Who's Really Winning? An in-depth look at intercollegiate athletics ...
Tensions in the Press Box: Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications Professionals...
-
Upload
welch-suggs -
Category
Documents
-
view
670 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Tensions in the Press Box: Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications Professionals...
Tensions in the Press Box 1
Running head: Tensions in the press box
Tensions in the Press Box:
Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications
Professionals
in Intercollegiate Athletics
David Welch Suggs, Jr.
University of Georgia
© 2014, all rights reserved
Tensions in the Press Box 2
Abstract: Sports journalists have long enjoyed close—many would say too close
—relationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of
organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted
over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from
online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened
the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and
communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions
perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that
could delegitimate journalists.
Keywords: Sports journalism, institutionalism, college sports, sport media, sport
communications
Tensions in the Press Box 3
Tensions in the press box: understanding relationships
between journalists and communications professionals in
intercollegiate athletics
Introduction
The media credential is a key signifier of status at a sporting
event. Dangling from lanyards or flapping from belt loops, the small
placards tell everyone who sees them that the bearer can go to
restricted places, take pictures or record video, and enjoy special
access to players and coaches.
The issue of access symbolized by the credential is most obvious
and perhaps most routinized in sports, but it is a primary concern for
journalists on all beats, including government, business, and
education. Access to decision-makers, “elite sources,” takes place
through a complex network of spokespeople and representatives, and
reporters in turn depend on such access for news content as well as
prestige.1
Access is a value-laden concept: While governmental officials
must speak in public and individuals may be required to speak with law
enforcement, nobody is required to provide special access to the
media. Access can be subject to custom, as with sports reporters in
Tensions in the Press Box 4
locker rooms, or as a form of quid pro quo between source and
reporter that can compromise standards of objectivity.
Many recent reports suggest that journalists on a range of beats
are experiencing reduced access to elite sources.2 According to the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one out of every five
journalists who had applied for an organizational credential was denied
at least once.3 Washington reporters have complained about being
frozen out by the public-affairs offices originally created to serve
them.4 A recent survey of journalists in education found that
communications professionals regulated access to the point of
interfering in reporting.5 And SCOTUSBlog.com, the Peabody Award-
winning outlet covering the U.S. Supreme Court, recently had its
credentials revoked because it was deemed not to be an independent
news organization.6
The realm of sports is perhaps the most institutionalized field
within media, given the decades in which credentials, press
conferences and locker-room availabilities have been key elements of
work patterns. Here, too, trends are threatening the traditionally broad
level of access granted to reporters. In 2014, Clemson University’s
sports-communications department produced a mission statement that
read, in part, “It will always be of importance to treat the media
professionally and provide them with the tools to do their jobs.
Tensions in the Press Box 5
However, it is not the singular focus or even foremost priority of our
department.”7
The past decade has witnessed seen two primary threats to
access in sports, specifically American intercollegiate athletics. The
first has been sports organizations claiming that reporters covering
games in real time on the Internet infringes on broadcast rights. In
2007, the National Collegiate Athletic Association attempted to prevent
reporters from publishing blog updates on baseball championships on
these grounds.8 The Southeastern Conference attempted to do the
same in 2009.9 And at the University of Washington, the athletics
department in 2012 announced a cap on the number of social-media
updates posted during games by credentialed media.10 However; the
NCAA’s policy was rescinded, the SEC’s never has been enforced., and
it does not appear that reporters have been sanctioned at Washington
or the University of Southern California, which also has such a cap.11
Second, new online-only or online-primary organizations have
sprung up to challenge traditional news outlets. Websites such as
Rivals.com, BleacherReport.com, SBNation.com, 247.com, and
Scout.com employ reporters who request the same kind of access as
traditional media.
The purpose of this study is to compare how sports journalists
and the organizations they cover view and value access, independent
reporting, and the autonomy of journalists to publish information when
Tensions in the Press Box 6
and how they come across it. Two surveys were conducted in the
summer of 2013, one of independent media and another of sports-
communications professionals, both in American college sports. As an
exploratory study, the results will pertain most to the specific sphere of
intercollegiate athletics, but the results have ramifications in the
coverage of other sports and other beats.
Sports information
The existing literature on sports and media is largely silent on
the structure of relationships between sports organizations and media
organizations. Historical views of sports and media focus on the efforts
of reporters to protect sources, namely players, by not printing
embarrassing information.12
Most sports-information departments (known variously as “sports
information,” “sports communications,” or “departments of athletic
media relations”) are organized along the lines of a traditional news
service bureau. Employees of such departments, known as SIDs or
sports information directors, are considered to be the primary
spokespeople and public-relations officials within collegiate athletics
departments and act as gatekeepers between teams and media.
Because of the frequency of games and other events, SIDs tend
to have formalized, routinized contact with independent media at
contests, press conferences, and through interview requests with
Tensions in the Press Box 7
players and coaches far more frequently than media-relations officers
in other sectors. Sports organizations "institutionalize contacts with
journalists and again create a bridge between themselves and the
news world," according to Theberge and Cronk.13
Sports-communications personnel tend to place a premium on
operating in Grunig’s "public information" model of public relations.14
Their jobs generally tend to be technical: They are expected to
produce material for media and teams and manage requests from
members of the media, but they are not central to departmental
decision-making.15 According to McClenaghan, independent media
were historically the primary constituency of SIDs, but jobs have been
reconfigured to focus more on marketing, and reporters themselves
are deemed less important than donors and others.16 By the mid-
1990s, SIDs also were overwhelmed by the growth of media outlets
connected to athletics departments, such as cable and radio.
Sports journalists
The history of sports media depicts a cozy relationship, wherein
reporters had traveling and interviewing privileges with athletes and
“Godding up the players,” in the words of Red Smith.17 Writing in 1944,
F.G. Menke asserted that newspapers had given sports-event
promoters a “golden bonanza” by covering their events without
charging for advertising, as had been the case in the 19th century.18
Tensions in the Press Box 8
Newspapers invested in sports coverage in the early twentieth century
because that and crime news were the top draws for audience.19
Reporters in the 1960s and 1970s brought a more critical strategy to
covering sports, questioning team decisions and covering labor unrest
in baseball, among other topics.20 While a few journalists earned the ire
of teams and leagues, many more continued to cover teams glowingly,
and many of the traditional practices have remained in place to this
day. Studies have generally found sports journalists to be more
credulous of and more protective of their sources than journalists in
other fields.21
Salwen and Garrison found that sports journalists tended to
struggle with hallmarks of professionalism used by journalists as a
whole, being slow to adopt codes of ethics and being more tolerant of
questionable ethics such as accepting free trips and paraphernalia.22
They, as well as Reed, saw progress made on the professional
standards of sports journalists during the 1990s as the need to appear
unbiased, willing to investigate, and aggressive on scoops supplanted
previously cushy relationships with sources.23 Anderson found the
activities of sports journalists too complex to label as purely
cheerleading for their sources, but "sports journalists who wanted to
gain and maintain professional credibility had to do so while sustaining
a close relationship with the source of information.”24
Tensions in the Press Box 9
The research may indicate that sports journalists are more
favorably disposed to their subjects than other journalists, but the
challenge of maintaining access while trying to report impartially
echoes the findings about the practice of, among other beats, political
journalism. A growing body of work by theorists of political
communication depicts journalists who occupy a curious space—partly
the “fourth estate” model of participating in governance and partly
negotiating an often vague and unregulated domain to construct news
from a small group of sources with agendas of their own.25
The neoinstitutional perspective
Cook, Sparrow, and others frame their understanding of the news
media as individual journalists choosing what to cover and how to
cover it under conditions of considerable apparent freedom, which
paradoxically results in news that is prevailingly similar in tone and
content across organizations and platforms. Reporters appear to have
latitude to create content to fill pages, consume broadcast minutes,
and appeal to advertisers, and their work routines consist of constant
decisions about how to gather facts and how to frame them.26 These
decisions are all constrained, however, by enduring, systemized
principles mediated by other forces. Editors create professional
expectations, sources share information shaped by their own agendas,
and to be legitimized by both parties, reporters must conform to
Tensions in the Press Box 10
certain patterns of behavior and expectations, such as objectivity and
factual accuracy. Stories, then, are homogenized by reporters’
dependency on a common set of sources; the professionalization of
editors and senior reporters; and adherence to a set of norms.
According to Cook, there is a basic uncertainty surrounding news
and the status of those who create it.27 Moreover each news
organization (even one consisting of one individual writer/blogger) has
the ability to decide what constitutes news. Instead, journalists
attempt to obtain a level of authenticity on the news they publish by
adhering to what Cook calls “a series of rituals that protect objectivity,
factuality, and other indicators of so-called journalistic ethics.”28
Among these rituals are the information subsidies provided to the
press in exchange for more favorable coverage, as described by Oscar
Gandy, and to which reporters begin to feel entitled.29 According to
Cook, such have their origins in the political journalism of the
nineteenth century.30 To replace the practice of sponsoring partisan
publications, political actors began to provide explicit entitlements
favoring the “bona fide” press, such as favorable rates for periodicals,
press bureaus at executive-branch agencies, and special press
seating.31
This framework is derived from neoinstitutional theory, found
mostly in the literature of organizational sociology. From this
perspective, a researcher examines the products, services, techniques,
Tensions in the Press Box 11
policies and programs that are defined by prevailing concepts of
organizational work and have been deemed legitimate by society.32
More specifically, organizations are shaped according to myths that
have taken on a social power through various channels, such as public
opinion, aphorisms transmitted through educational channels, or the
assertions of dominant institutions.33 Acceptance of such myths,
particularly in an uncertain environment, occurs through isomorphic
pressures that come from emulating more successful organizations;
from new laws or political pressures; or from individuals within
different organizations spreading common practices through
professional networks.34
Meyer and Rowan, in their foundational article, describe
institutionalized organizations as being resistant to rational scrutiny
and expectations. Instead, they are very mindful of external
legitimization through ceremonial criteria, such as prizes and awards.
Certification and accreditation processes also fall into this category, as
does anything that demonstrates the “social fitness of an
organization.”35 What develops in an institutionalized field is a situation
in which the activities of an organization are decoupled from the formal
organizational structure and rules.36 Activities take place without the
active oversight of managers, goals are made ambiguous, and
ontological and teleological goals are separated.
Tensions in the Press Box 12
Neoinstitutionalist theory would posit that relationships between
athletics departments, sports-communications offices, and
independent media are mediated by this process of decoupling, and
that subsidies are provided not according to rational process of
whether media access and coverage serve the needs of the athletics
program, but at the discretion of organizational actors. Those actors
wield a great deal of power in their relationships with media
organizations because of the strong level of legitimacy sports
organizations enjoy with the public, as suggested by Meyer and
Rowan’s proposition that societally-legitimated organizations are the
ones able to command the resources and survival capabilities in the
long run.37
Access to elite sources is thus a form of media subsidy as
described by Cook and Gandy. But it is subject to the tensions between
formal organizational policies—those permitting independent
journalists to report and publish news about the organization—and the
desire of the team to minimize scrutiny and negative evaluation by
outsiders. Thus, journalists must negotiate conditions of access with
organizational actors.
Hypotheses and research questions
The work of Cook and others suggest that sports reporters work
in environments not dissimilar from journalists covering other beats,
Tensions in the Press Box 13
but routines and interactions tend to be more clearly defined and
regularized than in other sectors. CEOs and senators do not typically
have weekly press briefings, but football and basketball coaches
typically do. This leads to two key questions:
RQ1: Are there systematic differences in the perspectives of
journalists and representatives of sports organizations on
access?
RQ2: Are changes in the organizational field—primarily the
growth of team media and online independent media—affecting
how communications professionals and journalists understand
access?
A neoinstitutionalist perspective on these issues leads to the
following hypotheses:
H1: Institutionalized reporting and publishing practices will be
viewed similarly by media and sources.
The basic practices of newsgathering and reporting have
remained nominally unchanged in the realm of sports: Reporters are
given credentials to attend games and events such as press
Tensions in the Press Box 14
conferences, and are granted access to players and coaches for
interviews for both stories and features. In an institutionalized field,
conditions under which credentials and interviews are granted should
be commonly understood from both sides. If not, one would expect
such practices to be undergoing a change process, shifting from one
paradigm to another.
H2: Athletics departments tend to exercise discretion, rather
than objective evaluation, of journalists in deciding whether to
grant credentials.
If relationships between independent sports media and athletics
programs have been institutionalized over time in the cultures of both
types of organizations, the process of requesting and granting access
have been routinized to the point that sports-communication officials
make such decisions without formally evaluating the costs and benefits
of such practices.
H3: Most sports organizations will attempt to minimize scrutiny
and reject outside examination, unless it comes from an
organization with too much power in the field to turn away.
Tensions in the Press Box 15
If an organization is attempting to prevent or punish negative
coverage, or if it is perceived as doing so, then it suggests the
existence of “rules of the game” that have consequences for breaking
them, even if no clear evidence suggests that such coverage actually
harms the program. Of course, the First Amendment entitles American
journalists to write what they want subject to certain restrictions, but
teams and sports organizations also are free to decide not to speak
with particular individuals. As such, the existence of rules in this space
is evidence of institutionalization.
H4: Additions of new channels of communication (i.e., owned and
contracted media and social media) and new media competitors
(i.e., independent websites) have not affected working conditions
for reporters.
As implied in H1, institutionalized practices of access and
freedom to publish have remained durable over the years, despite
changes to the composition of major college sports, the rise of over-
the-air television and then cable television, and the early days of the
Internet. While social media might have the potential to de-
institutionalize organizational relationships, if access and autonomy
are strongly institutionalized concepts, then the advent of social media
Tensions in the Press Box 16
and new competitor platforms should not mean a difference in
reporting practices.
Data and methods
Assessing these questions was undertaken through two online
surveys conducted in the summer of 2013. Participants for the first
were recruited from the membership of the Football Writers
Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association,
both of which agreed to solicit responses from their members. Both
organizations include public-relations officers, event organizers, retired
reporters, and student media as well as currently-employed media
members, but the cohort was reduced to a combined population of 777
working media. After three invitations (one from organizational
presidents and two from the author), 268 members of the media
agreed to participate, for a total response rate of 34.5%.
The second survey was sent by CoSIDA, formerly the College
Sports Information Directors Association, to 1,588 members on its
Division I membership list (i.e., members working at institutions
belonging to Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association)
by the organization’s interim director. Two follow-up requests also
were sent by the author, resulting in 239 usable responses, for a
response rate of 15.1%.
Tensions in the Press Box 17
The media survey instrument consisted of 84 items, and the
instrument for sports-communications professionals consisted of 106
items. Hypotheses were tested using descriptive results of the survey
as well as independent-sample t-tests to assess differences between
journalists and SIDs or among journalists from different kinds of news
outlets.
All questions requested responses on a four-point Likert scale to
require respondents to make judgments instead of remaining neutral.
No previous measures from other studies could be found, so this
should be considered an exploratory study. Each variable was
represented in the survey by a minimum of two items and as many as
six. Variables that did not return a Cronbach’s alpha score of at least
0.70 were dropped from the study. Those used included the following:
H1: Similarity of perspectives on access issues
• Do reporters receive access to elite sources (i.e., coaches and
athletes) outside of group press conferences?
• Does reporters’ access to elite sources exceed that of donors
or boosters of the program?
• Do journalists receive useful and relevant material from
teams (journalists only)?
• Are seats for journalists are in advantageous positions, or
have they have been moved?
Tensions in the Press Box 18
H2 Lack of evaluation
• Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s
audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant
credentials (SIDs only)?
• Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s
audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant
interviews (SIDs only)?
• Do teams review the size and demographics of the audiences
of the news outlets that cover them (SIDs only)?
H3: Avoidance of scrutiny/discretionary access
• Do reporters from “big-name” national outlets get better
access than local beat reporters (journalists only)?
• Do reporters from outlets with larger audiences and those
with better demographics get better access (journalists only)?
• Do reporters with good relationships with SIDs get exclusive
access than those without?
• Can reporters can maintain access even writing critical stories
(assuming they are accurately reported)?
• Can reporters can publish injury information or other material
they learn during practice or informally (noting the University
Tensions in the Press Box 19
of Southern California coach’s attempt to ban a reporter
mentioned above)?
H4: Structural changes
• Are reporters are subject to limits on the number of online
(blogs or social media) posts they can publish during games?
• Had access has decreased since the signing of the athletics
department’s last broadcast contract?
• Has access has decreased over the course of a reporter’s
career?
• Is access worse for bloggers and representatives of online
news outlets, as opposed to those from traditional print and
broadcast outlets?
• Do reporters get enough access to provide the coverage their
editors and audience expect?
• Do athletics programs breaks their own news on the Internet
or social media?
Table 1 provides summary data for each variable, including
scores for each variable’s items.
[Insert Table 1 about here]
Tensions in the Press Box 20
Results
Participants
The sample skewed heavily male (93% for media, 79% for SIDs)
and white (88% for media, 92% for SIDs), figures comparable to other
studies of sports media.38 Among media, the largest numbers of
members of minority groups were in independent blogs (20% of all
participants), while the largest representation of women was in sports
publications (10%). Traditional news organizations tended to skew
older, with 68% of participants from local news outlets reporting that
they were at least 40 years old. Bloggers reflected just the opposite,
with 68% reporting they were under age 40. Among SIDs, roughly 60%
reported being under 40.
H1
SIDs and journalists disagreed in several ways that suggested
that communications professionals believed that reporters had greater
access than reporters themselves believed. While a majority of
reporters (55%) believed that interviews with elite sources only took
place in group settings or press conferences—i.e., not in one-on-one
“exclusive” settings—over 87% of SIDs disagreed. Beliefs were
consistent across three items, and t-tests showed significant
differences (t (359) = -8.75, p < 0.001).
Tensions in the Press Box 21
A small but consistent majority of reporters (55%) said that they
got better access than donors and supporters of programs. SIDs did
not report consistent responses to this variable. Fifty percent of
journalists reported that seats had been moved away from prime
viewing areas, a subject of contention between journalist groups and
the NCAA. However, 63% of SIDs disagreed, resulting in a statistically
significant difference (t (359) = -4.06, p < 0.001).
Thus, disconfirming H1, the survey found clear evidence that
reporters and SIDs disagreed on critical aspects of work and access.
SIDs appear to believe that journalists have the kind of access to
events and elite sources that is crucial for their jobs, a majority or
plurality of journalists indicated that they did not.
H2
When asked about their own practices, SIDs did not report
consistently on whether they took the size of a news outlet’s audience
or demographics into account when deciding whether to grant
credentials. A majority did report consistently that they did take these
characteristics into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-
one interviews (57%). A majority (59%) reported that their department
had never reviewed the size or market penetration of the outlets that
covered them.
Tensions in the Press Box 22
For their part, 80% of reporters agreed with the statement that
journalists from national news outlets got better access than local beat
writers, and 79% agreed that having a more desirable audience meant
getting better access. Most journalists disagreed with the statement
that having a good relationship with an SID was necessary for getting
one-on-one access (60%), while SIDs did not report consistently on the
statement.
All of these suggest that there is little transparency or rational
choice going on when a decision is being made whether to grant a
particular reporter or news outlet access. While some athletics
departments may be performing a cost-benefit analysis when it comes
to granting interviews or other forms of access, the inconsistency
being reported between journalists and SIDs suggests that these are
unsettled issues across institutions.
H3
H3 states that sports organizations, like other kinds of
organizations, will attempt to minimize scrutiny and reject outside
examination. This is assessed primarily in terms of whether reporters
are able to maintain access even while writing critical stories,
assuming that these stories are factually accurate. Reporters
themselves believed this was true: 83% said they could maintain
access even after writing a critical story. SIDs answered the question
Tensions in the Press Box 23
inconsistently, with nearly all (96%) saying that reporters would
maintain access, but 89% saying that reporters would not get access if
they were working on a critical story.
Neither reporters nor SIDs reported consistently whether limits
had been put in place regarding publishing injury information or other
news bits gleaned during practice sessions, as in the case that
prompted Southern California coach Lane Kiffin to declare a reporter
persona non grata.39
H4
H4 states, in essence, that the institutionalized practices of
sports media have been strong enough to withstand the new
opportunities and challenges created by two forces: the popularization
of the Internet in general and social media in particular, and the wave
of new, munificent broadcast contracts signed between networks and
athletic conferences. Both SIDs and journalists agreed consistently that
their institutions and conferences to which they belonged had not
established limits on blogs or other kinds of social media posted during
contests; 89% of SIDs and 81% of journalists agreed with this
statement. Among the items testing this agreement, t-tests showed
that consistently more SIDs than journalists agreed with this
statement, suggesting that more journalists feel constrained than SIDs
believe they are constraining journalists (t (356) = -2.81, p < 0.01).
Tensions in the Press Box 24
SIDs reported consistently that independent media had
maintained the same access to elite sources that they had before the
athletics department (or its conference) signed its latest broadcast
contract, with 75% agreeing with that statement. Journalists also were
consistent but evenly split: 50% reported that they had less access
than they did prior to the signing of the latest broadcast contract. T-
tests consistently showed that reporters said they received less access
than SIDs reported they did. Moreover, journalists who reported that
the program had recently entered into a new broadcast contract
reported they had worse access than before at higher rates than those
who reported that the program had not begun a new contract (t (362)
= 8.23, p < 0.001).
Generally speaking, reporters and SIDs agreed that online-only
publications, including independent blogs and online networks such as
Rivals.com and Scout.com had achieved enough legitimacy to receive
credentials to events and access to interviews, with both groups
agreeing with the statement that both traditional media and startup or
online-only publications got credentials (77% of journalists and 76% of
SIDs agreed).
Roughly half of SIDs reported consistently that independent
media receive news at the same time as they publish it online or via
social media. Journalists did not report consistently on the matter, but
t-tests on all three items showed more of them than SIDs believed that
Tensions in the Press Box 25
athletic programs did break news using their own channels before
releasing to independent media (t (356) = 5.21, p > 0.001).
These findings suggest three things. First, new broadcast
contracts and opportunities appear to be affecting the access of
independent news media, at least according to those media
themselves. Second, online media seem to have achieved enough
legitimacy to gain the kind of access that traditional media enjoy.
Third, as suggested in the findings for H1, sports communications
professionals appear to believe that reporters have greater access
than reporters themselves think they have. Taken together, these
findings partially support H4, but they also indicate that reporters and
SIDs have different definitions of the kind of work needed to produce
valuable content for audiences. Barely half (54%) of journalists agreed
with the statement that they got enough access to provide their
audience with the coverage desired.
Discussion
Seeing the newsgathering and publishing process as activities
that take place in an institutional field helps make clear the
organization-level dynamics that affect the quality of the work
journalists can do, and thus their ability to perform the function of
providing news and information to society. Specifically, access to
sources, events and information occurs through the interaction of
Tensions in the Press Box 26
reporters and organizational representatives. These forms of access
traditionally have been provided as a subsidy to encourage journalists
to provide more information about the organization to their audiences.
What neoinstitutionalist theory does not address is when
institutionalized practices, such as the provision of subsidies, lose their
legitimacy. The surveys found evidence that conflicts are creeping in
between definitions of the adequacy of subsidies provided to sports
journalists, indicating a lack of support for H1. Specifically, SIDs tended
to agree with the statement that journalists had the access they
needed to do their work, while journalists themselves did not.
Furthermore, the process of granting access and other subsidies
seems relatively opaque. SIDs agreed that they took the audience of a
news outlet into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-one
interviews, but most of them did not review the reach or value of the
media thus favored. Journalists themselves believed that having
desirables did result in better access, but SIDs were inconsistent on
that account. While exercising discretion, SIDs reported inconsistency
on whether they would continue to maintain access if journalists
published critical (albeit accurate) stories about their organizations.
Reporters themselves did believe that they would continue to receive
access under such circumstances, one of the few cases in which they
reported believing they had greater access than SIDs reported them
having.
Tensions in the Press Box 27
This speaks to a level of strategy in decoupling work practices
from the nominally-accepted rules in the environment. While Hirsch
and Bermiss discuss strategic decoupling in the context of nation-level
institutions, individuals can adopt strategies of decoupling as
organizational actors negotiating with others in the field.40 In this case,
SIDs have the autonomy to operate with discretion when it comes to
granting access to journalists, thanks to the tremendous public interest
in their teams and organizations. As such, they can base access
decisions on parochial needs rather than adhering to commonly-
accepted standards or measurable strategic goals for their
organizations.
Also, some subsidies appear to be more durable than others.
While munificent and expansive new broadcast contracts appear to
have had some impact on the access of independent journalists,
athletics departments did not appear to be using the Internet or social
media to bypass independent journalists and direct information
subsidies at a wider public, such as fans or donors. Also, very few
journalists or SIDs reported that journalists were being prevented from
covering games on new-media platforms such as blogs or social media,
suggesting that free wireless Internet access is becoming a very
common information subsidy.
Coming back to the original research questions, there are indeed
systematic differences in the perspectives of journalists and sports
Tensions in the Press Box 28
communications professionals, as suggested in RQ1. These differences
suggest that on the whole, journalists believe that access to elite
sources is constrained in a way that impedes reporters’ ability to do
their work, but SIDs do not see constraints in the same way. Questions
were asked in a way that did not require individuals in either
profession to evaluate the work of those in the other line of work, so it
does not seem likely that SIDs were simply expressing the opinion that
journalists “need” less access than journalists believe they do. Instead,
it appeared that SIDs believed they were providing more access than
journalists believed, raising interesting questions for the profession.
In terms of RQ2, it did not appear that anecdotes about athletic
departments restricting access or ability to publish (especially on social
media) were indicative of a larger trend. Instead, news subsidies such
as conditions of access and publishing appear to be largely unaffected
by rapidly-changing forms of media.
In sum, many of the basic routines of media coverage of sports,
particularly college athletics, appear to have become institutionalized
to the point that they do not change in the face of evolving media and
new opportunities. The smoke and clatter of press workrooms filled
with typewriters may have been replaced by the quiet rattle of
keyboards, and screen crawls are succumbing to Twitter hashtags, but
reporters still gather to interview coaches and players after watching
Tensions in the Press Box 29
games from Press Row. Even if Press Row has been moved back so
athletics programs can sell premium courtside seats.
However, such subsidies remain contingent on the actions of the
sports-communications office, as demonstrated by the constraints on
access identified by journalists. SIDs retain the discretion to negotiate
access on their own terms. While there was no indication that reporters
or SIDs believed that exchanges of positive coverage for access were
requested or provided, there were suggestions that SIDs could
withhold access if they deemed it prudent. Reporters, in other words,
have no guaranteed privileges in the press box or the locker room.
Both of these conditions, and many of the findings listed above,
fit well with the notion of an institutionalized culture. However, more
work remains to be done in understanding the strategy behind the
decisions of individuals to reshape their own work and renegotiate
agreements in the context of an organizational field. The media-SID
conflicts of 2012 do not appear to be commonplace, and the
relationship between media outlets and athletics departments does not
appear subject to renegotiation on a broad scale, but it does appear
that some organizations are testing boundaries. Neoinstitutional theory
would predict that through a process of mimetic isomorphism, if some
of the leading programs in the field established new restrictions on
access, other programs would follow suit.41
Tensions in the Press Box 30
Limitations
The primary limitation of this study is that it is focused on
American intercollegiate athletics, which is a major focus for most
outlets with an interest in sports media but which covers a vast array
of universities and teams. With more than 300 basketball teams and
almost 130 football teams in the “big time” of Division I and the BCS
competing for media attention, most if not all college athletic programs
have incentives to provide access and other subsidies to media outlets
to increase their chances of coverage. The study was not able to
separate responses from such elite institutions from those coming from
colleges with a greater need for publicity.
A secondary limitation is that this was a national, anonymous
study, and it was impossible to match responses from journalists
covering a particular institution with those of SIDs from that same
institution. Paired responses would have yielded more specific
information about differences in media relations from institution to
institution.
Getting a truer picture of the status of media and sports-
communications professionals in the organizational field of sports
communication would require comparative work with other segments
of the field, such as professional sports and international sports. Other
research suggests that national factors may play a greater role in
determining access conditions and reporter-source relationships than
Tensions in the Press Box 31
organizational or field-level characteristics.42 It would be expected that
in the context of American sports, the much smaller supply of major-
league teams would create more demand for access to any individual
club, giving sports-communications officials more leverage to manage
news subsidies, resulting in different patterns of institutionalization.43
Conclusions
Bryan Goldberg, one of the founders of BleacherReport.com, an
online sports outlet that got its start as a platform for fans, wrote in an
op-ed on Pando.com that “as for the type of stories that ‘insiders’ need
to ‘break’… my generation just does not care about the ‘insider game’
of building relationships with GMs and team presidents in order to get
a ‘scoop’ three hours before the guy at the other newspaper can get
it.”44
Goldberg left the outlet in 2012 after selling it to Turner for over $200
million, according to media reports.45 Since his departure, the site and other Web 2.0-era
startups have begun marching upmarket, de-emphasizing user-generated content and
hiring full-time reporters with careers spent covering specific sports and thus bringing
with them the relationships and confidences of sources, i.e., access. This is a trend
common in the maturation of products that have disrupted markets, according to Lowrey
and Christensen: After finding a niche that displaces upmarket goods (in this case, news
organizations), cheap disruptors begin to adopt the standards and structures of legitimized
competitors, themselves moving upmarket.46 In fact, BleacherReport.com has begun
Tensions in the Press Box 32
adding tag lines to reported stories, emphasizing that quotations were obtained via
traditional reporting. An emphasis on exclusive access has become a hallmark of
BleacherReport’s competitors, such as SBNation.com’s “Longform” section and
ESPN.com’s Grantland.com property. All three now emphasize intensively-reported
magazine features, which generally require access far exceeding a beat reporter.
This trend suggests a potential conflict with Mark Cuban’s suggestion to
align a program’s access policies with its marketing priorities. If source
organizations move toward freezing out journalists, it would create a
significant problem for those seeking to tell the stories the public
needs and wants to hear. While these surveys did not find strong
evidence of trends in this direction, the topic will be worth revisiting as
new channels and platforms mature and offer new opportunities for
organizations to tell their own stories instead of permitting the media
access to do so.
Works Cited
1 Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality, New York (1978).2 Cary Coglianese, "The Transparency President? The Obama Administration and Open Government," Governance 22, no. 4 (2009); Leonard Jr. Downie, "The Obama Administration and the Press: Leak Investigations and Surveillance in Post-9/11 America," (Washington, D.C.: The Committee to Protect Journalists, 2013).3 Jeffrey P. Hermes et al., "Who Gets a Press Pass? Media Credentialing Practices in the United States," (2014), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2451239.4 Edirin Oputu, "Hacks Vs. Flacks: Do Public Affairs Offices Get in the Way?," Columbia Journalism Review (2013).5 Carolyn S. Carlson and Megan Roy, "Mediated Access: Education Writers’ Perceptions of Public Information Officers’ Media Control Efforts," Education Writers Association (2013), http://www.ewa.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/ewa_survey_report_2014.pdf.6 Tom Goldstein, "The Walls Erected by Traditional Media," SCOTUSBlog (2014), http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/the-walls-erected-by-traditional-media/.7 Bob Gillespie, "Commentary: Clemson Reinvents Media Access," The State (2014), http://www.thestate.com/2014/05/19/3454873/commentary-clemson-reinvents-media.html.8 Frank LoMonte, "Going on the Offense," Student Press Law Center, http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=108; Christian J Keeney, "Kentucky Fried Blog: How the Recent Ejection of a Blogger from the College World Series Raises Novel Questions About the First Amendment, Intellectual Property, and the Intersection of Law and Technology in the 21st Century," J. Tech. L. & Pol'y 13 (2008).9 Michael Kruse, "For SEC, Tech-Savvy Fans Might Be Biggest Threats to Media Exclusivity," Tampa Bay Times (2009), http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/for-sec-tech-savvy-fans-might-be-biggest-threats-to-media-exclusivity/1027680.10 University of Washington, "Credential Policy," University of Washington, http://www.gohuskies.com/genrel/credentialpolicy.html.11 Monica Guzman, "UW Policy Restricting Reporter Tweets Is Not Just Claiming Rights, but Taking Turf," Geekwire.com (2012), http://www.geekwire.com/2012/uws-policy-restricting-reporters-rights-turf/.12 Rick Telander, "The Written Word: Player-Press Relationships in American Sports," Sociology of Sport Journal 1, no. 1 (1984).13 Nancy Theberge and Alan Cronk, "Work Routines in Newspaper Sports Departments and the Coverage of Women's Sports," ibid.3, no. 3 (1986)., p. 19814 J.E. Grunig, "Organizations, Environments, and Models of Public Relations," (1983); Mick Jackowski, "Conceptualizing an Improved Public Relations Strategy: A Case for Stakeholder Relationship Marketing in Division Ia Intercollegiate Athletics," Journal of Business and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (2006).15 Marie Hardin and Erin Whiteside, "Consequences of Being the "Team Mom": Women in Sports Information and the Friendliness Trap," Journal of Sport Management 26, no. 4 (2012); Robin Hardin and Steven McClung, "Collegiate Sports Information: A Profile of the Profession," Public Relations Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2002).16 J. Sean McCleneghan, "The Sports Information Director -- No Attention, No Respect, and a PR Practitioner in Trouble," ibid.40 (1995).17 Jerome Holtzman, No Cheering in the Press Box (Henry Holt, 1978).18 Frank G. Menke, The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Sports (Glenview, Illinois: Progress Research Corp., 1963).19 Howard J. Savage, "American College Athletics, with a Preface by Henry S. Pritchett. New York City, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1929," Bulletin, no. 23; Murray Sperber, Onward to Victory: The Crises That Shaped College Sports (New York: Henry Holt, 1998).20 Robert Lipsyte, "An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir" (2011).
21 William B. Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78, no. 2 (2001); Marie Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments," Newspaper Research Journal 26, no. 1 (2005); Michael B. Salwen and Bruce Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”," Journal of Sport & Social Issues 22, no. 1 (1998).22 "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”."23 Sada Reed, "Sports Journalists' Use of Social Media and Its Effects on Professionalism," Journal of Sports Media 6, no. 2 (2011); Salwen and Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”."24 Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism."25 Timothy E. Cook, "The News Media as a Political Institution: Looking Backward and Looking Forward," Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006); Bartholomew H. Sparrow, "A Research Agenda for an Institutional Media," ibid.26 Timothy E. Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution (University of Chicago Press, 1998).27 Ibid.28 Ibid., p. 20629 Oscar H. Gandy, Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Co., 1982).30 Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution.31 Ibid.; Frederick B. Marbut, News from the Capital: The Story of Washington Reporting (Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, 1971).32 P.J. DiMaggio and W.W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (1983).33 J.W. Meyer and B. Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony," American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977).34 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields."35 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony."36 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields."37 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony."38 Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments."39 Scott Gleeson, "Southern Cal Lifts Practice and Game Ban on Reporter," USA Today (2012), http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/09/12/usc-lane-kiffin-bans-reporter-from-practices-games/70000236/1#.UnPBSpFXW4Y.40 Paul M. Hirsch and Y. Sekou Bermiss, "Institutional “Dirty” Work: Preserving Institutions through Strategic Decoupling," in Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations (2009).41 Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American sociological review (1983).42 Christoph G. Grimmer and Edward M. Kian, "Reflections of German Football Journalists on Their Relationships with Bundesliga Club Public Relations Practitioners," International Journal of Sport Communication 6, no. 4 (2013); Zvi Reich and Thomas Hanitzsch, "Determinants of Journalists' Professional Autonomy: Individual and National Level Factors Matter More Than Organizational Ones," Mass Communication and Society 16, no. 1 (2013).43 Mike Cardillo, "Newcastle United Proposes to Charge Journalists for ‘Exclusive Access'," The Big Lead (2013), http://thebiglead.com/2013/12/11/newcastle-united-proposes-to-charge-journalists-for-exclusive-access/.
44 Bryan Goldberg, "How I Respond to the Haters," Pando Daily (2013), http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/01/how-i-respond-to-the-haters/.45 Lizzie Widdicombe, "From Mars: A Young Man's Adventures in Women's Publishing," The New Yorker (2013), http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/23/130923fa_fact_widdicombe?currentPage=all.46 Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013); Wilson Lowrey, "Institutionalism, News Organizations, and Innovation," Journalism Studies 12, no. 1 (2011).
Table 1:
Variables tested in survey
Journalists SIDS
Interviews with athletes/coaches only take place in press conferences, not 1-on-1
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2132.61 (0.82)0.82 (3)
1481.92 (0.60)0.75 (3)
Fans/donors get at least as much access as I/reporters do
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2102.46 (0.75)0.72 (2)
1462.20 (0.67)0.69 (2)
Material I receive from SIDs is not very useful for my reporting
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2071.88 (0.71)0.77 (3)
Media seats have been moved away from prime seating areas
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2132.57 (0.84)0.82 (3)
1482.20 (0.84)0.78 (3)
We take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s audience into account when deciding whether to grant credentials
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
1482.60 (0.73)0.62 (3)
We take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s audience into account when deciding whether to grant interviews
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
1482.64 (0.74)0.72 (3)
We review reach, audience, and/or market penetration for outlets that cover our teams
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
1482.47 (0.66)0.78 (3)
Reporters from big-name publication get better access than local beat writers
nMean (SD)A (no. of items)
2173.08 (0.77)0.74 (3)
Having a desirable audience means getting better access
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2063.04 (0.72)0.72 (3)
Reporters need to have good relationships with SIDs to get one-on-one interviews with coaches and athletes
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2112.42 (0.73)0.74 (3)
1481.93 (0.59)0.44 (3)
I/reporters can get access even after writing critical stories
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2152.94 (0.65)0.79 (3)
1473.13 (0.46)0.56 (3)
I/reporters cannot publish injury information or other information we learn in practice
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2062.66 (0.82)0.54
1482.27 (0.70)0.47
The athletics department (I cover) or its conference has established limits on the type or number of blogs/social media posts I/reporters can publish during contests
Mean (SD)(no. of items)
2102.02 (0.73)0.87 (6)
1481.80 (0.69)0.85 (2)
Independent media have the same access to coaches and athletes as they did before the athletic department or its conference signed their latest round of broadcast agreements
nMean (SD)(no. of items)
2162.44 (0.72)0.79 (3)
1483.02 (0.57)0.72 (3)
I/reporters used to get more informal access than I/they do now
n Mean (SD)(no. of items)
1912.87 (0.90)0.50 (3)
1472.41 (0.69)0.54 (3)
All questions were original to this survey. Responses were solicited on a four-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree 4 = strongly agree). Cronbach results over 0.70 are in boldface.