It’s true. Those of us in print journalism have been known to compare ourselves to our colleagues on the television side with the disdainful question, “Brains or a blow dryer?” The snide generalization was based on a sense that, while our witness-to-history preparations consisted of note-taking and research, theirs appeared to be mostly primping before the cameras rolled.
It was not universally fair, of course, and was at least partially rooted in a jealousy of TV’s widely accepted rank of superiority in the information food chain. Things take on an importance when they’re on TV. Celebrity and newsworthiness are conferred by TV. If a tree fell in the forest but it wasn’t on TV….
Now consider the current situation, that TV is a primary reason big-time sports are so intent on returning amid the raging pandemic. TV is what nourishes and sustains spectator sports.
The idea of carrying on with the world of Fun & Games when it is unsafe to allow fans in ballparks doesn’t make any sense—except that the NFL, NBA and NHL will survive despite empty seats as long as they can provide TV programming to fulfill (partially, anyway) television deals contracted to pay them $10 billion, $2.66 billion and $200 million, respectively, per season.
The same colleges that are hesitant to welcome students back to their classrooms meanwhile want football players on campus. Because, as USA Today reported, there is “at least $4.1 billion” in TV money at stake for the five major conferences to provide gridiron programming.
But here’s the thing: Sports on TV without live witnesses will just be a series of studio shows. Quarantining viewers will get what the camera sees and nothing more. Even the TV commentators, those folks with the enviably nice hair, regularly will not be on site to add context and flavor. (Newsday’s Neil Best detailed how the Yankees and Mets telecasters, for instance, will call their teams’ road games from their home press boxes in New York. While watching TV monitors.)
Worse, social distancing has forced teams to conjure thoroughly understandable guidelines that will prevent my print compatriots—the ink-stained wretches accustomed to ferreting out nuggets of information with original and independent reporting—from their typical canvassing of various participants and decision-makers associated with the games.
All will be restricted to press boxes and, often, to viewing games on TV monitors. Interviewing will be limited to Zoom sessions, with the teams—not the reporters—picking who will be interviewed. (In the case of the U.S. Open tennis championships, scheduled to begin in late August, a “no media on site” directive will reduce reporters to watching the tube and Zoom.)
Old friend Pat Borzi, writing for MinnPost, last week quoted editors and writers in the Twin Cities acknowledging their discomfort with traveling to road games. Especially since reporters will not have access to lockerrooms and clubhouses, they essentially will be working remotely. (Ask your favorite student how well that works.)
“Expect a sameness across all platforms—print, digital and TV,” Borzi wrote, and he quoted St. Paul Pioneer Press sports editor Tad Reeve: “People who are really into reading sports are going to notice really quickly, ‘Hey, I’ve already read this, I read this over at the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune or somewhere.’ [That’s] the problem with the coverage right now. Because we all get the exact same access at the same time and it’s all shared information, these stories are all going to read like all the other stories.”
In a previous century, when I was the New York Giants beat writer for Newsday, I one Monday bumped into a neighbor who was aware of my occupation.
“That was some Giants game against the Cowboys yesterday,” he said.
“It was,” I agreed. “And, boy was it a hot day in Dallas.”
He was startled.
“You went to the game?”
It was not worth attempting to explain that the quotes in my game story were the result of a face-to-face, question-and-answer, gumshoe situation. It was instead a reminder that you cannot give the world a journalism lesson. To most folks: The game was available on TV in your den; isn’t that how everyone follows it?
See, the fun part of being a sportswriter isn’t the spectating. It’s the off-the-field banter, the interrogation, the revelatory answers. Learning stuff you hadn’t known and passing it on to readers. Otherwise, a game-day reporter is like one of those cardboard cutouts that teams want to employ to occupy the stadium seats this fall. Just another pretty face.
It’s probably not relevant to this discussion that my wife has purchased for me a bottle of “News Anchor Hair Wash. (For news anchor thick hair.)” I don’t use a blow dryer.