baseball and the media
Reviewed by Keith Cannon, Department of Communication Studies, Wingate University
JULY 22, 2007 archive
As Barry Bonds' march (or is it more like a limp?) toward Hank Aaron's all-time major league home run record grinds inexorably toward its goal -- three away from the magic number of 756 at this writing -- baseball is getting, for better and worse, a boost in media coverage this season from it.
It's a boost which would have been taken for granted instead of noted upon in previous generations, but baseball hasn't found it easy in recent decades to compete with other sports in the media marketplace. I cover minor league baseball for a large daily newspaper when I'm not in the classroom, and at the beginning of the season, the sports section's emphasis is on coverage of our city's NBA team and the afermath of March Madness. By late summer, I'm crowded out by coverage of the NFL's pre-season. And by the end of the season, baseball's an afterthought as college and high school football get under way.
I've also been working on an encylopedia article about legendary New York Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen, which has reminded me of the pre-eminence which baseball once had in the sports media. You might watch baseball on ESPN, but do you immediately recognize the voices calling the game? Baseball, once the prized beat of the sports section, used to attract the newspaper's top reporters and columnists, the Red Smiths and Jimmy Cannons. But could you name the baseball writer for your nearest metro daily today?
Chicago area sports reporter George Castle gives an inside look at this issue in this lively and opinionated book, and explains why baseball fans don't get the same quality of information that they used to. Among the reasons:
- The number of reporters covering baseball on a daily basis has decreased, due in part to budget cuts in sports coverage by bottom line-conscious media companies. A by-product of this is that print and broadcast outlets often assign their least experienced reporters, instead of their most experienced, to cover the sport;
- Changing relationships between the players and managers and the people who cover them. It's not just the obvious and much-written-about income gap. The decrease in coverage means fewer opportunties for reporter and source to develop relationships of trust. With the increasingly multi-cultural nature of baseball, the language barrier is also a factor. Castle goes to the players and reporters themselves for some interesting -- if not always self-aware -- insights on this issue;
- The effect of "non-traditional" media such as sports talk radio, websites and blogs. More choices and more information haven't yielded a better quality of coverage. The stew of fact, opinion, rumor and half-truth that's resulted has created further deterioration of the relationship between journalist and athlete, Castle says. Players resent criticism from the talk show hosts and bloggers who never show up at the stadium, and they distance themselves further from the day-to-day beat journalist as a result.
For the most part, Castle has it right in his analysis, although there are some debatable points. The reviewer, who has spent much of his journalism career also covering local sports, would contest Castle's assertion that larger newspapers cover high school sports (often at the expense of baseball) simply to pander to the demands of parents and family members of the players, an important potential customer base. But, Castle says, it's not an interest that extends to the community in general. My experience covering high school football in packed stadiums in Florida, Texas and western Pennsylvania -- in large cities as well as small towns -- and noting the year-round public interest in high school basketball in North Carolina, tells me otherwise. (This is part of one of the book's most interesting chapters, which posits that just as the U.S. political map is divided into "red" and "blue" states for categorization purposes these days, there are "red" and "blue" states in sports journalism. The assumption of the national sports media that every reader or viewer cares about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry in baseball is an excellent example.)
Castle's book itself is a bit Chicago-centric, but that's inevitable given the author's base of operations. Besides, like any good reporter, Castle makes optimum use of his sources. Anyone who grew up in or lives in the Chicago area, or anyone interested in the history of sports media, will find interesting Castle's chapter on the history of baseball coverage in the Windy City.
Castle also addresses a variety of other issues, from the role of the team's broadcaster to the problems faced by women who cover baseball. Agree with it or not, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in a career in sports journalism, or in understanding the place of sports coverage in today's media world. And it's also a particularly helpful resource in deciphering the increasingly complex relationship between journalist and athlete.
Note: Keith Cannon covers minor league baseball and other sports for The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer and other newspapers.
Castle, George. Baseball and the Media: How Fans Lose in Today's Coverage of the Game. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. 262 pp. (paper) $24.95 ISBN 0-8032-6469-0
Copyright © 2007 by Keith Cannon.