspaper job. This was in the mid-1980s. Way before the internet. Old reporters are always telling young people to stay out of the business, especially now. Let’s be honest, a.) they want to keep their jobs and b.) being a sports reporter/columnist can be a brutal job. It can be the best job in the world – you are being paid to cover sports – but the hours are long and hard, the travel can be tiring and keep you away from your family, nowadays you’re under the constant threat of layoffs and furloughs and pay cuts and getting beat by some guy on Twitter with a hunch and a faster internet connection.

But the naive, idealistic part of me thinks that there may be room for the kind of sports column Vecsey did. I believe in a large marketplace of ideas. I think that assuming “readers” are a one-size-fits-all group is dangerous and wrong. I think people can like different things on different days. I think there is enough room for Deadspin, Kissing Suzy Kolber, The New York Times and The Post. What makes the internet such a strong news source is that there is room for everyone.

I hope there’s still a place in our sports culture for the thoughtful, measured commentary and storytelling that Vecsey brought.

I truly hope there’s still a place for someone with his class, his thoughtfulness, his kindness.

The day that’s the case is a truly sad day for our business.