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Rob Neyer (ESPN) on the need for sports reporters

Joe: Do we really need Sports reporters anymore? Bloggers do just as a good of a job and they do it for free. They also seem to have less of a sense of entitlement.
SportsNation Rob Neyer: Well, it depends on how you define "bloggers," right? If your definition includes writers who have access and the skills to run down leads and ask the right questions, then sure. But most of them -- I mean, us -- don't have the access or those skills.

Rob hosts a chat that covers all kinds of baseball-related topics, but the ongoing conversation on the need for sports reporters is incredible. My hometown, Dallas (if you can even call it a town), has one large-scale daily newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. Recently, the paper dissolved its' section on the Texas Rangers, my baseball team. I think that, combined with the Seattle Post-Intellegence's move to a fully online news publication, brings some relevance to the conversation.
Hat tip to Lone Star Ball, the SBNation Texas Rangers blog, for bringing this to my attention.

7 months ago Spags_victory_tiny 3k 1 comment 0 recs  | 

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this topic gives me fits

if you read around SBNation, you’ll see the skills are there. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I’ll put what we do here at TST up against anything else out there. Some of the “professional” stuff will be better, some will be worse, but a lot of the people that make sites like this one go have the training and the experience.

That brings us to access, the quote-unquote real journalist’s main weapon in the race to denounced bloggings and bloggers. The only reason they have access is because they work for established institutions, like a newspaper or ESPN. That’s changing fast. Newspapers are going under and entities like SBN are growing. Ten years ago no team would have given a Yahoo.com writer the time of day, now they get access like anyone at a daily newspaper. Mark my words, SBN will reach that point; it’s pretty damn close. Platforms like this can do much more than simply report news; they allow people to interact and react to the news instantly as well as weave the fan experience into the day-to-day.

Look at what blogs have done for political reporting. Politicians and their media handlers have recognized the value of connecting directly with their core audiences as well as more peripheral watchers via the independent electronic medium. Now, those people have regular spots in the press briefings and are always a phone call away, access.

Which entity is more likely to be here in 5 years, TST or a daily print edition of the PD?

by VanRam on Mar 19, 2009 9:26 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

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