An Interview with King Kaufman

“My demo is genius-level lit majors who chuckle to themselves at even

the most subtle jokes and allusions I throw in, happy in the knowledge that they’re among the few who would get them all, and also pleased at how good-looking they are. Seriously, I don’t know. They seem to be really smart, mostly pretty well educated, a mix of ages that skew older than the Web in general I’m guessing but still plenty of collegiate types. Overwhelmingly American and male. Probably pretty white.”

King Kaufman: Interviewed on July 23, 2008

Position: Sports columnist, Salon.com

Born: 1963, Los Angeles

Education: UC-Berkeley, ’86 BA History, ’89 MJ Journalism

Career: Netguide Live, Montclarion, Berkeley Voice, 1986-89; San Francisco Examiner, 89-1996; Salon, 1997 –

Personal: Married, two kids, 5 and almost 3.

Favorite restaurant (home): Home Plate, Cow Hollow. “Breakfast – I rarely go out to breakfast, rarely go to Cow Hollow, so it’s really a treat when I find myself there.”

Favorite restaurant (away): Janko’s Little Zagreb, Bloomington, Ind., “Steak.”

Favorite hotel: “I don’t travel enough to have a favorite.”

King Kaufman, excerpted from Salon.com, March 8, 2007:

A few weeks ago I mentioned
that I’d hit my 10th anniversary with Salon, and if I can just have another moment here, this column marks the fifth birthday
of this column.

I’d been writing about sports on and off over my first five years at Salon, and the Sports Daily wouldn’t debut for 15 more months.
But when I reviewed ESPN’s first original movie, “A Season on the Brink,” on March 8, 2002, it was my first piece after the boss had said, “How about just writing sports?”

That is: Quit writing about other stuff.

My last non-sports piece had been a feature about a Web site that presented furniture porn.
Like, photos of chairs and tables appearing to get it on. I can’t imagine what David Talbot might have been thinking when he took me off that beat, but when the boss says write sports, you write sports.

I’ve been thinking lately, because of the time of year, that two of the ideas prominent in my columns five years ago have become a lot more mainstream. One is that college basketball teams from so-called mid-major conferences are able to play on the same level as the big-conference powers.

The tide was just starting to turn five years ago, thanks to Gonzaga, but it was still routine for good teams from smaller conferences, teams like Southern Illinois, to get seeded around 12th in the NCAA Tournament while lesser teams from the big conferences were pulling down 4- and 5-seeds. That doesn’t happen anymore, and Cinderella runs by the likes of Vermont, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and George Mason have taught the most casual of bracket fillers that winners can come from anywhere in March.

The other idea is sabermetrics, the rise of which in baseball has been well documented. I was late to this party, just coming to embrace some of the ideas spelled out by Bill James
in the ’80s when I began this column. But even I was ahead of the curve by a bit. Five years ago, it was unusual to see on-base percentage on a TV graphic. Not anymore. Good.

The world hasn’t caught up to my brilliant ideas to remove timeouts from basketball and place-kicking from football, but I’m willing to give you people five more years.

Or until the boss says, “How about just working maintenance?”

Q. How would you describe what you do for Salon? Is it a blog? A

column? How often do you post? And how has it evolved since you

started it?

A. Yes, it’s a blog or a column. The first post after it changed over to

a blog format, which was recently, was about whether it’s a blog or a

column. My conclusion: Call it whatever you want.

I’m not fond of the word blog. It’s not descriptive enough. A blog

can be a 9-year-old’s occasional thoughts about Miley Cyrus or it can

be the best reporter in the world’s essential-reading “Reporter’s

Notebook”-style column. So I still like the word column because that

word carries some meaning. It says, or at least implies, that some

thought, preparation and professionalism went into the writing of it,

that there are certain standards at work, that someone hired you to

do it, so it’s not just something you do on your own. At least one

other person in the world thinks it’s worthwhile. Also, I’m just sick

of the word “blog.” But seriously, anyone calling it a blog gets no

argument from me.

I generally post two to three items a day. I now have the freedom to

post whenever I want to, and so there’s a temptation to just spew. I

try to fight that, to make each item, even if it’s very short, a well-

crafted piece. In that way — being able to post throughout the day,

and having the freedom to write something even if I only have 100

words to say about it, without having to wait until I have a column

that needs or can use an extra 100-word item — it’s different than

it used to be, when I posted once a day, like a newspaper column.

But I think the writing and the voice and the themes are pretty similar.

It’s still me. The method of delivery has changed a little is all.

I think you can see from the syntactical sloppiness of these written

responses that some effort goes into what I publish! A good deal of

what I do is going back and taking out commas and dashes.

Q. How would you describe a typical King Kaufman reader? What’s your demo?

A. My demo is genius-level lit majors who chuckle to themselves at even

the most subtle jokes and allusions I throw in, happy in the knowledge that they’re among the few who would get them all, and also pleased at how good-looking they are.

Seriously, I don’t know. They seem to be really smart, mostly pretty

well educated, a mix of ages that skew older than the Web in general

I’m guessing but still plenty of collegiate types. Overwhelmingly

American and male. Probably pretty white.

Q. Why aren’t there more King Kaufman videos? How would you

characterize your video persona?

A. Well, I just got started, and the producer I was working with, John

Henion of DoublePlay TV, who’s great, left that company, and the

whole thing kind of got put on hold. I’d like to get back into it and

do more. I’m just starting to learn how to do it.

I don’t know what my persona is. That’s one of the things I’m trying to learn about, but I suspect it’ll end up being a lot like my print – if I may use

that word – how about “writing” persona – only on video.

Q. Are you naturally a wise guy or is that just your writing shtick?

A. Probably some of both. I’m a wittier writer than I am in person but I

have my moments in person, especially if I’m among people I know

pretty well. I guess I’m kind of sarcastic and a smartass, though

I’ve gotten better at keeping that in check as I’ve gotten older. I

learned that the world doesn’t necessarily need to hear my every

sarcastic remark and caustic opinion. But if I’m getting paid for it…

Q. Is King your real name? Is Kaufman?

A. If you say King or Kaufman, I turn around.

Q. Other ‘Kings’ you admire?

A. King Kelly? Martin Luther King Jr.? Elvis Presley and Benny Goodman?

Never really thought much about it. King Cobra?

Q. You wrote this about Barry Bonds, “If you can put up a .400 on-base percentage with power, some team’s going to sign you unless you’re actually standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in your hand. And even then, four or five teams will ask if it’s your gun. One or

two will ask if anybody else knows about the body.” What went wrong?

A. We shall see, we shall see, he wrote on July 23. Still a ways to go.

Nobody’s gotten desperate enough yet. I’m still betting someone will.

But if nobody signs him I’d say what went wrong is that I

Under-estimated clubs’ desire to steer clear of public relations and/or clubhouse chemistry problems even at the expense of missing out on

likely improving their team on the field. I might have made the same decision myself, by the way. Not to want him around, that is. I’ll just be surprised if there isn’t some team willing to take a flyer.

Q. After Ahmed Almaktoum won the gold in the men’s double trap,

becoming the first person from the United Arab Emirates ever to win a

medal, you wrote: “I did a double-take when I saw him celebrating

his victory — a Middle Eastern man in a head scarf and an ammo vest

jubilantly holding a shotgun over his head. Whoa! Did I switch to a

news channel?” Which was more amusing, Ahmed or the double trap event?

A. What I wrote was, I hope, amusing. I don’t think Ahmed or the event

were particularly amusing. I like to think I added value there.

Q. Who and what do you read to keep up with sports?

A. Is it flies that fly in random patterns in search of food? That’s

kind of like me surfing the Web. I don’t really have a system — I

will go here first, then here, then there, same as yesterday. I

don’t really have a go-to site or writer or newspaper or whatever

that I rely on. I cast around. Through the process of that, I kind of

absorb the news.

I have my favorite places. The Baseball Primer newsblog is great for baseball news and commentary, and I wish there was something exactly like it for every sport. Google News is good. Rotoworld is very good. It’s interested in the fantasy angle, but it ends up giving you the news, player by player. On TV there’s the ubiquitous ESPN, though I actually watch very

little ESPN for news. “Outside the Lines” is good, though I don’t catch it very often. I like “Pardon the Interruption,” but again, don’t see it much. I mostly use TV to actually watch events.I have my favorite writers too, but nobody who I must read every day or every time they write.

Q. After Rush Limbaugh’s comment that “football is a lot like life”,

you wrote: “Football is nothing like life. It’s organized and neat

and rational. Everyone is either with you or against you, and the

boundaries are straight lines that are clearly marked. The only sport

that’s like life is bullfighting. And only for the bull.” Is it part

of your job description for Salon.com to put right-wing bloviators in

their place? How do you deal with left-wing bloviators?

A. I think my job is to write interesting things about sports.

Bloviators are often kind of interesting, whether they’re coming from

the right or left. There really aren’t too many of either in the

sports realm.

Limbaugh was interesting to me as a sports character less because of his politics than because of the role he played. He represented the catering of the sports networks to non- or casual fans, at the expense of their core audience, who they pretty much can’t alienate, because hardcore sports fans will put up with anything to watch the game. So ESPN brings in this guy, who has no particular insights or knowledge about football, because he’s famous and has a following and will cause controversy, all of which was

meant to bring in viewers who wouldn’t ordinarily watch football, or football pregame shows.

So, he came in and did his thing. The fact that his thing is right-

wing bloviating was secondary to me. If he were a jazz critic who

came in and tried to shoehorn his jazz agenda into the football

analysis the way Limbaugh shoehorned his right-wing agenda in, it

would have amounted to more or less the same thing. He just would

have referred to people as “cats” more often.

Or, as you suggest, if it were Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky coming in

and spouting uninformed views about football from a lefty perspective

much more in tune with my own, it still would have sucked and I’d

have said so.

Q. What is it about the Bay Area that gives us great stories like

Balco?

A. Nothing. Balco could have happened, has happened, and no doubt is

happening as we speak, anywhere. Haven’t they busted labs and

distributors in Florida and New York? I’m not sure there’s anything

about Balco that couldn’t have happened somewhere else. Maybe it’s

been easier just south of San Francisco, in the high-tech age, to

open a business that nobody knows what the heck you’re doing in there

without anybody really feeling the need to check up on it, because

there are all kinds of business that, even after it’s explained to you what they do, you have no idea what they do. But I don’t know. That’s probably true a lot of places. I don’t go to a lot of industrial parks.

I think I’m going to say there’s nothing really about the Bay Area

that produces better stories than anywhere else with a population as

large and diverse, and there are such places, and also nothing about

Balco that could only have happened here.

King Kaufman, posted on Salon.com, March 28, 2006:

Two sports-fan subcultures collided last week, and it wasn’t pretty, though it all ended up well enough.

ESPN Radio host Colin Cowherd used some material off a Michigan football fan blog, presenting joke questions from a Wonderlic test on his show Wednesday without attribution, as though it were original material. When e-mails started flooding in objecting to the theft, Cowherd fired off a series of rude, taunting responses calling those with complaints whiners.

Almost certainly at the urging of his bosses at ESPN, Cowherd offered a sincere-sounding apology on the air Monday, five days after the incident.

Oddly, this case of radio plagiarism happened the same week conservative Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech’s print and online plagiarism
created a firestorm in political and media circles. Yet beyond the blogs, the Cowherd affair created nary a ripple.

A letter
about the incident headlined “What about radio journalism?” was posted on Jim Romenesko’s blog at Poynter.org and gained no traction with the media pros who haunt that site.

The creators of the M Zone,
the aggrieved football site, had declared themselves
“pissed” last week at Cowherd’s not giving them credit for their work, which was a satire on news reports about Texas quarterback Vince Young having done poorly on a Wonderlic test at the NFL Scouting combine.

The M Zone authors accepted Cowherd’s apology
Monday, writing, “It’s over.”

“We felt powerless,” wrote Yost, one of the M Zone’s founders, in an e-mail to me. “An almost-6-month-old blog against ‘the Worldwide Leader in Sports.’ But we were mad.”

So Yost and his M Zone partner, Benny, who both wish to remain anonymous because they don’t want co-workers to wonder if they spend more time on their blog than they do on their real jobs, asked readers to write to Cowherd and, at the suggestion of a reader, to ESPN ombudsman George Solomon.

A procedural note: I’ve made some minor trims to Yost’s e-mail comments.

“We had no idea the response would be so overwhelmingly positive and the sheer numbers would be so staggering,” Yost writes. “It really seemed to have struck a nerve, not only among the online sports community, but bloggers in general.”

Cowherd fueled the outrage when, according to the M Zone and not disputed by ESPN, he responded to e-mails about the theft with replies such as, “WE WERE SENT IT … WE HAD NO IDEA … BUT THE INCESSANT WHINING … MEANS I WON’T GIVE YOU CREDIT NOW … GET OVER IT
CC”

“Those e-mails were inappropriate,” ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Friday, “and we’ve spoken to Colin about them and he admitted he overreacted.” Krulewitz said Cowherd would not be available for an interview, and a call to Cowherd’s producer went unreturned.

Cowherd made an oblique reference to those e-mails in his on-air apology, saying, “I got upset. I took it very personally, because again I take great pride in being unique.”

Cowherd accepted blame for not checking on the origins of the fake Wonderlic test he says a listener sent in without attribution. “I just didn’t do a good enough job checking a hysterical e-mail,” he said, then heaped praise on the M Zone, saying, “It’s very funny. They’re still absolutely killing me, and that’s funny. My bosses made me look at that this morning. They said, ‘You’ve got to see what these guys are doing to you. It’s really good.’ And it is.”

I’ve worked online since the days when seeing a URL on a billboard was a noteworthy event — run, kids, Grandpa’s telling war stories again! — and I’m still interested in the ways the Web interacts and clashes with other media and other cultures.

“Benny, who works in finance, and I were talking and he brought up an interesting point,” Yosts writes. “Benny said, ‘I don’t think the two audiences [sports radio and sports blogs] overlap. With so many choices, sports fans are finding their niche as to where to get their sports info. If they get it online, there is no need to tune into MSM [mainstream media] for the same info — info they don’t control or have feedback on.'”

Case in point: Yost says that the M Zone got a bigger boost in hits Thursday, when sports blogs such as Deadspin
and EDSBS.com
took up its cause, than it got Monday, when a nationally syndicated radio host spent four and a half minutes talking about how funny the M Zone is.

On the other hand — and cautioning that both he and Benny are fairly new amateur bloggers, not experts — Yost writes that he thinks sports blogs and the mainstream media are “merging in a way” as the mainstream becomes more personality-driven.

“With ‘Best Damn Sports Show’ and ‘SportsCenter’ being sold as entertainment instead of journalism, the guy at his computer and the six-figure ESPN anchor are the same guy,” he writes.

And one more point by Benny, as told to Yost: “There is resentment among some sports bloggers of this whole sportstainment culture in the MSM. Many of those fans wants scores and highlights and not schtick.”

I’ve written a lot
about TV networks forsaking hardcore sports fans, who the networks know will watch games and sports news shows no matter what nonsense they have to fight through, to focus instead on attracting more non-sports fans.

But I hadn’t thought about the parallel dynamic Benny brings up. The mainstream sports media, I think, is also becoming more gimmicky, more schtickified, if you will, as it tries to react to and keep up with the looser, more iconoclastic culture of the sports blogs.

It’s impossible not to overgeneralize when talking about “the media,” but I think there’s something to this. The mainstream media, afraid of looking like stick-in-the-muds in comparison with the no-holds-barred world of the blogs, rolls out more and more “edgy” stuff, as they say in TV. More Budweiser Hot Seats and newspaper columnists yelling at each other and in-depth reports about the five most-played songs on Reggie Bush’s iPod.

And the iconoclastic, new-media-savvy, blog-reading hardcore sports fan looks up from his laptop just long enough to say, “Did I miss the Pistons-Sixers highlights?”

Or, as in the Cowherd case, the mainstream media ignores the fusty old staid rules of ethics because, hey, dude, information wants to be free, right? Or the ostensible excuse: “Hey, someone sent us an e-mail. What are we supposed to do, check everything?”

And all the “amateurs” in blogland, the ones who have supposedly turned their back on the MSM and its creaky ways, rise up as one to harrumph, “It’s customary and proper to give credit where credit is due, sir.”

And that’s funnier than a fake Wonderlic test.

(SMG thanks King Kaufman for his cooperation)

An Interview with Hiroshi Kanda

“When I started covering professional baseball I couldn’t imagine working in the U.S…Now I can cover the highest level of baseball in the world – that’s exciting.”

“I like living in New York, except for my rent. It’s terrible.”

“If you are not bilingual it is hard to cover the manager or opponent’s players.”

“Ichiro speaks English very well and Johjima too. When they talk to their teammates they don’t need translators. But when they talk to media they use it.”

Hiroshi Kanda: Interviewed on January 18, 2007

Position: baseball writer, Kyodo News

Born: 1966, Tokyo

Education: Osaka University, 1991, Art History

Career: Kyodo News 1992 –

Personal: married, two children

Favorite restaurant (Japan): Bungo, Osaka, “good sushi”

Favorite restaurant (U.S.): Pam Real Thai, NYC, 404 W. 49^th St. “the best Thai in the city”

Favorite hotel: Sailport Resort, Tampa, “during spring training – beautiful view of the ocean”

From the Kyodo News website:

Kyodo is a nonprofit cooperative organization run on an annual budget, primarily made up of membership dues and revenues from nonmember subscribers.

Kyodo’s Japanese-language news service is distributed to almost all newspapers and radio-TV networks in Japan. The combined circulation of newspaper subscribers is about 50 million.

Kyodo has some 1,000 journalists and photographers. More than half of them are posted at the Tokyo head office, assigned to political, financial, business, city, sports, science and cultural news desks plus various government offices and business organizations. Others work at five regional offices and 48 local bureaus across the country.

For international newsgathering, some 70 full-time correspondents and 40 stringers are posted at 50 places outside Japan. News coverage focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, where some 50 staffers, including local employees, are posted at 19 places. The second largest concentration of correspondents is in North America, followed by Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Q. How big is your sports staff in the United States?

A. Two baseball writers and one editor in New York, one baseball writer in Los Angeles, one more in Seattle, and now one in Boston.

Q. Will you have a full-time reporter in Boston to cover Daisuke Matsuzaka?

A. Yes. He will live in Boston and will cover Daisuke Matsuzaka all season. Even if Matsuzaka pitches once in five days he will cover every game of the Boston Red Sox. On the days Matsuzaka does not pitch the stories will be shorter.

Q. How many Japanese players get this type of coverage?

A. Four players. Ichiro Suzuki and Kenji Johjima in Seattle, Hideki Matsui in New York. And now Matsuzaka.

Q. Why is Matsuzaka a big story in Japan?

A. We have no professional basketball or football. Baseball is the biggest professional league in Japan – it is our national pastime. Matsuzaka won the national championship of high school baseball – it is so big in Japan. Not so many people watch college baseball – most colleges with a good baseball program are in the Tokyo area. In other areas people follow high school baseball – each of the 47 prefectures has their own team. People are crazy about high school baseball and he won the national championship. He was a first round pick of the draft and won 16 games in his first year as a pro.

Q. Is Matsuzuka easy or difficult to cover?

A. Do you mean is he good for media?

Q. Yes, is he good for media?

A. Okay, but I have never covered him. I think he is good for media. Since he was 16 or 17 he has been covered by most Japanese sports media – he should get used to being covered.

Q. What about Ichiro?

A. I don’t say good, but that’s his style. Same thing in Japan – he didn’t change at all. Everyone knows that’s his style. He doesn’t say much every day. But when the season starts, or the season is over, or the first half is over, or he plays in the All-Star Game, he will talk. When he has a press conference he is very talkable.

Q. What about Matsui?

A. He talks every day. Because of his playing for the Tokyo Giants, which gets the biggest media coverage in Japan, like the Yankees – he has a long history and he can deal with it. He has to. He made his style in Tokyo.

Q. If Seattle plays the Yankees how much do you write?

A. One long story – two or three short stories.

Q. How would you describe your job?

A. When I started covering professional baseball I couldn’t imagine working in the U.S. Free agency started in 1993 in Japan – until then no player could come to the U.S. I couldn’t imagine a player like Matsui or Ichiro playing in this country. In the last five years everything has changed and now it seems like every star player is coming to the U.S.

Q. When did you come to the U.S.?

A. In 2003, with Matsui. I was covering the Tokyo Giants. I came on the same flight as Matsui. My wife and children came after me.

Q. Do you have a good job?

A. Yes.

Q. What do you like about it?

A. I’ve been a baseball writer – I covered Japanese professional baseball more than 10 years. Now I can cover the highest level of baseball in the world – that’s exciting.

Q. Your thoughts on living in New York?

A. I like living in New York, except for my rent. It’s terrible.

My family likes it. My two children (ages 12 and 8) are in public school in Manhattan.

Q. What is the hardest part of your job?

A. I cover more than 150 games a year. The first year I covered more than 170 games including playoffs. Sometimes a flight is cancelled or delayed – anything can happen – but I have to get to the ballpark.

Q. Is it a physical grind?

A. A little bit – especially the second half of the season.

I get to the ballpark at about 3 – the clubhouse will open at 3:30 so you have to be there. I’m there until after midnight.

Q. Is your beat competitive?

A. I think so.

Q. Who are your main competitors – who do you worry about the most?

A. I don’t want to tell you.

Q. How many Japanese reporters will be in Boston?

A. I’m not sure. On Opening Day almost every Japanese sports media will be there. More than 50.

Q. And later in the season?

A. Maybe 20 including TV.

Q. Which American media do you rely on for information?

A. Associated Press. New York Times. New York Post. Daily News. I watch ESPN and read ESPN on the web.

Q. Is Japanese coverage different than American?

A. The story is not different. The way we cover baseball is different. In Japan they don’t open the clubhouse for media. You have to go to the ballpark earlier and wait for players in the parking lot or in front of the clubhouse.

Q. Are your stories about the game or personalities?

A. Mainly on the game, but sometimes personal. That’s because I write for a wire service.

Q. Japanese newspapers are more gossipy and personal?

A. Yes.

Q. Is covering Major League Baseball a good assignment for a Japanese reporter?

A. Yes. I think so. If he likes to travel in the U.S.

Q. Are most Japanese reporters bilingual?

A. Some are not. If you are not bilingual it is hard to cover the manager or opponent’s players.

Q. Are the players’ translators helpful?

A. Ichiro speaks English very well and Johjima too. When they talk to their teammates they don’t need translators. But when they talk to media they use it.

Q. Why?

A. They don’t want to make mistakes.

Q. Do you miss Japan?

A. Not really. I know I’ll be back to Japan. This is my fifth year – it will be the last season. They told me. It’s not in my hands.

Q. Will you be sad to leave?

A. It’s okay.

(SMG thanks Hiroshi Kanda for his cooperation)

An Interview with Tom Jolly

“We’re constantly evaluating how we do things and why. For instance, not many years ago, half of our reporters were assigned to cover specific teams in the New York area. Now, only a few are assigned to local teams; others are writing about issues like doping, science and business. Even those who are covering local teams are writing more analytically about those teams than about the games they play.”

“We have reporters filing stories in mid-morning when possible. Judy Battista files her NFL Fast Forward analysis for posting on Monday morning when readers are in the office, talking about yesterday’s games. Pete Thamel and other college sports reporters file their college football stories for posting Friday morning when people are starting to talk about Saturday’s games.”

“It’s true that owning a share of the Yankees’ chief rival makes us an easy target for critics. Many of the news organization’s policies are aimed at preventing even the appearance of a conflict of interest and ownership in a share of the Red Sox obviously creates the appearance of conflict. Still, it defies logic to think that we really would have a bias in our coverage.”

Position: Sports editor, The New York Times

Born: 1955, Massena, N.Y.

Education: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1977, B.A. in journalism

Career: Ohio politics, 1977-1979; Delaware (Ohio) Gazette, 1979-1982; Annapolis (Md.) Capital, 1982-1985; Pittsburgh Press, 1985-1992; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1993; New York Times, 1993-present

Personal: Married (Linda) with five children (Sarah, 26; Rachel, 24; Russell, 21; Joelle, 19; Claire, 18.)

Favorite restaurant (home): Blue Point Grill, Princeton. “Great seafood perfectly prepared. And my daughter Rachel worked there last summer.”

Favorite restaurant (away): “The last place I had a great meal.”

Favorite hotel: “Anywhere that’s a vacation spot.”

Tom Jolly’s Facebook status updates:

Jan. 6, 2008:

“Tom is feeling sorry for his many Buckeye friends.”

Jan 3, 2008:

“Tom is wondering if there’s such a thing as too much football.”

Dec. 23, 2008:

“Tom is wondering what it’s like to have Yankee money.”

Nov. 29, 2008:

“Tom is happy he has never been remotely tempted to carry a gun, especially when going out for fun.”

Nov. 25, 2008:

“Tom is annoyed that ESPN isn’t giving the Times credit for a story our reporter broke.”

Nov. 17, 2008:

“Tom is separating Facebook and Twitter to save my sanity.”

Nov. 5, 2008:

“Tom is marveling at the line of people waiting to buy a historic edition of the New York Times.”

Oct. 26, 2008:

“Tom is wondering why new shoes cause blisters. It’s not like I’ve been running around barefoot for the past few weeks.”

Q. Everybody agrees that this is a brave new world for sports media. How is that reflected in the Times sports coverage? How much has it changed in the last five years?

A. Five years ago, I never would have dreamed that I’d be talking now about video and interactive graphics, strategizing about when to release stories on the Web, discussing cooperative agreements with other Web sites and third-party vendors … so much has changed that it’s difficult to remember what the “old world” was like.

Then again, I wouldn’t have dreamed that newspapers would be wrestling with such difficult economic issues either. It’s terribly sad to see so many talented people losing their jobs through no fault of their own.

I’m grateful for the relative stability of the Times and the forward-thinking approach our leaders have encouraged. Helping maintain that stability is a big part of my job, as is being aggressive in our pursuit of online and digital journalism.

Five years ago, reporters would argue against posting articles online before they appeared in print, fearing that the competition would take advantage and match their work. The best sign of progress: Now, reporters get upset if they think their articles aren’t posted quickly enough.

We’ve also altered the news cycle as much as possible, with reporters writing for the Web site first in order to give our online audience fresh material throughout the day. We don’t want our site to sit idle all day, or depend on wire copy that’s available to everyone. Online readers would go elsewhere if we didn’t give them a reason to come to us.

Of course, news and events can’t be rescheduled, but with so many big events happening so late at night, we’ve recognized the value of occasionally allowing our columnists to soak up the atmosphere and writing for the Web the next morning. This often produces better results than writing a pregame column that goes out to the majority of our readers and then rushing madly to recast the piece for the small percentage of the audience that gets the final copies of the paper.

One of our reporters points out that stories and columns that are posted during the day inevitably produce a bigger footprint because they’re fresh to Web readers and they still get the print audience the next day.

To make these changes work, we also had to restructure our newsroom, with more editors working on the dayside to handle the copy that is now being filed early. We’ve added Web producers, too, of course, and created what we’re calling writer-editors who can edit copy from other reporters and write for the Web themselves.

The unexpected dividend of all this is that it has made the print section better too. Instead of planning our story budget based strictly on the amount of space we expect in the paper, we take the opposite approach: The paper consists of the best of what’s on our Web site each day.

We’re doing more than simply transitioning traditional content to the Web, though. Last spring, we created a weekly golf feature called On Par that consisted of written content by Bill Pennington and a video that featured Bill in often humorous situations that resolved themselves with a tip from a pro.

For the Olympics, we mobilized some 200 people in all realms of the news organization to create new digital modules for schedules and results, interactive graphics, video and other features.

During the college football season, we produced a weekly video previewing the weekend’s games.

We regularly create audio slide shows to accompany features and other appropriate stories and some of our action sports videos have turned into youtube hits.

We’re in a multi-platform world and while it can sometimes make your head spin, it’s a lot of fun, too.

Q. Who and what is your competition? Do you have both a national and local strategy? What are you doing that gives you a competitive edge?

A. We look at everyone as our competition. We may not have the staff size to compete on every front, but by marshalling the resources we do have, we expect to be the go-to source of information on all of the big stories of the moment. The same goes for events that attract interest beyond the hardcore sports audience, like the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, the World Series, U.S. Open tennis and the Tour de France.

When the Times sports section was expanded in the late 1980s, the goal was to compete with the New York tabs, but as our reach has grown, so has our mission. Practically speaking, we’re producing a news report for three audiences: a New York edition, a national edition and an international Web site. But in some ways, our audience is defined more by its interests than by its location. Many of our readers – online and print – are business leaders (or on that career track), educators and other curious types who are interested in the larger issues of the world. A significant percentage of our Web readers live outside the United States.

Everything that appears print goes on the Web site, as does a lot of additional material that is produced exclusively for the Web. Soon, our site will also include the content of the International Herald Tribune.

In the New York print edition, we focus on the most important local news without getting bogged down in minutiae – the “pulled hamstring stories” — while also keeping readers informed about the most significant and interesting issues around the world.

The national edition is often laid out differently, with a more magazine-like focus. We can’t possibly cover the local news in every area we’re distributed, but the local papers can’t cover the national issues either, and that’s our strength.

We’re constantly evaluating how we do things and why. For instance, not many years ago, half of our reporters were assigned to cover specific teams in the New York area. Now, only a few are assigned to local teams; others are writing about issues like doping, science and business. Even those who are covering local teams are writing more analytically about those teams than about the games they play.

We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. For example, we don’t buy into the idea that we need to publish a Giants or Jets story every day just because some readers would like us to. We’d rather have a reporter produce one smart, insightful piece than three based on little more than locker room chatter.

We understand that readers have choices, and we believe that those who choose to read The New York Times are looking to us for thoughtful, trustworthy journalism. We’re committed to meeting those expectations, in print and on the Web.

Q. What is your protocol for publishing web content vis-à-vis print? Breaking news vis-à-vis features?

A. Clear-cut: We are a Web-first publication. Everything goes on the Web before it goes into print. Breaking news always has the priority, but on quiet days we strategically post enterprise and feature stories on the Web to give our readers something fresh when they come back to our site.

As I said earlier, we have reporters filing stories in mid-morning when possible. Judy Battista files her NFL Fast Forward analysis for posting on Monday morning when readers are in the office, talking about yesterday’s games. Pete Thamel and other college sports reporters file their college football stories for posting Friday morning when people are starting to talk about Saturday’s games.

Throughout the baseball playoffs, we assigned one reporter each day to write an analysis or feature piece that would go up on the Web in the morning and in the paper the following day. That required careful planning and smart reporting so events didn’t outrun the stories, but it worked well and produced heavy traffic on the Web.

Q. How do you generate ideas for enterprise stories?

A. There’s no one answer, but it’s as simple, and as complicated, as observing anything that’s potentially relevant. A few years ago, my wife, an interior designer, mentioned in passing that the price of leather furniture had suddenly skyrocketed. I told the business editor what she had noticed and it turned into a story about how the mad-cow scare had increased the cost of leather.

Two years ago, Alan Schwarz learned that the brain of the former Eagles player Andre Waters had shown advanced signs of deterioration due to football injuries. He wrote a story about it and then one on a related issue, and then another and another. The point is, sticking with a story can pay dividends too.

Along those same lines, Pete Thamel has followed a line of reporting he discovered on academic short-cuts for high school athletes. Again, one story led to another and because Pete stuck with the reporting, he ended up with an award-winning series of stories.

You can’t force it, or it shows. But when you see something that’s out of the ordinary, asking why is the first step toward a good enterprise story.

Q. How do you keep your reporters energized and at the top of their games?

A. Thank you for acknowledging that they all are. First, most of our folks already are highly energized. Second, I think it’s invigorating for them that we encourage them to look for stories that are different and challenging. We don’t want them doing the same thing day after day, which they agree. Third, as our night editor, Carl Nelson, would say: Know your players. Some people are energized by praise, some by being constantly charging forward, some by being given creative space, others by constantly being tested. One size doesn’t fit all.

Q. Who were the influences on your career and how?

A. I’ll resist the temptation to answer in the form of an Oscar-like speech because there have been so many, but I do have to start with my parents. My mother encouraged me to write creatively and my father encouraged me to think critically. Throughout my years in school, I was fortunate to come into contact with a number of teachers, friends and mentors who inspired and challenged me. I’ve worked with so many smart people, from Red Reed, the wise old editor of the 9,000-circulation Delaware Gazette, to Bill Keller at the Times. I’ve been fortunate to meet many other thoughtful people who have been influences in one way or another. I’ve tried to gain something from every experience along the way, both personally and professionally. I love to read, especially great writing.

Influences come from everywhere if you’re open to them. One of my favorite parts of my job is the creative process. Kicking around ideas, thinking of new approaches to everything we do. That means being open to new ideas, from anyone – inside the newsroom and out. We always say there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Some ideas may be off base or not fully formed, but any of them can start a conversation. Many good ideas come from listening, and many more come through collaborating.

Learning is an essential part of journalism, after all, and it’ll be time to quit if I ever feel like I have lost interest in that.

Q. A traditional criticism of the Times is that it lacks humor. John Branch, in reporting on JJ Putz’ arrival as a reliever for the Mets, wrote: “The word “putz” is vulgar Yiddish slang for penis. It is more often used in English as a synonym for fool or idiot.” Is this an example of the Times taking a light subject and making it ponderous? Is the traditional criticism valid?

A. Ah, yes, the Times has long employed an editing team assigned to quash any signs of humor that may inadvertently surface. Seriously, this question reminds me of the comedy club heckler who hollers, “Say something funny.”

Geez, you didn’t see those golf videos, did you?

I thought the Putz story was pretty funny in its premise alone, and we thought it needed an explanation of the Yiddish definition to fully explain that the word is a vulgarity, but, hey, if it came off as ponderous to someone else, that’s the way it goes. (Don’t blame John Branch, though. His name and “ponderous” should never appear in the same sentence!)

Wasn’t it Roger Clemens who pointed out how hard it is to disprove a negative? O.K., maybe he’s not the best point of comparison, but we do have fun and I think most readers see signs of it on a regular basis.

It’s much more likely to surface in the form of something offbeat, like our story on Packer fans’ “cover-10 plan” for games in single-digit temperatures, Harvey Araton writing in the imagined voice of Phil Jackson, a “mad lib” on Brett Favre, and a piece built around a spy store owner’s explanation of what Bill Belichick should have done if he were serious about stealing signals from opposing coaches.

When Tiger Woods’s caddy created a stir with his comments about Phil Mickelson, we ran a list of other caddy controversies that included Danny Noonan and Ty Webb and a picture from “Caddyshack.” With a story on Seattle’s woeful year in sports, Wayne Kamidoi, our art director, put a coffee stain on the display page. Rich Sandomir imagined circumspect Jets coach Eric Mangini as a TV color man:

Chris Berman: Eric Mangini is standing by in San Diego with the Chargers’ injury report. A big welcome to ESPN, Coach. What about LaDainian Tomlinson’s ankle?

Eric Mangini: Boom, it’s between his toes and his shin.

Berman: Understood, but what about the sprain he sustained last week?

Mangini: It’s not my policy to discuss injuries in the media.

Berman: But, coach, you are part of the media. So the ankle — which one is it?

Mangini: The right or the left.

Berman: You don’t know or you won’t tell us?

Mangini: One of those, Chris.

Q. In a tight economy, what will be the most difficult coverage decisions?

A. We always talk about maximizing the value of what we do. Are we giving readers added value by sending our reporters to cover a story, or could we do something else that would be of greater worth? In a tighter economy, we’ll try to make sure that we’re investing in stories of the highest possible value to the greatest number of readers.

For instance, we’d rather use the wires for coverage of routine games and spend our money on enterprise and investigative work or other reports that are distinctive. Obviously, the tighter the economy gets, the more difficult those choices become, but our chief objective is to continue to focus on the high value journalism that readers expect of The New York Times. Readers can get game results anywhere; our aim is to meet the expectation that we will give them something more.

Q. If the NY Times sells its stake in the Boston Red Sox, can the Yankees finally expect fair coverage?

A. Oh, brother. I take back all the nice things I said.

Sigh … from my point of view, one of the best things that could come from the New York Times Company selling its stake in the Boston Red Sox is that I won’t have to answer questions like this any more. The absolute best thing would be if the revenue from the sale helps strengthen our journalism.

In the meantime:

In a perfect world, The New York Times would make millions of dollars without advertising or investments and would be exempt from paying taxes, utility bills and equipment expenses, freeing its journalists from any and all possible conflicts.

It’s not a perfect world.

The New York Times newspaper is owned by the New York Times Company, which pays taxes, buys equipment and owns a number of other newspapers and Web sites, including About.com
. It also owns about a 17 percent share of the Red Sox, an investment that includes the New England Sports Network.

It’s true that owning a share of the Yankees’ chief rival makes us an easy target for critics. Many of the news organization’s policies are aimed at preventing even the appearance of a conflict of interest and ownership in a share of the Red Sox obviously creates the appearance of conflict.

Still, it defies logic to think that we really would have a bias in our coverage. Our Yankees writer, Tyler Kepner, is not only one of the best baseball writers in the country, he’s one of the most scrupulous. Besides, does anyone really think a news organization based in New York could somehow profit by promoting an out-of-town team? Do they think we’re quietly trying to convert Yankees fans into Red Sox fans?

We have written a lot about the Red Sox in recent years, but that’s because many of the best stories in baseball have involved the Yankees and the Red Sox – two of the biggest rivals in sports, two teams with some of the biggest stars in baseball and two of the most successful teams over that time.

Of course, the appearance of conflict isn’t welcome. But the company made its decision to buy into the Red Sox and it’s up to us to stay aware of the perceptions. That’s why we note NYTCO’s share of the team whenever it is pertinent and why we were the first to report that NYTCO executives received World Series rings in 2004.

It has never had any bearing on how we have covered the Yankees and never will, even if the company holds onto its stake.

John Branch, from the New York Times, December 18, 2008:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/sports/baseball/19mets.html

The Mets
introduced another face and arm for their bullpen on Thursday by illuminating the giant new scoreboard at Citi Field.

“Mets welcome J. J.,” it read, deftly avoiding the use, or misuse, of the player’s surname.

J. J. Putz grew up in Michigan, and he said that the family pronounced its Hungarian name as “puts.” But the issue that remains for Putz, brought from the Seattle Mariners
to be a setup man and a part-time closer for the Mets in a three-team, 12-player trade, is not how he pronounces it. It is how others pronounce it, and use it in writing.

Talk about a setup man: someone named Putz in one of the most visible, all-or-nothing roles in New York sports. His new opponents may not include just National League sluggers, but the tabloid headline writers and New York fans with a history of unforgiving expectations, and little history of letting something like proper pronunciation get in the way of a good insult or cheap laugh.

Even Putz’s own general manager, Omar Minaya
, mistakenly mispronounced the name in discussing the trade last week in Las Vegas. When Minaya introduced Putz in the Citi Field clubhouse and draped him with a No. 40 jersey (with “Putz” on the back), he referred to Putz only as J. J.

“I’ve been dealing with that for years,” Putz said. “I’m not worried about it, man. It is what it is. There’s nothing you can do about it. I know how we say it. People can say whatever they want. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Putz, a 6-foot-5-inch redhead with a rectangular patch of a beard on his chin, made the All-Star team in 2007. He arrived in New York with 101 career saves and a right arm that uncorks powerful fastballs and nasty split-finger pitches.

On Thursday, Putz, 31, expressed excitement about being in New York and mild disappointment in relinquishing his role as a closer to Francisco Rodríguez, signed by the Mets last week.

“I prefer closer,” Putz said. “But I prefer winning over anything.”

The word “putz” is vulgar Yiddish slang for penis. It is more often used in English as a synonym for fool or idiot.

“It seems like when bad words go from Yiddish to English, they lose some of their power,” said Paul Glasser, an associate dean at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in Manhattan.

The columnists Steve Kelley of The Seattle Times and Art Thiel of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said they never heard Putz’s name used as an insult against him, either at the ball park or by letter writers and talk-radio callers in Seattle. Putz played for the Mariners from 2003 to 2008.

Putz said that he had rarely heard his name used derisively, even in high school in Michigan.

“Dude, I was bigger than everybody in high school,” he said.

But his last name may be no joking manner, particularly in New York. The 2000 United States Census reported that nearly two-thirds of the estimated 178,945 people in this country who speak Yiddish at home live in New York. New Jersey had the third-highest number of Yiddish speakers, after Florida.

The state of Washington had an estimated 423.

Unlike the major papers in Seattle, many of New York’s largest daily newspapers are tabloids, with reputations for biting, attention-grabbing headlines on the front page and the back page, which is reserved for sports. Recent examples include “Stray-Rod,” on reports of infidelity on the part of Alex Rodriguez; “Mangenius,” a mocking reference to Jets Coach Eric Mangini
; and “Marbury One Steph From Gone,” on the Knicks
’ plans to get rid of Stephon Marbury
.

As for the surname of the Mets’ new reliever, its use as a vulgarity has some history in New York. Ten years ago, Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato
lost a re-election bid to Charles Schumer
a couple of weeks after D’Amato called his opponent a variation of the term. If nothing else, it sparked debate about the meaning of the word and its level of appropriateness in any context.

That debate has risen again in some quarters, and is sure to grow as the baseball season approaches. Copy editors and headline writers at The Daily News, for example, have already discussed it among themselves.

“Putz is a problem,” said the veteran copy editor Bill Sweeney, noting that he was not speaking on behalf of the paper, but merely as a primary headline writer. “We definitely don’t look at it as an opportunity.”

The name, in fact, may be used less in headlines than usual, just to avoid accusations of double-entendre. “It’s almost a nightmare,” Sweeney said. “He’s going to be referred to a lot as J. J., that’s for sure.”

Greg Gallo, The New York Post’s sports editor, declined to comment on the paper’s potential use of the name.

Putz said: “I’m not worried about it. I can handle it.”

(SMG thanks Tom Jolly for his cooperation)

An Interview with Jim Jenks

“We’re in this world right now where the NFL doesn’t want to give newspaper people video access because they’re saving that for themselves…We understand we can’t shoot game action, but our problem is that we can’t shoot Andy Reid in a post-game news conference. TV does that – why can’t newspapers?

“The hard part has just been trying to convince people that there’s more to do – breaking down those old walls of “this is how it’s always been”. We need to integrate the web and mobile into daily tasks. In a union atmosphere change like that does not come easy…”

“We’ll talk about opening up relations between sports editors and advertising departments…Can we challenge the rule of church and state to get more money in here but yet not destroy that wall? Can we get people to think about it on both sides of the fence?”

“No matter what talk radio does they still get their information from newspapers every day. Talk radio hosts aren’t in the lockerroom every day. It’s still the papers that break most of the news stories – that’s what we have to protect.”

Jim Jenks: Interviewed on November 7, 2006

Position: Executive Sports Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer

Born: 1961, San Antonio, Texas

Education: Western New England College

Career: Springfield Morning Union 1979-83, Lakeland Ledger 83-84, Fayetteville Times 84-85, Odessa American 85, Tampa Tribune 85-88, Hartford Courant 88-90, Newsday 91-94, Santa Rosa Press Democrat 94-96, Starwave Corp. (nascar.com, nfl.com, ESPN.com) 97-00, ESPN TV 00-03, Philadelphia Inquirer 03 –

Personal: married, four children

Favorite restaurant (home): Gus’s Lunch Truck, “He’s an institution here – great chicken salad”

Favorite restaurant (road): Metropolitan Grill, Seattle, “service is impeccable and the food is great”

Favorite hotel: Bellevue Club, Bellevue, Wash.

Professional Organizations: President, Associated Press Sports Editors

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 9, 2006:

The Inquirer’s new editor, Bill Marimow, returned to an enthusiastic welcome today in the newsroom where he had won two Pulitzer Prizes decades ago.

He will replace Amanda Bennett, who stepped down by “mutual” agreement with new publisher Brian Tierney.

With the paper facing a costly fall in national advertising and tough union contract talks with a Nov. 30 deadline, Marimow warned of “painful” staff cuts and narrower horizons at a paper that once prided itself on national and foreign coverage, as well as in-depth local reporting.

“We have to figure out how to thrive in an era of reduced resources,” Marimow told reporters and editors crowding the paper’s Broad Street newsroom and an overhanging balcony, as he stood beside Tierney and Bennett.

Tierney has said that as many as 150 of the 415 Inquirer newsroom jobs could be cut, though “it doesn’t have to be that bad” if he gets savings from new union contracts, changes to vendor contracts, and more flexible work rules for advertising salespeople.

Q. You’re under new ownership – what has changed?

A. Nothing really has changed yet. We are in the midst of collective bargaining negotiations and that is the new ownership’s priority – before they can do anything else.

Q. Are you looking at layoffs in your department?

A. The new owner – Brian Tierney – has said the paper is looking at potential layoffs. So, yes, we are.

Q. Is there tension?

A. It doesn’t feel like tension – there’s definitely anxiety. But it’s not toward me as management – it very much feels like we’re all in this together, at least from my perspective. I spent much of my weekend fielding phone calls from the staff. They were asking, “Where are we at?” I didn’t feel any tension toward me. I felt a lot of anxiety of the “what does it mean” sort.

Exempt people could be involved in layoffs too. I don’t know that I’m safe.

Q. How important is sports coverage to the Inquirer’s survival?

A. The Philadelphia market is possessed about its sports team so you would figure it would play a very prominent role.

The Eagles are far and above the most popular team in this market judging by local TV ratings. The success of the Eagles and ours go hand in hand. There is an old NASCAR adage, “Win on Sunday – Sell on Monday”. That works in this market.

Q. The Eagles’ success – isn’t that a tenuous lifeline for the Inquirer?

A. Yes. When you talk about newspapers in general “tenuous” is a good word. Circulation has increasingly gone down – so have ad revenues. So, yes, it’s not the only thing we have to count on – we do have to count on ourselves to sell more ads and find new ways to present journalism, and to find new distribution points. A lot of papers are going through this now. Everybody has basically fooled around with the web for 10 years and nobody has a helluva lot to show for it.

Q. What is the Inquirer doing to increase revenues?

A. One thing we’ve done here – and hope it catches on – is mobile service. We’re serving our news out on wireless PDAs and cellphones – pushing it out through a WAP site or an SMS text messaging service. It allows you to charge for content, unlike the web – we gave it away for free and can’t figure out how to get it back.

Our mobile service is in its infancy but that’s where we’re going. Kids were not a targeted audience in the past but they will be now – from high school on up. They do a lot of stuff through their cellphones – we need to be an information provider through their phones. We need to get back what we had when papers were dominant.

Q. Didn’t ESPN have a bad experience with a mobile news service?

A. Yes. Theirs was a business decision to provide hardware and software. We have a third party relationship with Cingular and Verizon and other service providers. ESPN tried to do the hardware – but how many people with good service are going to switch over to a whole other phone and service provider? With ours you don’t have to worry about that – we push our information to your service provider.

Q. Is anybody else doing this?

A. Not in the way we are. Look at USA Today, Washington Post and New York Times – you’ve seen their commercials – they say “text us and we’ll give you information”. It’s a two-transaction process. With ours we push you the sports news we think you need to know. For Eagles games we push you the scores as they happen. We give you signings, trades and other scores. Anything else gets put up on the WAP site – a wireless device website you can go to at your leisure.

Q. Cost?

A. It’s $2.99 a month for non-subscribers and 99 cents for subscribers.

Q. What issues are in front of APSE (Associated Press Sports Editors)?

A. We’re in this world right now where the NFL doesn’t want to give newspaper people video access because they’re saving that for themselves. They see it (video) as a money-maker and we see it as a money-maker. As we figure out our distribution points we see it as a necessity. I wrote a letter this morning – as president of the APSE – to (NFL Commissioner) Roger Goodell to request a meeting on ways we can work together on this.

Q. What are your APSE members saying about access problems?

A. It’s mixed all over the place. Some teams are more aggressive – it’s inconsistent across the board. We’re trying to help some papers and get some definitive answers. We’re concerned that as the NFL Network and nfl.com get more involved there will be less access for us. This is mostly about video – audio isn’t a problem. We understand we can’t shoot game action, but our problem is that we can’t shoot Andy Reid in a post-game news conference. TV does that – why can’t newspapers? We haven’t gotten a definitive answer. We know the answer – they want it exclusively for their website – but they have not said that.

Q. What other concerns are you hearing from sports editors?

A. Figuring out how to make money – not for APSE as an entity but for individual newspapers. My APSE legacy project is how to make the sports department a better revenue producer. I get tired of doing great special sections – which should be filled with advertising – but are filled with none. But look at some of the southern papers – they’re filled with advertising and having great success.

I’m talking with the Newspaper Association of America – which is independent of any chain – I’m working with it to prepare a presentation for the APSE regional meetings. The idea is to reach out and touch people – show them different ad strategies and sponsorship strategies. We’ll talk about opening up relations between sports editors and advertising departments – we find that a lot of sports editors don’t talk to the ad folks. How is the message being communicated? Can we challenge the rule of church and state to get more money in here but yet not destroy that wall? Can we get people to think about it on both sides of the fence?

Q. Why is the Washington Post said to have the best newspaper website?

A. They do a good job of cross promoting – Page 2 tells you what they’re doing on the website. They’re trying to do video – to appeal to all the senses that you can on the web and that you can’t in the newspaper. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also has a good one.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has put its Packers content behind a firewall. That’s something we could look at – people might pay for it on the Eagles.

This is where Knight-Ridder made a fatal mistake. It had all these great markets and it went out on the cheap and created a single (web) template for all of them – they all looked the same. You can’t do that. The web is about nuance. Collectively we all just blew it.

Q. As a sports editor what are your toughest coverage decisions?

A. I wouldn’t call coverage decisions tough – it still comes down to balance as our space shrinks and the paper gets smaller. Our four major pro sports have been maintained. The high schools have been cut a little but generally have been maintained.

Colleges probably have taken the biggest hit in my time here. But it’s not so much a coverage decision – we’re going to cover what we said we’re going to cover – it’s how much you get in the paper. We haven’t given up on anything – we’ve just scaled back the amount of coverage. We used to cover St. Joe’s, Temple and Villanova home and road. Last year we covered just Villanova home and road and we would look to get a stringer for Temple on the road, even though it was John Chaney’s last year and we had to keep an eye on it. St. Joe’s we relied on wires for the road and covered them at home.

Q. Your toughest personnel decisions?

A. Not too many – I haven’t had that many hires. The hard part has just been trying to convince people that there’s more to do – breaking down those old walls of “this is how it’s always been”. We need to integrate the web and mobile into daily tasks. In a union atmosphere change like that does not come easy and it’s almost done on a person-by-person and case-by-case basis. We’ve got to get a handle on integrating all these new distribution outlets and new responsibilities, such as gathering audio, which reporters had never done before.

Q. How do your reporters feel about gathering audio?

A. You’ve got to find people who will do it and put them in the right spot. We have not forced anybody to do anything they’re not comfortable with outside of the union contract.

Our Eagles beat reporter – Marc Narducci – is the primary one. He carries a digital tape recorder and microphone. He’s got software on his computer that enables him to edit it and send it to the website – where they post it.

This is what we have to do to survive – it’s a new business.

Q. Does this alter the relationship between the beat reporter and the Eagles?

A. I don’t think so. As a reporter you put the mike in front of them anyway – all you’re doing is cutting that into sound bites – but they’re not seeing that. To the team the reporter is doing nothing he wasn’t doing before. They’re used to seeing newspaper and TV people carrying recorders. Correspondents from Phillies.com and Eagles.com do it as well.

Q. Does nfl.com do journalism?

A. They won’t break the negative. They won’t tell you Donovan McNabb had a below-average game. There was a time they wouldn’t even call a backup quarterback a “backup” – they didn’t want “backup” in there because it meant he was behind somebody and it could be looked at as a negative. That’s some of the stuff I went through when we launched nfl.com 10 years ago. Look at Eagles.com – it doesn’t get into salary negotiations. There’s nothing about holdouts. Real fans understand that – that’s why their web traffic is not near (the Inquirer’s) Philly.com. On game day it might be – fans will go to nfl.com so they can see the play-by-play.

They are doing journalism. I say that, having served on that side. But they’re only doing positive journalism – they’re not going to break a negative story. They are doing reporting and writing and all the things we’re trying to do with sound and video. It tends to be positive and act more like public relations. Could you tell the difference between them and us when we go out to do a positive story – probably not. Where you tell the difference is what we do in our columns. You’re not going to find too many negative opinions – or stories about criminals – on the team and league websites.

Q. Are your reporters blogging?

A. Not all of them – it loses its impact if you have too many. We have two blogs – Claire Smith on baseball and Marc Narducci on football.

Q. Do you consider the blogosphere your competition?

A. Yes I do. Is it big enough here where I feel it? I blogged awhile to see how it would go and I spent a lot of time on Phillies’ and Eagles fan blogs and hoped it would point people back to us. It was an experiment – an interesting experiment. It’s a neat world. They’re not competitive with one another – they just want to go out and write what they want – if they think something was written well on another blog they point to it. It’s like a large family out there. Are they competition to newspapers? For time? Yes. For information? No.

Blogs never will get the information we get because we’re in the lockerroom. That’s one thing newspapers have going into the future – no matter what talk radio does they still get their information from newspapers every day. Talk radio hosts aren’t in the lockerroom every day. It’s still the papers that break most of the news stories – that’s what we have to protect.

Q. Is talk radio your competition?

A. It’s more complementary and supplementary – I don’t think it’s truly competitive – not on information. In this market ratings for sports talk radio have gone down. It seems very Eagle-centric and one-dimensional – if you’re a fan of the other sports you won’t get your fix here on talk radio.

Q. Could the Phillies – like the Eagles – drive newspaper revenues?

A. Good question. It hasn’t happened. We would like it to happen. They did have a bit of a resurgence – but how much of that was due to Ryan Howard? The team was no better this year than last. Howard’s quest for 60 home runs was as much a national phenomenon as local. There was such an outcry against Bonds and McGwire – people wanted to see somebody clean do it. Then everybody in baseball pitched around him and it didn’t happen.

We’d love to see the Phillies take off. People ask me who I’m a fan of and I have to say nobody because I’m in the business. But I hope they do well because I know more people will buy the paper – success does matter to circulation.

(SMG thanks Jim Jenks for his cooperation)

Bennett steps down as Inquirer editor; Marimow to take over

By Joseph N. DiStefano and Miriam Hill

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

1151 words

9 November 2006

The Philadelphia Inquirer

English

(c) Copyright 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. All Rights Reserved.

The Inquirer’s new editor, Bill Marimow, returned to an enthusiastic welcome today in the newsroom where he had won two Pulitzer Prizes decades ago.

He will replace Amanda Bennett, who stepped down by “mutual” agreement with new publisher Brian Tierney.

With the paper facing a costly fall in national advertising and tough union contract talks with a Nov. 30 deadline, Marimow warned of “painful” staff cuts and narrower horizons at a paper that once prided itself on national and foreign coverage, as well as in-depth local reporting.

“We have to figure out how to thrive in an era of reduced resources,” Marimow told reporters and editors crowding the paper’s Broad Street newsroom and an overhanging balcony, as he stood beside Tierney and Bennett.

Tierney has said that as many as 150 of the 415 Inquirer newsroom jobs could be cut, though “it doesn’t have to be that bad” if he gets savings from new union contracts, changes to vendor contracts, and more flexible work rules for advertising salespeople.

“I need some breathing room,” Tierney said. Among other concessions, he wants to freeze pensions for newsroom, advertising and circulation workers. The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, which represents the workers, opposes the freeze.

Marimow, who said he would start the week of Nov. 27, called for “excellent” and “indispensable” competitive journalism – online, audio and print. He promised a “collegial” newsroom. He said Tierney, an advertising professional, would help “figure out how to promote the great material our staff is producing.”

“I need some breathing room,” Tierney said. Among other concessions, he wants to freeze pensions for newsroom, advertising and circulation workers. The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, which represents the workers, opposes the freeze.

Marimow called for “excellent” and “indispensable” competitive journalism – online, audio and print. He promised a “collegial” newsroom. He said Tierney, an advertising professional, would help “figure out how to promote the great material our staff is producing.”

That material will focus on the Philadelphia area, Marimow added. Although that will still include larger stories, he said, “we will no longer be sending battalions of staffers to cover news like Hurricane Katrina and the war in Baghdad.”

Marimow is replacing Amanda Bennett, who had been assigned the job under the paper’s former owner, Knight Ridder Inc., in 2003. Tierney’s group, Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, bought The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com for $515 million, the majority of it borrowed, last spring.

Bennett said she will be a visiting fellow at Columbia University in New York. Tierney said the decision for Bennett to step down as editor was “mutual.”

In another shift, editorial page editor Chris Satullo will now report directly to publisher Tierney. He formerly reported to editor Bennett.

Satullo said he welcomed the shift, which he’d recommended to former Inquirer publisher Joe Natoli. He added that Tierney, “so far,” has made less effort to influence editorial page policy than his predecessors.

Tierney is a former Republican Party fund-raiser and organizer, but he has said he would take no part in party politics now that he was in the news business. Tierney also has a personal stake in one of the contentious issues that Satullo’s pages cover: Tierney is an investor in one of the companies that is trying to build a gambling casino in Philadelphia over the objections of neighborhood groups.

Tierney praised Marimow’s “passion for this region.” Marimow, 59, said he “couldn’t be happier” to be back in Philadelphia.

The son of a Havertown bicycle store owner, Marimow graduated from Trinity College and worked at the former Evening Bulletin before joined The Inquirer in 1972. He moved rapidly through a series of beats. He won two Pulitzers for his investigations of abuses by police, one in 1977 in partnership with Jonathan Neumann, now an editor at Bloomberg L.P., and a second in 1985.

Marimow was also lead reporter for the paper’s coverage of the 1986 bombing of the MOVE house in West Philadelphia. He later served as city editor, and as assistant to then-publisher Robert Hall. “I thought the world of him,” said Hall, who has served as a consultant to the paper’s new owners. “He’s a can-do guy, a totally rounded person.”

Marimow was also part of the exodus of veteran Inquirer editors and reporters after the departure of editor Eugene Roberts in 1990. His return is “the best thing that has happened to journalism in Philadelphia in more than a decade,” said James Naughton, a former Inquirer editor who later headed the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

In 1993, Marimow joined the Baltimore Sun as metro editor under John Carroll, another Inquirer alumnus. Marimow rose to editor-in-chief of the Sun, which won a string of Pulitzers on his watch. But he was fired after a new publisher took the helm at the Tribune Co.-owned paper in 2004.

He had opposed newsroom job cuts at the Sun. But The Inquirer is in a different situation, according to Marimow, because its profit margin is lower and the new owners, who have borrowed more than $300 million to acquire the paper, need to reduce costs.

After leaving the Sun, Marimow joined National Public Radio as vice president of news; he became the head of the growing radio service’s news division. But earlier this month he surprised staffers by taking a lesser job as the radio service’s ombudsman, fielding complaints from readers instead of leading reporters.

Marimow said he wrote Tierney a letter last summer after viewing the Philadelphia-centered movie Invincible, and discussions progressed from that first contact.

“I welcome Bill back to Philadelphia,” said Inquirer reporter Henry Holcomb, president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, which represents advertising, newsroom and circulation workers. “He’s got the talent we need and the courage to fight for the resources the times require.”

Bennett joined the Inquirer in June 2003, four months before Hall left and two years before Knight Ridder Inc. decided to put The Inquirer and its 31 other daily newspapers up for sale. “We have been through one hell of a ride,” Bennett told reporters, praising their “passion and journalistic integrity.”

Bennett got high marks from former Inquirer publisher Joe Natoli, her boss for most of her Inquirer tenure. “Amanda led The Inquirer newsroom with integrity and grace during a difficult time in its history,” said Natoli, who is now an executive at the University of Miami. “She stayed positive in the face of adversity and always tried to do the right thing for the newspaper and the community that it served.”

Bennett was the paper’s first female editor. Bennett had previously served as editor of Knight Ridder Inc.’s Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky., and as projects editor of the Oregonian newspaper, where she directed reporting that won a Pulitzer Prize. For more than 20 years, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the auto industry, the Pentagon, China, and other key beats, and served as Atlanta bureau chief.

Contact staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano at 215-854-5957 or jdistefano@phillynews.com
.

he Inquirer today introduces its new mobile service, delivering sports information directly to your cellular phone.

Inquirer Sports Extra will feature breaking news on your favorite Philadelphia teams, as well as Penn State, and score updates for Eagles games.

Subscribers will receive text-message alerts and access to a unique Web site for phones with Internet service.

The service is available on all major wireless carriers, including Verizon, Cingular, Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile. (Some carriers may charge extra for text-messaging service. Check with your provider for details.)

Inquirer Sports Extra will be free to new newspaper subscribers who sign up at http://go.philly.com/mobile
or by calling 800-222-2765. For existing newspaper subscribers, the service will cost 99 cents per month. Non-subscribers will pay $2.99 per month.

Inquirer offers sports on the go

137 words

8 September 2006

The Philadelphia Inquirer

CITY-D

D06

English

(c) Copyright 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. All Rights Reserved.

The Inquirer yesterday introduced its new mobile service, delivering sports information directly to your cellular phone.

Inquirer Sports Extra features breaking news on your favorite Philadelphia teams, as well as Penn State, and score updates for Eagles games.

Subscribers receive text-message alerts and access to a unique Web site for phones with Internet service.

The service is available on all major wireless carriers, including Verizon, Cingular, Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile. (Some carriers may charge extra for text-messaging service. Check with your provider for details.)

Inquirer Sports Extra is free to new newspaper subscribers who sign up at http://go.philly.com/mobile

or by calling 800-222-2765. For existing newspaper subscribers, the service costs 99 cents per month. Non-subscribers will pay $2.99 per month.

1.1 What is Inquirer Sports Mobile?

Inquirer Sports Mobile is an Inquirer news service that transmits text and photos to cellphone users. Some of this content is sent out as “SMS alerts” (customer receives a message) while other content resides on a mobile phone website that users access at their convenience.

Current content areas on the phone website are:

EAGLES

• Stories & Notes

• Injuries

• Breaking News

• Columns

• Scores

PHILLIES

• Breaking news

• Injuries

• Stories & Notes

• Columns

• Scores

SIXERS

• Stories & Notes

• Breaking news

• Injuries

• Columns

• Scores

FLYERS

• Breaking news

• Injuries

• Stories & Notes

• Scores

• Columns

PENN STATE FOOTBALL

• Breaking news

• Injuries

• Stories & Notes

• Scores

• Columns

An Interview with Kevin Iole

“There’s a certain gene in a person who is willing to get in there and get punched in the nose and risk many things to get a paycheck. That’s what makes them interesting – they have a different personality than the average person.”

“On a given night you might make a choice, but you don’t have to say only MMA or only boxing. During De La Hoya-Mayweather they said it was a fight to save boxing. I wrote a column saying that was ludicrous. Writers take an easy way out thinking there’s a conflict – fans don’t buy into it.”

“You have to do quality journalism to be a good boxing writer. I don’t think it’s widespread, unfortunately. A lot of Internet sites that cover boxing have very loose standards of journalism. It’s disappointing. To give readers quality work you need the same standards you use covering government or major league baseball or the local municipal elections.”

Kevin Iole: Interviewed on June 22, 2007

Position: Boxing and mixed martial arts writer, Yahoo! Sports.

Born: 1959, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Education: Point Park College, 1981, journalism and communications

Career: Valley-News (Pa.) Dispatch 1979-82; Burlington Free Press 82-90; Las Vegas Review-Journal 90-2007; Yahoo.com 2007-

Personal: married (Betsy)

Favorite restaurant (home): Craftsteak Steak House, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, “Kobe beef platinum – you can’t beat it”

Favorite restaurant (road): Corky’s Ribs and BBQ, Memphis, “dry ribs”

Favorite hotel (home): Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas “great selection of restaurants”

Favorite hotel (road): Omni, LA “lots of good places in walking distance”

Kevin Iole, excerpted from Yahoo! Sports, June 23, 2007:

LAS VEGAS – B.J. Penn spent the last 5 ½ years facing some of the world’s finest fighters, in weight classes ranging from lightweight to light heavyweight.

It was all, though, for one reason, he said.

“It was to get me back to Jens Pulver,” said Penn, who unexpectedly lost a bid for the lightweight title to Pulver in a 2002 fight and has chased a rematch ever since.

He got it on Saturday at the Palms Hotel in the finale of the UFC’s reality series, The Ultimate Fighter. Penn and Pulver served as coaches on the show and agreed to fight on Spike TV in the live finale.

Penn dominated the fight from the beginning, punishing Pulver mercilessly, before submitting him on a rear naked choke at 3:12 of the second round.

It was a one-sided beatdown as Penn showed the varied skills that have led UFC president Dana White to call him the most talented mixed martial artist in history.

He excelled in the standup, took Pulver down repeatedly and had a series of submission attempts before finally sinking in the choke.

Q. What are your beat responsibilities?

A. I am the mixed martial arts and boxing columnist. My job is to deliver personal and personality insights into my sports, which are the most individual sports compared to others out there. They are made up of very unique individuals. I don’t get caught up in who has the best look hook or who is the better body puncher. I’d rather tell how they got there and who and what they are. That’s what I do – I find out things and write about people who are putting their lives on the line to making a living.

Q. Is danger one of your themes?

A. It’s like talking to a high-wire artist. You would ask them “Why walk across a rope 200 feet in the air?” That’s why people watch it. There’s a certain gene in a person who is willing to get in there and get punched in the nose and risk many things to get a paycheck. That’s what makes them interesting – they have a different personality than the average person. Diego Corrales was a great example – he was the lightweight champion who died a month ago (in a motorcyle crash, while driving intoxicated). He was extreme about motorcycles. He loved all extreme sports. He jumped out of airplanes. Those are the traits that make fighters interesting personalities.

Q. Is your beat competitive?

A. It is. The problem now is as boxing/MMA writer I have boxing matches and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fights – two big and different demographics. There are a lot of solely MMA writers and solely boxing writers, but I’m doing both. Both are very competitive. At Yahoo we compete with Fox and espn.com. I like to think we provide the best content for the combat sports.

Sometimes I have to make a tough decision. I’m going to a MMA fight tomorrow instead of the Hatton-Castillo fight, even though I’ve written a couple of columns on Hatton-Castillo. Every fight I do I have a standing feature – I rate the fighters in different categories and I still do that. But the night of the fight I’m going to the MMA fight, just because the numbers support it. AP is my partner – Tim Dahlberg will cover the boxing match. There’s no such option at the MMA fight. I can better serve my readers doing the MMA fight.

Q. AP doesn’t have an MMA writer?

A. No. Only recently is it putting out the results of the fights – short briefs as opposed to stories. MMA is an education process. Lots of people perceive it as a no-holds-barred sport – they don’t understand it. That’s certainly been the case with AP. It doesn’t realize how popular it’s become. Nor do most people realize what it truly is. One reason it’s growing in popularity is that as people get more educated they are able to educate their friends and neighbors.

Q. Don’t the two sports compete against one another?

A. It’s similar to college basketball and the NBA. You don’t have to be a fan of one and not the other. On a given night you might make a choice, but you don’t have to say only MMA or only boxing. During De La Hoya-Mayweather they said it was a fight to save boxing. I wrote a column saying that was ludicrous. Writers take an easy way out thinking there’s a conflict – fans don’t buy into it.

There’s a distinct market for both and then an overlap. Some hard-corse boxing fans, especially the older demographic, is not going to be apt to look at MMA. They say it’s brutal. John McCain called it ‘human cock-fighting’. They won’t take the time to understand what MMA is. The younger kids have grown up with it and are more open-minded. Those are the people who will be fans of both – give them a good boxing match and they will watch it.

Boxing’s challenge is to not have one-sided showcase fights. That’s a phenomenon of the last 10 years. HBO is guilty of that. They’ll put guys on against guys they know they can beat because they’re leaning toward a match-up down the road. The fights are non-competitive. There are so many options now fans don’t want to see one-sided fights. They want competition, where their hero might lose. It’s forcing the boxing promoters to take a look, and certainly the TV networks. Roy Jones and Rick Frazier (Jones, TKO 2, January 9, 1999) will not be tolerated anymore.

Q. You’re saying MMA fans would watch good boxing matches?

A. I think they would. Maybe some wouldn’t. They’ve been conditioned not to. Dan Raphael (espn.com) and I have been two of the loudest critics of HBO for some of the fights they have put on. Now it’s trying to address that – not totally in the right way – but it’s working on it. It needs to really provide competitive quality fights to compete with MMA. The nature of MMA is such that there are so many ways to win and lose you never know what will happen. In boxing there’s only one way. In MMA even when fighter A seems to be winning fighter B always has a chance. In boxing it’s unlikely the physically superior guy is going to lose. In UFC every single title has changed hands in the last year.

Q. How many UFC titles are there?

A. Five. Heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, lightweight.

Q. How did you get into this niche?

A. I’ve been a reporter for 27 years now. I was at the Review-Journal for almost 17 years. I worked in Vermont for seven years before Vegas. I covered the Golden Gloves. I grew up in Pittsburgh, which was a big fight town at the time. I covered Holmes-Snipes (1981) for a small paper. I always loved boxing. I got a great opportunity at the Review-Journal. For a number of years I did sidebar work with Royce Feour, and if there were two cars I did the card opposite him. In ’96 I took over the main event type of stories.

Q. Does boxing reporting require a different set of skills?

A. I don’t think so. You have to do quality journalism to be a good boxing writer. I don’t think it’s widespread, unfortunately. A lot of Internet sites that cover boxing have very loose standards of journalism. It’s disappointing. To give readers quality work you need the same standards you use covering government or major league baseball or the local municipal elections.

Q. Is there a watchdog aspect to reporting on combat sports?

A. I think so. There’s so much potential for abuse. There’s no barrier to anybody saying “I’m a boxing promoter.” You can buy a fax machine and set up shop. If you’ve got the money in boxing they welcome you with open arms and you can become a major player overnight. As a result we in the media have to scrutinze and look out for the best interests of the fighters because there’s no one else to protect them.

To a lesser degree that’s true in MMA, but a much lesser degree. UFC is the dominant promoter and acts as its own sanctioning body. Because UFC is so dominant it has a chilling effect – there isn’t a lot of competition. UFC bought out three competitors in the last year. One was a Japanese organization, for what was believed to be $70 million. Also the World Fighting Alliance and World Extreme Cage Fighting. It would be difficult to go into business and throw up another show. The UFC brand is so dominant it’s pushed out other potential problems.

Q.Who do you read and where do you go for information?

A. I try to read Bill Plaschke (LA Times) and Tim Dahlberg (AP) every day. Bill has such a fun style to read. Tim is also excellent – he really sets a standard for columnists. As a native Pittsburgher, I read Bob Smizik (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). He always has strong opinions.

Q. What about websites?

A. Yahoo.com sports. Michael Katz (BoxingScene.com) was one of the great writers – now he’s kind of winding down, but I still make it a point to read what he writes. Lance Pugmire (LA Times) has interesting angles. I know if Lance writes something it’s going to be a fun read. Sweetscience.com and Maxboxing.com. I make it a point to check around and see what guys are writing. I know if Lance writes something it’s going to be a fun read.

Q. When are Google and AOL going to challenge Yahoo! Sports?

A. I wonder. Certainly from Google’s standpoint it’s a big questionmark. They’re making so much on advertising that I wonder. But going into the future it might be something they try to do. It would be interesting if that happens.

Q. Do search engines get decent pressbox seating?

A. My first fight for Yahoo was De La Hoya–Mayweather. I’m there for the most trafficked sports website in the world. I had covered for the Review-Journal for how many years, and always sat in the front row, and I wrote more words on that fight than any person alive. Yet I moved from first row to fifth. Dan Wetzel, our sports columnist, said “You moved up in terms of circulation and impact and down to the back of the pressbox. And at home they did that to me. Subsequently that has changed.

(SMG thanks Kevin Iole for his cooperation)

december 30, 2006

BOXING: Tyson’s rags-to-riches-to-rags story was ESPN-born and bared

Twenty years ago, there were thousands of young American boys who dreamed of being Mike Tyson.

Today, I’m pretty sure not even Mike Tyson wants to be Mike Tyson.

Tyson was arrested early Friday in Buckeye, Ariz., the latest in an arm’s-length list of battles with the law.

It was big news, of course, on ESPN on Friday, despite the fact that the so-called “worldwide leader in sports” pays about as much attention to boxing as it does to curling.

Boxing skills, knockout power, defensive artistry and a granite chin won’t get you airtime on ESPN. Getting arrested with a couple of bags of cocaine in your back pockets will.

The first 20 years of Tyson’s life began very low — he was born into poverty, was a petty thief and was sent to reform school for incorrigible boys — before ending very high. At 20 years old in 1986, he became the youngest fighter in history to win the heavyweight title.

Tyson’s second 20 years began very high — he won the undisputed title and knocked out previously unbeaten Michael Spinks in one of the most anticipated bouts in history in just 91 seconds — but they’re destined, it appears, to go full circle and end very low.

He has little left of the $300 million he earned in the ring. It has been 10 years since he has had a title belt around his waist.

His only salable skill, it seems, is being Mike Tyson.

Being Mike Tyson — in a word, being outrageous — is his only way to make a living. It’s also a guarantee of future appearances on the “worldwide leader.” But instead of appearing with gloves around his fists, he’ll be shown with cuffs around his wrists.

Tyson never was the maniac that many thought him to be or that, in later years, he portrayed himself to be. He was surprisingly insightful and had a kind heart. He was always a sucker for an ex-fighter with a sob story.

He’s the one with the sob story now, but no one is listening. None of his so-called friends has heeded his many pleas for help.

But he became what he is because that’s what sold. Just being a knockout artist, even one of the greatest of all time, wasn’t enough. The more outrageous he was, the zanier he acted, the more attention he received and the more money he made.

There was no reason that his 2002 fight with Lennox Lewis should have been the largest pay-per-view bout in history because it was clear to anyone with even a basic understanding of the sport that Lewis was, by that stage, the superior fighter. Tyson hadn’t had a meaningful win in more than five years.

But it sold 2 million pay per views because Tyson was, well, Tyson. He threatened to rip Lewis’ heart out and swore he would eat his children. He acted like a lunatic, all in the name of pitching a fight, and we loved it.

He’s still acting like Tyson, though he no longer makes any fighters melt, and, of course, no one is buying.

Acting like Tyson now is a sure way to wind up back on ESPN. And that’s not a good thing.

In his prime as a fighter, Tyson had blindingly fast hands and the power to knock over a horse.

He put punches together in combinations that heavyweights rarely did. He was a master at hooking to the body, though everything he threw to the head got a lot more attention.

But as the hands slowed, the power faded ever so slightly and the mystique that surrounded him was lifted.

He was a decent, though hardly great, fighter, with as many flaws as strengths.

With few actual fighting skills, his bizarre behavior suddenly wasn’t seen as a ticket-selling opporunity but, rather, it became a law enforcement situation.

Tyson became this mythic figure in part because of the power of ESPN. He was a staple of the still-fledgling network in his pre-title days, running off a series of spectacular knockouts.

Tyson is proof that boxing is not dead, or even dying. ESPN helped build the legend by showing his first- or second-round knockouts on a biweekly basis.

His knockouts weren’t fly balls that scraped the back of the fence as they left the park. They were always Reggie Jackson, upper-deck shots in the final game of the World Series.

A nation grew transfixed watching, and the legend of Mike Tyson was born.

ESPN is no longer part of any basic cable service and it has the broadcast rights to televise NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball games. It has more important things to worry about than showing a boxing highlight.

Michael Gerard Tyson isn’t going to grace ESPN’s airwaves any longer for anything he does inside of a boxing ring.

Sadly, though, he’s probably going to have a recurring role on the network that made him famous.

Kevin Iole’s boxing column is published Saturday. He can be reached at 396-4428 or kiole@reviewjournal.com.

An Interview with Mike Hutton

“Mostly it’s my introspection about coaching my daughter’s team. I didn’t have to make a bunch of phone calls – I just wanted to connect with different types of readers…You want to be read and for people to tune in.”

“I don’t cover Indiana day-to-day like the Indianapolis Star and the Bloomington Herald Times. I get down there 10 times a year…I also cover Notre Dame football and usually write two columns a week. I cover high schools as well. There’s no way I can sit here and go toe-to-toe…”

Mike Hutton: Interviewed on April 3, 2008

Position: Indiana and Notre Dame beat reporter and columnist, Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana

Born: 1966, Valparaiso, IND

Education: Marquette, 1989, B.A.; Purdue-Calumet, 1993, M.A., English

Career: Times of Northwest Indiana; Chicago Tribune 1995; Post-Tribune 1997 –

Personal: married, three children

Favorite restaurant (home): Bistro 157, Valparaiso, “an upscale place where my wife and like to go to get away for the night”

Favorite restaurant (road): Grazie, Scottsdale, AZ., “New York pizza – great wine bar – outside the Hotel Valley Ho”

Favorite hotel: Valley Ho, Scottsdale; Westin, Indianapolis

Posted by Mike Hutton on post-trib.com, January 14, 2008, 11:44 a.m.:

Game slippage.

I figured that was the best way to introduce my new blog about coaching my daughter’s 5th grade basketball team.

I’ve never coached basketball, she hasn’t played. Neither have the majority of the 16 players we have split up into two teams for the Northwest Indiana CYO League.

Her name is Sara Hutton, my name is Mike Hutton. You can call me Mike. Or coach if you like though I’m probably barely qualified. I have to admit, though, I like the title. It’s Sara without an H by the way. That’s exactly what my wife told the nurse her name was about a minute after she was born. Neither of us had a clear idea of what we’d call her.

“What’s her name,” the nurse asked.

“Sara,” my wife said.

“With or without an H ?” she asked.

“Without,” she said.

So there you have. Our running 11-year inside joke.

Anyway, I like the term game slippage, introduced to me by Greg Kirby, assistant women’s coach at Valparaiso. On December 31st of all days, I had a slight panic attack. We had our first game in six days, just two practices under our belt and no real offense and no real idea of executing the most basic concepts: how to inbounds the ball, shoot a free throw, line up for a jump ball, etc. I called VU coach Keith Freeman in the middle of the day who referred me to Kirby for an extended practice plan. He gave me all these great drills for practice and then at the end of the conversation, he told me it probably wasn’t going to make a difference.

“Game slippage,” he said.

“What’s that,” I asked

“The idea that most everything they learn in practice they forget when they actually play,” he said.

Kirby was right. Our first game was nothing like our last practice, where I had them run one play about 20 times to make sure they knew something.

St. Mary’s from Crown Point beat us 25-0. They had some girl that looked like she was 8 feet tall on the team. They actually lined up before the game and shot lay-ups, like college teams do.

We had to scurry to make sure our girls left the lockerroom in time for the second half.

Game slippage, I figured. It’ll get better.

Q. Why write about your daughter?

A. I just thought it would be interesting. It’s different than the standard inside stuff on Indiana or Notre Dame – that’s great too. I knew I couldn’t do it all the time – just because I didn’t have the time – but I will pick it up again next year.

You get some non-traditional readers, not just sports readers. You get mothers and fathers who have kids participating in sports or who coach sports. I kind of feel like a real coach – there were things that happened that I thought about including in the blog but I just didn’t go there. I was afraid some parent would read it and get pissed off. We had roster changes that caused consternation – some of those little issues you sort of hear about as a reporter but never really experience until you become a coach. I weighed whether I should write about a couple things – at the end there were two things I didn’t blog about.

Q. How did it come about?

A. I wanted to do something different. We just kicked off the blog at the Post-Tribune this year – we’re a bit technically challenged – and I thought it would be a way to do something different. There’s freedom on the Internet – you have the space and you’re not constricted by whatever conventions a typical section has accumulated over the years. There’s a kind of freshness – at least for me.

Mostly it’s my introspection about coaching my daughter’s team. I didn’t have to make a bunch of phone calls – I just wanted to connect with different types of readers. The whole blogging thing is really interesting. We’re trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Will people care about it and read it? You want to be read and for people to tune in. I try to be unconventional in some of my story approaches.

I have to wrap it up – probably with one more.

Q. What’s been the response?

A. It’s been good from the people who see me. They say they really like it, and they like that it’s not controversial.

Q. How does your daughter like it?

A. She doesn’t know about it – I haven’t told her. The only thing she knows on the web is a game fifth graders play. I’m debating whether to tell her – I’m afraid it might make her self-conscious. Maybe I’m being over-protective. Maybe I should tell her to read it and see what she thinks.

Nobody I coach with has said anything about it. I haven’t publicized it. Most of the people I work with or are on the team read the hard copy of the paper.

Q. Is your blog edited?

A. No. It goes straight in. In the first one there were two typos and I had to correct it. I self-edit. The first few were raw because I wasn’t thinking about it. Now I remember that I have to edit as well as write. I treat it like it was hard copy for the paper.

Q. Do you mind the additional work?

A. It’s something I wanted to do and everybody on the staff wanted to do for about a year. Nobody is cracking a whip and saying you have to do x number of blogs per week – it’s left up to us. Generally they like us to do two or three a week. I haven’t because I’m just so busy.

I read Joe Posnanski’s blog (KC Star) – it’s so long – I wonder how he has the time to do that. It shows he’s pretty talented. I read him any time I need to get in the mood to write.

Q. Who else do you read?

A. Bob Kravitz (Indianapolis Star). I’m from Indiana and I have to see what he has to say. I grew up reading Bernie Lincicome (Rocky Mountain News) and I still tune in to him. I liked Skip Bayless (ESPN) when he was a newspaper columnist as opposed to a personality. TJ Simers (LA Times). All the Chicago guys – Jay Mariotti (Sun-Times), Greg Couch (Sun-Times), Rick Morrissey (Tribune). Dan LeBatard (Miami Herald). My reading is probably more topical than anything – or if something is in front of me. Some topics interest me, and if I know LeBatard has weighed in I’ll go see. But always the Chicago folks and Kravitz.

Q. Any blogs on Indiana?

A. Terry Hutchens (Hoosiers Insider) has a great blog. He’s the beat writer for the Star.

Q. Non-mainstream media?

A. Notre Dame has great independent freestanding site called ndnation.com – it’s got links from everywhere. There’s a guy called The Rock who writes a pretty darn good column. Whoever does the site does it on their own time – it’s pretty well done. It isn’t a Rivals site where people get paid – it’s a site fans put together. The nice thing is they have links to every story written in every newspaper, with the exception of the South Bend Tribune. Apparently they got into some sort of tussle over linking.

Q. Do sites like that hurt your outlet?

A. Not specifically. We’re torn between acknowledging they exist and admitting we have to check them all the time and follow up on stuff. There are so many crazy and ludicrous posts on there it’s bothersome. Obviously people have legitimate tips and know things. It’s really for hard-core fans. Such a small percentage of people have a Rivals account where they can get Notre Dame stuff – at least where we circulate I can’t imagine many of them go to Rivals. I think a lot of our readers know about ndnation.com but I don’t know if they really keep up with it. I just don’t see that it affects what we do in the daily paper. Maybe some day it might but I’m not sure how or when that might be.

Q. How much did you do on the Tom Crean story?

A. For us it’s a little different. We’re in the northwest corner of the state. I don’t cover Indiana day-to-day like the Indianapolis Star and the Bloomington Herald Times. I get down there 10 times a year. My approach is different. We’re a 65,000 daily – I do more broad strokes and more analysis and less reporting, frankly, than what the bigger papers do. I’m trying to get hold of (interim head basketball coach Dan) Dakich – he was born in Gary. There are two papers here and one of us will get him first. We used to be the Gary Post-Tribune but the Gary was dropped 40 years ago. He went to Andrean High School in Merrillville – everybody knows him around here and he’s a popular figure.

I also cover Notre Dame football and usually write two columns a week. I cover high schools as well. There’s no way I can sit here and go toe-to-toe with the Star or the Herald Times – it’s not feasible. We’re geared toward the Chicago market – our pro coverage is all Bears, Bulls, Cubs and Sox. Purdue basketball turned out to be big for us – three of their freshmen were local kids who turned out to be a big part of the team.

Q. Is Tom Crean worth $2.3 million per season?

A. I think so. Full disclosure – I’m a Marquette grad. I thought they should have hired him two years ago. I suspect the president, Adam Herbert, at the time wanted Kelvin – that’s just my instinct, I don’t know for sure. At the press conference Crean hit a home run – he just connected with the fans and alumni and administrators in ways they seem to be starved for. He’s got a great record of recruiting players – Milwaukee is not a basketball Mecca – it’s colder than Chicago and it’s windy. They don’t really have a strong program despite winning the national championship 30 years ago – their play has been uneven with the exception of when Crean and Kevin O’Neill were there. He got a lot of under-the-radar kids to go there. Players improve under him and really like to play for him. If things break right, he could be one of the great coaches. We’ll see.

Q. Play the role of shrink. Why couldn’t Kelvin Sampson follow the rules?

A. Great question. In his own mind I don’t think he thought he was doing anything wrong. When he was hired he got up there and said ‘I made a mistake and this would never happen again’ – it all seems so insincere now. He staff did exactly the same things he did at Oklahoma that he said he wouldn’t do. There’s no way to rationalize it or describe it, except to say that he just didn’t think making the extra call was really making the call in his mind. Or not being able to monitor his staff adequately, or whatever he did – we’re not quite sure at this point.

I did read the NCAA report – it detailed calls to some kids from assistants that shouldn’t have been made. I have to believe he knew about them. He had said earlier to Bob Kravitz, “Everybody does it and I will too”. We have no choice but to think that, since he hasn’t said anything on the matter. We try to make sense of these things any way we can – even though it’s not life and death.

Posted by Mike Hutton, on post-trib.com, February 18, 2008, 9:41 a.m.:

My daughter rang me on my cell phone last week in Indianapolis to tell me she had made a foul. I was down there covering the state swim meet.

“I don’t know what I did, dad,” she said. “The referee said I pushed her.”

She was excited. I was excited for her. Just wish I could’ve been there to see it in person. So far, the St. Paul Panthers have learned about five plays, (blue, panther, stack one and stack two and one other I can’t recall the name of ) endured a somewhat disruptive midseason player switch and won a couple of games (one by forfeit) since we last visited.

Sara (without an H) has had one shot in a game, made a basket in practice, learned how to make a lay-up and tied up a couple of players for a jump ball. She also has developed an interest in actually watching basketball on television with me. Sunday, we huddled around the television and watched Luke Harangody and Notre Dame play Rutgers. We play our last game Saturday and then it’s tournament time. I’ll get back to you then.

(SMG thanks Mike Hutton for his cooperation)

Eugene and the Phone

By Mike Hutton on February 2, 2008 8:25 AM | Permalink
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Eugene Wilson failed to do a phone interview I requested of him via the Patriot’s media relations staff. The public relations staff had no reason to believe he wasn’t going to call back during designated media time for athletes last week.

That wasn’t surprising. My experience is that Wilson just doesn’t return phone calls for interviews to writers of his hometown paper unless his dad, Eugene Sr. helps out. (His dad, by the way, is unfailingly cooperative in these matters). Once, after multiple calls to both the Patriots and his parents, I got him briefly on the phone for an interview the first time the Pats played in the Superbowl.

Doing a story on him for Sunday’s paper would’ve been a nice compliment to the story we had on Bob Kuechenberg.

I don’t expect readers to have sympathy for me because someone didn’t return a call. Happens all the time in journalism. That’s part of the job. However, we’ve fawned over Wilson, helping him publicize his summer football camp (that he no longer does) one year and we put a story in the paper about Eugene Wilson night at a Merrillville basketball game a couple of years ago. I hoped he would see fit to return the favors, not for me but for our readers, who certainly would like to hear from him about what it means to play on a team that is going for a perfect season. This brings me to a larger issue: Do athletes owe their hometown anything ? Should they return our phone calls ? Do you want to hear from them in the newspaper ? Glenn Robinson has been criticized for not giving back enough to the community ? To be fair to Wilson, he’s not the only athlete who selectively chooses who he wants to talk with and it’s not fair to say that just because an athlete doesn’t return a phone call that doesn’t mean he or she isn’t in some way giving back to the place they grew up in.

mhutton@post-trib.com

he Post-Tribune had its beginnings in 1907, when The Gary Weekly was established to serve the brand-new steel industry rising on the shores of Lake Michigan.

On Labor Day, 1908, the Gary Weekly became a daily. The Gary Tribune was located on the corner of 5th and Washington in downtown Gary.

On March 9, 1910, J.R. and H.B. Snyder purchased another daily paper from the mayor of Gary, Thomas Knotts. That was the Gary evening Post. They merged with the original Gary paper in July 1921, starting the Post-Tribune as a newspaper.

In August 1966, the Snyder heirs sold the paper to Northwest Publications, Inc., part of a brand-new nationwide newspaper company, Ridder Publications. The “Gary” was dropped from the masthead as a regional newspaper flourished. In 1974, The Post-Tribune became part of the former Knight-Ridder chain.

In June, 1986, the publishing cycle changed to a seven-day morning edition, from a weekday evening and weekend morning edition.

On Feb. 2, 1998, American Publishing took over and has become the chain which is now the Sun-Times News Group.

About the Sun-Times News Group

Sun-Times News Group (“STNG”) is dedicated to being the premier source of local news and information for the greater Chicago area. Its media properties include the Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com as well as newspapers and websites serving 120 communities across Chicago. STNG’s parent company is Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. (NYSE: SVN) (www.thesuntimesgroup.com
).

Mike Hutton, named best sports columnist in the state by the Hoosier State Press Assoiciation in 2007, has worked at the Post-Tribune for 11 years. He covers Notre Dame football, Indiana basketball, local golf and high school sports. Check out Mike’s blog to see what’s on his mind.

Crean touts tradition in first day on job

April 3, 2008

Recommend

BY MIKE HUTTON
Post-Tribune staff writer

Shaking hands, cracking jokes and preaching about the value of family, Tom Crean was officially introduced as the Indiana basketball coach Wednesday in an upbeat 40-minute press conference in the bowels of Memorial Stadium.

Crean was swayed away from Marquette after nine successful years where his team made the Final Four in 2003 and the NCAA Tournament five times. He left because he believes IU is one of the premier programs in the country.

“Maybe some people rank Indiana in the top three, some in the top five and some in the top 10,” he said. “I rank it No. 1.”

The program might be the best in his mind but it’s definitely not that good in its current state.

Letters of allegations by the NCAA were sent to IU officials in February, outlining recruiting violations, some of them major, against former coach Kelvin Sampson. IU censured itself by eliminating a scholarship and firing Sampson.

It’s possible that more sanctions could follow this summer after IU answers the allegations.

Aside from an appearance in the NCAA championship game in 2002, the Hoosiers have endured a rocky 15-year ride that started with the end of Bob Knight’s tenure and went through runs by Mike Davis and Sampson as head coach.

To be certain that Crean has plenty of time to fix the problems, he agreed to an eight-year $18.24 million contract. That averages out to $2.3 million per season.

Crean said the reason for the move wasn’t a business decision.

“This was a heart decision,” he said. “I walked away from an incredible job to take another incredible job.”

Crean said that he received a call from Eddie Fogler, the former South Carolina coach, on Sunday gauging his interest in the job after Tony Bennett, the Washington State coach, had rebuffed overtures from IU. Fogler was hired by the search committee as a consultant.

“When Mr. Fogler calls, you’d better listen,” he said. “I listened and I thought, ‘It’s Indiana. It’s Indiana.’ That’s the premise I worked with (in making my decision).”

Crean will have plenty of personnel issues to deal with.

Eric Gordon, the Big Ten freshman of the Year, has a news conference scheduled for Monday to say whether he is going to declare for the NBA draft.

D.J. White, the Big Ten player of the year, will be gone.

Two other starters — Jamarcus Ellis and Armon Bassett — were kicked off the team on Monday by interim coach Dan Dakich after they missed a mandatory meeting, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The departure of all four of those players would leave IU without any returning starters from a team that went 25-8 and lost to Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Despite all the immediate obstacles, Crean said he promises to work hard to make IU basketball consistently great again.

“I have no timetables, no immediate goals,” he said. “We’re going to work hard to build the program the right way.”

Contact Mike Hutton at 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com
or go to his blog at: blogs.post-trib.com/hutton.

Thanks for thinking of me. I read the interviews you put up on the site regularly. It’s well done. Wasn’t sure if that was the same site I was thinking of when you initially e-mailed. Anyway, I’m back. My phone numbers are (219)477-4531 (H), (219)613-0141 and (219)648-3139. Let me know how you want to proceed.

An Interview with Dave Hooker

“Those are U-T’s guidelines and they can suspend me if they like but they can’t be my guidelines. Ninety-nine percent of the time my guidelines fall perfectly in line with U-T…They say they’re going to enforce this from now on. If they do they’re going to have more suspensions on their hands. There are times you can’t go through the SID to get the story.”

“I don’t know if what U-T did was legal…in some ways the legality can be inconsequential. If you force your way through the courts and you go over there and they don’t want you what kind of cooperation are you going to get?

“I see some of the biggest homers being some of the worst journalists covering teams….you cover a game and get mad at the team because they let you down and you rip them more than an objective journalist would.”

Dave Hooker: Interviewed on October 17, 2006

Position: U-Tennessee beat reporter, Knoxville News Sentinel; radio host, The Sports Animal, AM 990

Born: 1974, Knoxville, Tenn.

Education: U-Tennessee, 1998, communications-broadcasting

Career: WNOX radio 1998-2004, Knoxville News Sentinel 2004 –

Personal: married, two children

Favorite restaurant (home): Nama, Knoxville “we didn’t have sushi until two or three years ago – now we got a couple places”

Favorite restaurant (road): Jim ‘N Nick’s Barbecue, Birmingham “Best barbecue I ever had. If I was sittin’ on a lot of money I would open one here.”

Favorite hotel: Marriott Riverwalk, San Antonio “I spend a week every January. Great atmosphere, lots of fun.”

Suspended: By University of Tennessee, for violating “access guidelines” in interviewing an injured U-T football player on October 4, 2006. The interview was not approved by the U-T Sports Information Department. U-T revoked Hooker’s media credentials from Oct. 11 to Oct. 23, 2006.

Q. Are you suspended by U-T as we speak?

A. Yes.

Q. How are you staying busy?

A. Half of my job is covering recruiting – we just amped that up a bit. I still host the sports radio show the News Sentinel sponsors, 10 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday.

Q. Do you talk about your suspension on your show?

A. That was a pretty big topic Wednesday – the day it happened. I could stoke those fires if I wanted but I want to move on.

I’ve been doing radio for ten years and I can’t remember being as uncomfortable as I was doing that Wednesday program. I was so angry at first I wanted to walk out.

Q. Angry at what?

A. U-T – that I had to deal with their nonsense.

Q. What was the public’s reaction?

A. Mixed. Of the 25 or 30 people who called all were supportive except one or two. On our website – the blog format – it was 50-50 if not slanted more towards supporting U-T. Some message boards on opposing sties were a little harsh towards me. There’s often a tendency for fans to side with the institution. They don’t realize it limits the information they get in the long run.

The response from other reporters has been tremendous. I’ve heard from reporters in 15-20 states. Rolling Stone Magazine, which is doing a season-long look at the Vols, asked me for a quote.

Q. U-T said you violated “accepted guidelines” of access. Accepted by whom?

A. Them. I think most of the time we’re not New York City or a market that goes overboard pursuing these athletes. I think we understand they are student-athletes and have more to their lives than talking to media and playing football. Our group of reporters is fair, but there are times you have to break the rule – that’s been true in the past and it will be in the future.

Those are U-T’s guidelines and they can suspend me if they like but they can’t be my guidelines. Ninety-nine percent of the time my guidelines fall perfectly in line with U-T. But there are going to be issues. It’s natural to have an adversarial relationship between the hometown paper and the university.

Q. Did U-T over-react?

A. If you’re talking strictly of this one incident I would say yes. This week they started to say it was a cumulative effect. I’m supposed to get some sort of apology for things they said about me, but I haven’t yet.

Q. What “things” did U-T say about you?

A. There are two versions of how I got the interview. One is that I ambushed this severely injured athlete on the street – it wasn’t true. I went through an intermediary at U-T who called him and who said he was open to talking. Once I provided the tape and you could hear the cell phone and it was ringing they dropped the whole story. Then they said I took advantage of being over there during another interview session – they used the terms “underhanded” and “dishonest” – they’re going to retract some of that language, I believe.

Q. Can you pursue a legal remedy?

A. I don’t know if what U-T did was legal. Seems like it’s public property of a state-funded institution. I’m told their counsel said it was legal – they tend to err on the side of not getting courts involved so they certainly believe it was. I haven’t met with an attorney with respect to that. The other thing is that in some ways the legality can be inconsequential. If you force your way through the courts and you go over there and they don’t want you what kind of cooperation are you going to get?

Q. Isn’t that the difference between covering City Hall and State House and covering sports?

A. Yes. Some have criticized the Sentinel for not taking a stronger stand. But they backed me 100 percent and I understand where they’re coming from. As long as the attacks on my integrity are retracted I think we can move on from this – although it’s not going to be long until there’s another issue. They say they’re going to enforce this from now on. If they do they’re going to have more suspensions on their hands. There are times you can’t go through the SID to get the story. Maybe a kid is transferring or a kid is suffering from a season-ending injury, as in this case. Maybe a guy gets in trouble and is about to be thrown off the team and the only way to confirm it is through him. The rule is to keep you from calling players to ask about a game – at times it’s appropriate. Reporters generally are respectful – that’s why it’s a shame they came down so hard.

Q. What kind of college football town is Knoxville?

A. The best way I would describe Knoxville is that the day after a big loss by U-T you can tell because everybody in the community is a little bit down. The day after a big win is just the opposite – it has that much effect on the community and the atmosphere.

Q. Can you be a fan and work in the business?

A. I don’t think so. I purposely laid that aside. I was a U-T fan growing up but I set that aside when I graduated from college. I remember going to the Orange Bowl in ’98 and saying that’s the last U-T game I go to as a fan. If I had gone to a job somewhere else maybe I wouldn’t stand by that. I see some of the biggest homers being some of the worst journalists covering teams – not U-T necessarily. You cover a game and get mad at the team because they let you down and you rip them more than an objective journalist would. This latest incident – if I was a fan of U-T I would have been crushed. But I understand they see things one way and I see them another and we move on.

Q. How competitive is the beat?

A. Very. You’ve got the News Sentinel, the Tennessean in Nashville, and the Chattanooga Free Press. Jimmy Hyams, at the local radio station (WNML) is one the best reporters I’ve come across – sometimes we think of sports talk guys as yukking it up – not him. I think it’s pretty darn competitive. You do have the Titans now – that takes some of the space and resources, but U-T is still really significant. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Q. Are you competitive with the Rivals.com and Scout.com websites?

A. They’re probably my main competitors on the recruiting side. Down here they go by volquest.com and Tennessee.scout.com.

We try to be aware of what they’re doing. Even though they cater to a small fan base it’s still a fan base you want to respect you. Those are fans paying to access our website every month. That’s what allowed the Sentinel to hire me.

Q. How’s your paid website doing?

A. Extremely well. Technically, I’m on the online budget. We were test-marketed for Scripps – you’ll see more people doing it in the future. Quite honestly, it’s because people like Rivals and Scouts have made money in the past.

Q. How much pressure are you under to be first?

A. To me personally that pressure comes from within – I’m just that type of person. Will I have editors call me and say how did such-and-such get this? Yeah, that happens, but it’s not a case where I feel threatened. There’s definitely pressure – we’re expected as the hometown paper to break every single story. It’s not realistic but we don’t like to let even one slip by.

Q. How many reporters do you have on U-T?

A. I’m not actually the beat reporter – it’s a co-beat system. The beat reporter is Drew Edwards – it’s his first year on the beat. My focus is recruiting but obviously there is breaking stuff I do. Drew and I are over there every single day. The Tennessean has Chris Low – he has the most time on the beat. They’ll hire a part-time person to be there as well. For U-T media day we’ll have other feature writers and column writers as well.

Q. Is TV a factor?

A. In some TV markets they’re competitive in breaking news but that’s not the case here.

Q. You were a broadcast major – how did you end up in print?

A. John Adams, the sports editor, came to me in 2004 and asked me to cover recruiting. They were hiring a new person because they were starting a new website, a paid website. It morphed into a 50-50 deal covering the team.

I had started writing for a small suburban paper while I was at the radio station – to make a little extra money. That turned out to be a good thing, otherwise I wouldn’t have had enough to show John.

Q. Do you prefer print or radio?

A. There are certain redeeming qualities in print I appreciate and would like to be associated with. I like both a lot though. It’s hard to pick between radio and print – it’s a fun challenge for me. To be honest, it’s a little daunting at times. I’m working with people I grew up reading, like John Adams, Mike Strange – I also read the late Gary Lundy. It’s intimidating – Mike is one of the best game-story writers in the country – John is a very good columnist. Having my stuff next to theirs makes me feel like a broadcast guy again.

Q. How do you educate yourself?

A. I look at sportsbriefs.com a lot – before going on the air. I read a lot of online newspapers. At the beach I like to read the classics – but my lion’s share of reading is in newspapers across the country. I don’t know how anybody did talk radio before the Internet. To be able to read about the Dodgers’ fourth pitcher in Knoxville is awesome. I bounce all over the place. Newslink.org has all the papers in the U.S.

Q. Any desire to work in a big-city market?

A. I would like to stay in the south – I hate cold weather. I love the passion of college football in the south – it’s pretty tough to match. I go to Atlanta frequently on business and I don’t see the passion for the pro teams that I see for college teams. I’ve sat in NFL stadiums where people talk about salary cap money and don’t care if the team is 2-8. That’s odd to me.

Q. Career ambitions?

A. I have ambition just to be the best at whatever I’m doing at that time. I don’t have real specific goals to be a lead columnist or sports editor or host of a national radio show – just because I never thought I’d be a writer. I feel blessed to have this opportunity, and at this point I just want to be the best journalist I can be and see where life leads me. So far it’s been fun.

(SMG thanks Dave Hooker for his cooperation)

UT suspends KNS writer

University says Hooker interview with Inky Johnson violated policy

By STEVE AHILLEN, ahillen@knews.com

October 11, 2006

The University of Tennessee suspended media privileges for Knoxville News Sentinel sports writer Dave Hooker on Tuesday citing its concerns involving a story written by Hooker on injured football player Inquoris “Inky” Johnson.

In a letter delivered to the News Sentinel and signed by associate sports information director John Painter, Hooker was informed that his suspension will last until Oct. 23 and will cover “all Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday access in the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center, as well as all practice, post-practice interviews, community service appearances and the UT-Alabama game.”

Johnson received a possibly career-ending injury in the Air Force game on Sept. 16. The Tennessee Sports Information Office received numerous requests for interviews from area media. Media outlets that requested an interview were informed Johnson would be made available when possible.

The UT athletic department has published guidelines stating that all player interviews must be set up through the sports information office.

Working through a source within the UT athletic department over a course of several weeks, Hooker was able to arrange an exclusive interview with Johnson. The interview was conducted with Johnson by phone on the night of Oct. 4 and the story was published in the Oct. 5 News Sentinel.

News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy defended Hooker’s reporting on this story.

“Dave is an enterprising reporter who works hard to break news for our readers,” McElroy said. “Although this was a positive story about a great player, Dave got whistled for a false start. There was certainly never any intent to harm Inky Johnson or the UT athletic program in any way. The News Sentinel regrets UT’s decision in taking this action but looks forward to continuing to provide fans with comprehensive coverage of the Vols.”

In his letter to Hooker and the News Sentinel, Painter said the athletic department is concerned about the precedent set by Hooker’s story.

“Your action has caused not only the UT Athletics Department but also your colleagues to doubt your ability or willingness to follow accepted guidelines for access to Tennessee student-athletes,” Painter wrote.

“In this case a very hard and fast guideline was broken and we felt we had to act,” UT men’s athletic director Mike Hamilton said in a phone conversation Tuesday.

UT director of public relations Tiffany Carpenter said Tuesday that there have been two other incidents in which a member of the media was denied press privileges, one involving Hooker.

Brent Hubbs of Volquest.com and the Vol Network, was suspended for bowl week in 1998 for publishing what was said between a coach and player at practice, Carpenter said.

Hooker was suspended for a week or less in 2004 while an employee of Citadel Broadcasting over a “player accessibility issue,” said Bud Ford, UT associate athletic director for media relations.

Executive sports editor Steve Ahillen may be reached at 865-342-6259.

An Interview with Jay Greenberg

“New York is more competitive and I’ve worked in probably the three most competitive markets in North America. Philadelphia had three dailies for half the time I was there. This takes it to another level – it’s more competitive and cutthroat. The Post and Daily News are out to drive each other out of business.”

“It’s easier to be much more critical in a market like New York than St. Louis or Pittsburgh. There is so much more of a tradition of criticism – it’s accepted that the papers will be tough.”

Jay Greenberg. Interviewed August 17, 2006.

Position: Columnist, New York Post.

Born: 1950, Johnstown, Pa.

Personal: Married, two children

Education: University of Missouri, BJ, 1972.

Career: KC Star 1972-75, Philadelphia Bulletin 1975-78, Philadelphia Daily News 1978-89, Sports Illustrated 1989-91, Toronto Sun 1992-94, New York Post 1994-,

Author of: “Full Spectrum: A History of the Philadelphia Flyers”, 1996

Favorite Restaurant (home): Luchento’s, Englishtown NJ. “All the northern Italian staples, well-seasoned, a lot of fish and chicken options, which is what I eat mostly, and big portions.”

Favorite Restaurant (road): Al’s, St. Louis. “They did the Morton’s thing – no big menu, big tray with the unprepared selections – long before Morton’s.” The Common Plea, Pittsburgh.

Favorite Hotel: Fisherman’s Wharf Marriott, San Francisco.

Jay Greenberg excerpted from the New York Post, July 19, 2006:

BRILLIANT is how Alex Rodriguez self-described his Sunday, when he started a difficult double play to get Jaret Wright out of a first-inning jam, made another throw that trapped a runner in a rundown and hit a two-run homer during a Yankee victory that for one day chased his boo birds away.

But just like the idiots in the beer commercial, Rodriguez’s next bright idea was to sun himself on a blistering Monday in Central Park and wind up shirtless in The Post, several pages ahead of his three errors and 0-for-4 culminating in a bases-loaded strikeout.

“I only laid out for 10 minutes with my daughter and my wife, wish it could have been longer,” said Rodriguez yesterday after joking how good he looked in the picture.

“It can’t be hot enough [for me].

“It’s Central Park, [photographers] are out there every day.

It’s my back yard, what are you going to do?”

Go to his private club would be one suggestion.

Uh, we mean the one with the pool, not with poker tables, or maybe a writer with a tape recorder running while Rodriguez tells the world how much harder it is to be A-Rod than it is to be Derek Jeter.

That was a long time ago in Seattle, but also was the tip of the iceberg of his self-indulgence.

If the guy can’t help himself with the fans with an eighth-inning homer to beat Boston or to win a playoff game, he can at least do the little things that don’t put his common sense in question and draw the target larger on his back.

The Yankees pay Rodriguez $25 million a year to report in optimum condition to do his best, including nights hot enough for the trainers to have posted a reminder about hydration, diet and “limiting workouts.” Being from Miami, Rodriguez probably does have more tolerance of the heat, but to flaunt that leaves he and the Yankees tolerating supposition that he played the game fried. Not what they need, and not what he needs, with so much negativism swirling around him.

Q. Which story of yours triggered the strongest response from readers?

A. I did two Yankee games back to back in July – in the first one Alex Rodriguez made three errors. As I was preparing to do the write-through for the final edition, I get a call from my office. We have a picture of Alex with his shirt off sunning himself in Central Park. I’m to mention that in my piece. It was a scorching day. I didn’t think it was good idea for him to be out there – especially with signs in the locker room to protect yourself from excessive heat. He said he was out there for 15 minutes – the person who sold us the photos said he was out for an hour. He said he was from Miami and loves the heat. I didn’t necessarily draw a connection between his three errors and being out there but it was inferred. There was a lot of negative reaction to story – most people thought it was silly point. People drew comparisons to drugs and all the really bad things he could have been doing. I was surprised at how negative the reaction was – eight or nine to one against.

Q. How do you handle e-mails from fans?

A. I answer it. As long as it’s respectful and someone is making a reasonable point and tries to understand what I was thinking. I think they deserve an answer.

Q. Can you compare working in the New York market to other markets?

A. New York is more competitive and I’ve worked in probably the three most competitive markets in North America. Philadelphia had three dailies for half the time I was there. This takes it to another level – it’s more competitive and cutthroat. The Post and Daily News are out to drive each other out of business. The quality of beat work here is the highest of any place. In Philly I competed against Al Morganti for years – we went at each other pretty hard. You go into the Yankee clubhouse, as soon as it opens people are there watching each other to see who’s going to who. People do not let each other out of their sight.

To a degree the tabloid nature of it accentuates the competitive level. Everybody is looking for the back page and headline. Other places you looked for the story. Here the emphasis is making a headline.

Q. Do beat reporters have to take a different approach than columnists?

A. When I was a beat guy I pulled my punches. As a beat guy you prided yourself on knowing who was playing well and who wasn’t – I wasn’t’ protecting anybody and I was objective about the team. When I did criticize it wasn’t with the edge I do as a columnist because I don’t need them now. I try to be fair. But I’m not as careful as I was about offending people. If they get mad at me they get mad at me. I don’t’ have that kind of scoop pressure that beat guys have. If they are sarcastic and caustic people aren’t going to tell them as much. That’s an occupational hazard of doing a beat. Columnists shouldn’t have to worry about that. Only about making a reasonable point.

Q. Should columnists show up the next day?

A. I can’t always because I do a lot of things. I try to if I’m there. It’s overrated because p.r. guys have our numbers. They can call me if they want to. Or I’ll be there in six days or seven days. It’s amazing how non-confrontational they can be. It’s easier to be much more critical in a market like New York than St. Louis or Pittsburgh. There is so much more of a tradition of criticism – it’s accepted that the papers will be tough. If they’re mad at one guy they’ll talk to the other guy. There are more choices here. They don’t necessarily feel their reputation is being damaged as much.

Q. Is it harder to work in a one-paper town?

A. It might be. Bernie Miklasz (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) has said that. I think it is. There is more of a booster mentality in those towns. I remember doing the Kansas City Scouts. When I was critical there was more of a reaction than in bigger cities. The fans were afraid the team was going to leave town.

Q. How do you get your sports information?

A. I spend at least an hour to two hours reading the New York papers, almost cover to cover. I read all the columns. Game stories I kind of skim. I read the leads of games stories. I look for quotes in game stories, and go online to get later editions. I go online to a degree, but I’m not an internet junkie as much as others. I may read the top 10 on sportspages.com. Sometimes I scan the columns on espn.com.

Eventually I catch up to better pieces in SI. I used to subscribe to Sporting News but dropped it. Too much Nascar, I can’t stand it.

Q. Columnists you admire?

A. Mark Whicker (Orange County Register). I think there are a lot of us very good at what we do but I think he might be the only genius. Ray Ratto (San Francisco) Chronicle).For diplomatic reasons I won’t mention the New York guys. Growing up I thought Roy McHugh in the Pittsburgh Press was good. Joe Posnanski (KC Star) is good. Gene Collier (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) is very good. I like Ian O’Conner (The Journal News, USA Today) and Dave Hyde (Sun-Sentinel).

Q. Beat reporters you admire?

A. George King at the New York Post, the Yankee guy, it’s amazing how much information he gets. Larrry Brooks, our Rangers guy.

Q. Hardest sport to cover?

A. My background is weakest in basketball because I did hockey for years. I don’t have the background in basketball I have in other sports. My greatest degree of comfort is in baseball – which I grew up with – and hockey which I covered for a long time.

Q. Which league or sport is most writer friendly?

A. It probably varies more by teams than by leagues. I used to think that baseball players were most difficult and hockey players were best. But that was probably me. I don’t find baseball players more difficult than other athletes. The NFL has spectacular access at the Super Bowl, but during the season there’s a big drop off. The NFL has more control freak coaches. You get 45 minutes and you’re lucky if the players are there for 15 minutes. From an access standpoint the NFL is probably the worst. Also, in some NBA situations you can’t get in the locker room after the practice.

My biggest lament about all this is I see a big difference from 1972 to now in locker rooms. There’s so much more electronic media, and women are in the locker room. Being able to just talk to a guy while getting dressed is almost gone. They want to be dressed because there are cameras, and women are around. It’s much much more formalized.

Baseball if you get a guy alone before the game other reporters will respect that and not interrupt. But after the game with cameras going and players wanting to get out you’re virtually guided around from player to player wherever the players are.

Q. How does the quality of reporting compare to when you started?

A. It’s better. The quality of sportswriting is so much better. There used to be so much pedestrian writing and borderline cheerleading. Guys were doing beats for 30 years and didn’t want to dig. Even in one-paper towns I don’t see that. Quality of writing and information is just better. People just dig and are much more aggressive.

Q. What are the pros and cons of the sportswriting lifestyle?

A. More nights than most jobs. I think more people take better care of bodies than when I got into business. Alcoholism was more rampant then than now. I don’t’ know of too many problem drinkers now. It takes a patient wife who understands that you’re working a lot of weekend and nights. It’s going to take time away from your kids. I enjoy the travel.

Q. How stressful are deadlines for you?

A. Deadlines do wear on you. Deadlines at the Post are the hardest I’ve had. I was a PM guy in the first part of my career. I had to re-invent myself as a deadline writer. I’ve gotten more comfortable with it, but that is the part I like the least.

My first deadline is 7:30 pm. The second one is 10:45. The last one is midnight to 12:15. The middle one is very hard – writing off the game – we’re expected to write off the game – if your early angle isn’t holding up you have to let it go. When the game goes in another direction in the last two innings those are nights you feel you earn your money. The Idea is to get something half decent for 10:45 and then go to locker room and you put it into English. The clock ticks and it wears on you. I root for fast games. You also learn a second gear. You develop a kind of formula for doing it – mine involves using more quotes – it’s easier to write transitions off the quotes. The moost exciting games for fans are hardest for us. If you have to rewrite on the final edition it’s really stressful.

Q. How many columns per week?

A. Two to four. I’m contracted for four, but space has shrunk considerably. Some weeks I do three or two. I’d like to do more but there just isn’t space.

Q. Can columns double as a column and game story to save space and manpower?

A. There are situations where I’m by myself and I’ll write a game column with more game detail. But for most part if I’m by myself, which happens in football games, I’ll write a game story instead of column. But a game story is so subjective in our paper it’s doesn’t make a lot of difference.

Q. Advice to students?

A. It’s no different now than 20 years ago. Just write and develop a style. Write as much as you can, read as much as you can.

Q. Should students work on both print and electronic skills?

A. There are more electronic outlets now. I’ve always looked at writing as my thing – I don’t speak as well as I write – I’ve never thought of myself as an electronic guy – some do both – some have crossed over for good. I don’t think you have to do both. Radio and TV jobs are more transient – there’s more pressure – if you do a good job writing you’re not going to be as subject to the whims of what you look like and sound like. Writing is a more stable career.

Q. How do you develop sources?

A. Make the calls. Introduce yourself. And just be around. There’s no substitute for working and calling. Develop a trust – don’t betray anybody’s confidence. Now I’m in so many different places. I never developed better sources than I had in hockey. I was a beat guy and I was around. Even today I still have better sources in hockey than anything else.

(SMG thanks Jay Greenberg for his cooperation)

An Interview with Rick Gosselin

“This whole business is built on who you know. My network has expanded with special teams coaches and draft rankings and games-lost-by-starters charts. I’ve never wanted to be in a position where people don’t take my call…they always take my call, partly because they know I might give them something.”

“One of the problems with the industry today is that young writers coming in want instant gratification. If they take a coach out for dinner they want something they can write about. I knew people ten years before they gave me anything to write about.”

“When Pete Rozelle was commissioner the media was almost a partner. Now they push us aside and say we don’t need you anymore – we don’t need newspapers to write about us. We’ve got NFL.com – our fans can get access that way. Little by little they push us farther away.”

Rick Gosselin: Interviewed on October 12, 2006

Position: NFL columnist, Dallas Morning News

Born: 1951, Detroit, Michigan

Education: Michigan State University, BA, 1972

Career: United Press International: Detroit 1973-1974, New York City 1975-76, Kansas City 1977-85; Kansas City Star 1986-89; Dallas Morning News 1990-

Personal: single

Favorite restaurant (home): Esparza’s, Grapevine TX, “Mexican – in converted funeral parlor – best Margaritas in town – that’s saying a lot for Dallas”

Favorite restaurant (road): Pascal’s Manale, New Orleans, “barbecue shrimp – always a staple – off the garden district”

Favorite hotel: Marriott Marquis, New York City, “I love Broadway – that’s right in the heart of it – NFL draft was in it in the 90s – you could walk to any Broadway theater – the Great White Way – I love the vibe of NY.”

Honors: Dick McCann Award, Pro Football Hall of Fame, 2004; Huddle Report No. 1 ranking on predicting Top 100 draftees for 2006 draft (87 of 100); Huddle Report No. 1 ranking on 2006 Mock Draft

Q. You wrote yesterday, “If I’m buying an NFL ticket this week, here’s how I spend my money?” When was the last NFL ticket you bought?

A. I have Dallas Stars season tickets so I do pay to see sports. I’ve covered the NFL for 30 years and I can’t remember the last time I sat in the stands for a game. I have my Stars season tickets and I go to an occasional baseball game.

Q. A writer is paid to go to a game. How can a writer speak as a fan?

A. I’ve tried to champion the cause of fans in my writing. I’ve criticized the NFL long and hard about all TV timeouts. In that column you cited I had a comment by Bert Bell – he said if we start valuing the TV audience more than the paying public we’ll be in trouble. I said “Sadly, that’s come to pass.” These games drone on and on because of TV timeouts. I grew up when there weren’t stoppages – they just played the game. Now there’s a bad precedent in moving the starting time to accommodate TV – one o’clock games are moved to 8 p.m – to make sure TV gets good games on Sunday night. But if you’re a fan who flew in for a one o’clock game maybe your flight out is at 8 and you can’t change it. When I go to Stars games I sit there for TV timeouts and experience what fans experience for football games.

Q. Is there a danger in relating too closely to fans? What about professional objectivity?

A. I’m of the belief that fans are what make this game great. They drive the interest and revenue made by the clubs. Fans read my stories. Everything we do – playing games or writing about games – is for the fans. The NFL has to take better care of fans. They’re now paying $30 to park in some places.

Q. What’s the difference between a professional writer and an amateur writer?

A. Access. I have access to the principals. I can talk to Jerry Jones, Tony Dungy, or a player. Because of that I like to think I have better insight than the average blogger. It’s a big thing for newspapers in general. What we hang our hat on at the Dallas Morning News is covering the Cowboys every day. We have people in that building every day. We know the owner, coaches and players and we have insights no one else has. When I go online to read about the baseball game in Oakland I go to the Detroit News because they have the insight into Jim Leyland and the players.

Q. What is your system for reading the news?

A. There’s an overload now. You can spend all day reading the Internet – I’ve taken a step back. I try to find what is pertinent – the story of the day. If it’s steroid I go to the San Francisco Chronicle. Baseball – the Detroit News; Terrell Owens – the Philadelphia Inquirer. You can read the Internet from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. There’s so much out there I’ve become more selective – I don’t blindly read everything. I probably read less on the NFL than other sports because I have access. I can call coaches and G.M.s – I don’t have to read about it.

Q. How should a fan read about the NFL?

A. Sportspages.com is a pretty good traffic cop and can point you in the right direction. NFL.com is a good starting point in the morning – it tells you if players are hurt or benched. If somebody on the Eagles is benched I find out on NFL.com and then go to the Philadelphia Inquirer to find out why. Most teams have two or three correspondents on NFL.com. Club websites have a lot of manpower. They have access – their writers are on the other side of the wall with the club people.

Q. Are writers for club websites journalists?

A. Each club decides that. The Bengals hired Geoff Hobson, who was the best beat guy on the Bengals, and told him to cover them like the newspapers do. He does a great job aggressively pursuing signings. Other reporters are told to not step on toes – let’s just get our information out to the public. There’s no standard for team correspondents. Some just do light features.

Q. How can fans make those distinctions?

A. True fans – Cowboys fans – read everything. No matter what I write I have a 50-50 divide. People here think I’m a Cowboys hater but outside of Dallas they think I’m a homer. We have a knowledgeable fan base. A lot of our fans are into fantasy football.

Q. Do fantasy football sites have better information than newspapers?

A. I don’t play so I don’t spend a lot of time reading fantasy football sites. But if a guy isn’t sitting in a building how is he coming up with inside information. You see those fantasy football ads – “inside information” – I’m not sure how they get that stuff. I know how hard we work and if we can’t get it how can they? These guys aren’t in the building so how else can they get their stuff if not from what we’re writing.

Q. Why do people pay fantasy sites?

A. Everybody is trying to get an edge – they’ll pay if they think they’re getting an edge.

Q. What does your job entail?

A. I’m the NFL columnist. I cover the other 31 teams. We have five or six people in the Cowboys building every day. I go to a dozen training camps in the summer. I pick the best story of the week and go to that game. A lot of what I do is Cowboys driven. For instance, in training camp I talked to young Philadelphia receivers and corners about what they learned from T.O. If there’s a Cowboys hook readership will be greater. So I cover the league but it’s often related to the Cowboys or the state of Texas.

On top of that I do a lot of analytical statistics-oriented things – a lot on the NFL draft.

Q. How do you cover the NFL draft?

A. I don’t get into draft coverage until the season ends. I’ll talk to scouts and personnel people at the start of the process to get a feel for the board. Then I’ll focus on position coaches, and as we get closer I’ll talk to G.M.s and coaches and fine-tune the list. I don’t worry about mock drafts – I want to focus on position boards – the top 20 at skill positions for instance. I’ll deal with offensive coordinators, G.M.s, coaches and even friends of mine in college football. The more opinions I get give me a better feel for the player. Most people are honest with me – especially early on when you don’t have an idea of how they fit. I’m constantly fine-tuning. If it’s tight end I’ll call tight end coaches. From mid-March to mid-April I fine-tune it, to figure out what rounds they go in – then I put it together. I probably talk to over a 100 people in the NFL.

Q. How do you measure your success?

A. I do a top 100 board – I rate the top 100 players in the draft. I’m putting out there who I think will be the first second and third round guys. There’s a lot of luck in mock drafts – one trade and the dominoes fall in different directions. But there’s no luck in the top 100 – either you know or you don’t. Since 1998 I’ve had the best top 100. My 100 generally hits 80-plus on the list. The Huddle Report ranks everybody. You can look at the Huddle Report. ( http://www.thehuddlereport.com/top100/index.shtml)

Q. The Huddle Report ranked you No. 1 for the 2006 draft. Can you take that to your boss?

A. (chuckle) The Morning News likes it but there’s nothing extra in my paycheck – trust me on that.

But it’s in a lot of draft rooms on the day of the draft – I can say that. People are aware of what I do and how I do it.

I also have one of the tougher grade cards – a majority of my grades are C, and some are F. There are only six or seven great drafts in NFL history, so I’m not giving out 20 A’s. Everybody starts with a C. Generally I give out two A’s, one A plus and one A, to the two best drafts. Come January I will re-grade the draft – and I’ll put out my April grade against the January grade. I hold myself accountable – which is not done a lot in this business. I owe it to these people – it’s one of the reasons I’ve got credibility in this league.

Q. How do you build credibility?

A. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ve known some of these people for a long time – I knew John Fox when he was an assistant coach at Kansas in the early 80s. One reason I got this job in 1990 was that I knew the young staff at Oklahoma State headed by Jimmy Johnson. So when they hired me I walked in with ready-made sources. One of the problems with the industry today is that young writers coming in want instant gratification. If they take a coach out for dinner they want something they can write about. I knew people ten years before they gave me anything to write about. They know I’m trustworthy and they tell me things. I get a lot of inside information on drafts – information that’s credible – from relationships built up over time. If I started today covering the NFL draft I wouldn’t have that insight. I could devote 24 hours a day for the next year and I wouldn’t come close to what I know from spending three months on it.

Another thing I do is the Special Teams Report. Frank Ganz, the Chief special teams coach in the early 80s, gave me the formula. He gave me 10 categories and I’ve added over the years to where it’s 22 categories. I started doing it on a regular basis when I got to the KC Star in 1986. Most special teams coaches will call me after they’ve been eliminated – it comes out the week after the Super Bowl. It takes a lot of cross checking – we run it on the Sunday of the Pro Bowl – then after that I’m on to the draft. After May 1 I take some time off.

People give me information because I give them back – they benefit from things I have. Most reporters want something – they want information – but when coaches call me I can give them special teams rankings and they can benefit from that. If you’re a personnel director and you want to draft a running back you can call me and ask how I have my running backs stacked. You know I’ve been talking to a lot of people. You’re getting a feel for what other people think.

The week after the regular season I do a chart on ‘games lost by starters due to injury’. I go through each play-by-play chart and figure out which starters were missing and when and how many were based on injury. Now I’m getting calls from trainers. They can take my chart to the club and say “Look, we’ve got one of the healthiest teams in football.” That benefits trainers and strength coaches.

Q. What does it get you?

A. Access. I can e-mail a trainer. I was doing a story on pads and I e-mailed a trainer, and boom, he sent something back. Most clubs won’t let you talk to trainers. But I have access because I have given them something in the past.

This whole business is built on who you know. My network has expanded with special teams coaches and draft rankings and games-lost-by-starters charts. I’ve never wanted to be in a position where people don’t take my call. I don’t call on a weekly basis – I call coaches two or three times a season. They always take my call, partly because they know I might give them something. I chart officiating – penalties called by what crews. I give that to coaches if they ask. So I take but I also give.

Q. How’s the access for media covering the NFL?

A. It’s said. When I covered the Chiefs in the late 1980s – a one-paper town – I had complete run of the building. That was before the NFL declared media the enemy. I could walk wherever I wanted. I remember in 1989 sitting in a room watching the game tape with Tony Dungy and Bill Cowher. Now you can’t even talk to assistant coaches with most teams. One GM said to me “How did this happen?” All of a sudden the idea was to close the media out. The network I built was built on assistant coaches. If I was writing a story on a wide receiver I could go to the wide receiver coach and say “this is what I have” and he could say “you’re off base”. We no longer have that access, which is why some stuff gets into print that’s wrong – there’s no check and balance system. You can’t run it by coaches because they’re denying you access. I learned everything from assistant coaches. They always had time for me – now there is no time.

Q. Why has access been reduced?

A. They don’t need us. Look at the TV numbers. Every seat was sold the first five weeks of the season. They’re getting record ratings. They’ve got NFL.com and NFL network – they’re creating their own media. When Pete Rozelle was commissioner the media was almost a partner. Now they push us aside and say we don’t need you anymore – we don’t need newspapers to write about us. We’ve got NFL.com – our fans can get access that way. Little by little they push us farther away. The pressbox used to be at midfield on the mezzanine level – now it’s at the corner of the stadium or at the top. Luxury boxes have the good positions. It’s tough for guys like me who became a reporter trying to cover the league one way and now you can’t get players or coaches. Lots of times you only get the head coach in a press conference forum. I don’t know if I could have become the NFL writer I became under these ground rules.

How do you develop sources? I always felt developing as head coach or a GM as a source was a waste of time. I got to know the guys coming up and they knew me when they moved on to the NFL. It’s not an instant gratification business. If you want to be good at it you have to invest the time.

Q. How would you describe your writing style?

A. Writers can educate or they can entertain. I’m heavier on the education side. When someone reads a story of mine I want them to say “I didn’t know that”. I do my own research – I’m not part of a notes network.

Dave Smith, who hired me at the Morning News, gave me one of the best bits of advice about quotes. He would say, “You can write it better than they can say it – don’t become hostage to quotes in stories”.

Another thing Smith told me – the backbone of any good newspaper is beat coverage. That was one of the reasons he hired me. I always admired the grinders – so did Dave. You need a strong Cowboys presence in this city. He made sure we had one.

(SMG thanks Rick Gosselin for his cooperation)

Giants use bye to reinvent wheels

12:24 AM CDT on Monday, October 9, 2006

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The New York Giants spent September building an identity as a passing team – and losing their identity as a playoff contender.

The defending NFC East champions ranked second in the NFL in passing through the first month of the season but were 1-2 in the standings.

Their bye came in the first week of October, and it gave the Giants two weeks to relocate their true identity. So guess who’s back running the football?

“That’s who we are,” Giants left offensive tackle Luke Petitgout said. “That’s what we do.”

Instead of trying to ride the arm of Eli Manning, the Giants rode the legs of Pro Bowl halfback Tiki Barber to a 19-3 victory over the Washington Redskins on Sunday.

Barber turned in his best game of the season – 23 carries for 123 yards. It also was the first 100-yard rushing effort allowed by the Redskins in 12 games dating to November, when LaDainian Tomlinson lit them up for 184 yards.

Cowboys/NFL

Rick Gosselin on the NFL

Giants use bye to reinvent wheels

NFL rankings

Gosselin’s NFL Blog

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More importantly, the ability of Barber to gouge the Redskins allowed the Giants to control the ball and keep the clock running. During one stretch at the close of the first half and the start of the second, the Giants snapped the ball on 28 consecutive downs.

New York spent almost 35 minutes on offense, which kept the vaunted Washington offense off the field. The Redskins entered the game with the NFL’s third-rated offense but managed only 10 first downs and 164 yards in 25 minutes.

To succeed against the Redskins, the Giants knew exactly where to run – at the right side of the Washington defensive line manned by undersized end Andre Carter.

The Redskins gave Carter a seven-year, $32.5 million contract in free agency this off-season, including $10 million in bonuses, to rush the passer. But the Giants seemed intent on making him tackle – and he didn’t.

Barber swept left end on the first two plays of the game for 13 total yards and didn’t stop attacking Carter the entire day. Barber gashed the right side of the Washington defense for runs of 18, 13 and 10 yards.

The Giants called 17 running plays at the right side of the Washington line, and Barber gained 102 of his yards. Carter did not make a single tackle in the game.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” said Petitgout, smothering a smirk. “We just ran the play that’s called. Mum’s the word. It’s a long season.”

DRAFT RECAP

Bush finally breaks out

Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy in 2005 for the electricity he brought to college stadiums.

Bush was instant offense for Southern California, which is why the New Orleans Saints grabbed him with the second overall pick of the 2006 NFL draft. He averaged 7.3 yards per rush for the Trojans, 13.6 yards per catch and 12.7 yards per punt return.

Bush was compared to Gale Sayers for his offensive versatility and big-play ability. He averaged a touchdown every 15 touches in his college career and spewed out 93 plays of 20 yards or more.

But the Saints had not seen that electricity in NFL stadiums through the first month of Bush’s career. He managed only two plays of 20-plus yards in his first four games and both were receptions – a 23-yarder against Green Bay in September and a 32-yarder against Carolina in October.

Bush did not score a touchdown in his first 99 touches in the NFL. But touch No. 100 was a doozy. It was what the Saints – and all of New Orleans – had been waiting for.

Bush electrified a sellout home crowd with a 65-yard punt return for a touchdown in the waning minutes Sunday, propelling the Saints to a 24-21 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That gave the surprising Saints sole possession of first place in the NFC South with a 4-1 record.

The Saints didn’t need Bush to be the focal point of the offense. Deuce McAllister is a veteran Pro Bowler still in his prime. He turned in his first 100-yard rushing game of the season Sunday, pinning 123 yards on the Buccaneers.

Having McAllister gave the Saints the luxury of spotting Bush – like Southern California did with LenDale White.

And Bush has been productive in that capacity. He leads the Saints with 34 catches, including a career-best 11 on Sunday. He also ranks second to McAllister with 170 rushing yards and has been the primary punt returner.

The only thing Bush hadn’t done in his brief NFL career was score a touchdown. Until Sunday.

IN THE HUDDLE

Observations from Week 5:

•Rookie quarterbacks are 0-3 in their NFL starting debuts this season with Arizona’s Matt Leinart and Tampa Bay’s Bruce Gradkowski both losing Sunday. They join Week 4 loser Vince Young of Tennessee. Rookie quarterbacks have lost 11 consecutive starting debuts, including those by No. 1 overall picks Alex Smith in 2005 and Eli Manning in 2004. You have to go all the way back to November 2004 to find a rookie quarterback who won his NFL starting debut. Incredibly, it was Drew Henson of the Cowboys – and he was yanked at halftime of that start.

•The Kansas City Chiefs are in second place of the AFC West with a 2-2 record. But they’d be leading the NFC West at 2-0 with victories the last two weeks over San Francisco and Arizona.

•Speaking of the Chiefs, Larry Johnson saw his streak of 100-yard games come to an end Sunday at Arizona, sort of. For the first time in three games he failed to rush for 100 yards – but he did post his first 100-yard receiving game of the season.

•Buffalo quarterback J.P. Losman’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Lee Evans with 66 seconds left spoiled Chicago’s shutout bid in a 40-7 victory. It also was the first touchdown pass allowed by the Bears this season.

•The Tennessee defense failed to post a sack for the second consecutive week and the third time in four weeks. The Titans have only seven sacks all season – and the inside push is gone with the suspension of tackle Albert Haynesworth.

•Terrell Owens failed to win his homecoming game Sunday against the Eagles, but LaVar Arrington succeeded up the road in New York. Playing against Washington for the first time in his seven-year career, Arrington made one tackle and broke up a pass in the Giants’ 19-3 victory over the Redskins. “We needed to get back on track no matter who we were playing,” Arrington said.

STAT OF THE WEEK

Third missed FG

Neil Rackers was automatic as automatic can be in 2005 when he kicked an NFL-record 40 field goals in 42 attempts for the Arizona Cardinals. But through five games this season he has more misses than he did in all of 2005 – three. He missed two in the second game against Seattle and a third Sunday against Kansas City. All three misses came from beyond 50 yards. Rackers pushed a 51-yarder wide right in the closing seconds that would have sent the game against the Chiefs into overtime.

An Interview with Derrick Goold

“I was built to be a beat writer…I like the idea you wake up each day not really knowing what’s ahead that day…I love the challenge that under duress you have to come up with a voice…I don’t mean inventing a voice under duress – I mean staying true to your voice under duress.”

“If ten sportswriters are in the same room they might not have one trait in common – except curiosity. And confidence probably – you see varying degrees of confidence. Maybe you have to have resolve in knowing what you write is… correct. Sometimes when you’re being thrown a lot of spin you have to have the resolve that you know what the story is.”

“Albert (Pujols) has developed some assumptions about the media and every reporter that approaches him has to get through those assumptions first. Being respectful of his schedule is a start. Asking engaging – and not even “soft”, but pointed questions – helps. Patience and persistence can pay off, but not as much as picking the right day and the right topic.”

Derrick Goold: Interviewed on January 31, 2007

Position: Cardinals beat reporter, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Born: 1975, Elgin, Ill.

Education: University of Missouri, 1997, journalism and liberal arts.

Personal: Married, one child.

Career: New Orleans Times-Picayune 1097-2000; Rocky Mountain News 2000-2001, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2001 –

Favorite restaurant (home): Tanner-B’s, St. Louis “inventive Americana – nice old bar appeal, good ambience, creative comfort food”

Favorite restaurant (road): Jacquimo’s, New Orleans “a sportswriter haunt – to get to your seat you have to walk through the kitchen – it ‘s cruel because you cannot order everything you see – just a fun place – if they run out of tables they pull up a pickup truck out back and seat you”; J.G. Melon’s, NY “best burgers I’ve found on any beat I’ve covered – NBA, NHL, or MLB – recommend the cottage fries and two burgers – splurge – they are that good.”

Favorite hotel: Renaissance Harborside, Vancouver “ a great hotel – overlooking the water – you can walk to the city – wonderful”

Derrick Goold excerpted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 14, 2007.

While nowhere near as intensive as the pre-game mummy treatment David Eckstein needed to play in the World Series, the little shortstop that did had some prep work to do before Saturday’s autograph marathon.

Lessons learned from signings and blisters past, he clipped and filed the nails on his right hand and meticulously wrapped each fingertip in a Band-Aid.

Eckstein then signed for more than five hours.

The Cardinals are considering their approach to having him sign something a little less rigorous in the near future.

The World Series MVP and two-time All-Star is entering the final year of the three-year deal he signed with the Cardinals before 2005. Assistant general manager John Mozeliak confirmed Saturday that the team has had preliminary discussions with Eckstein’s agent about a new contract. The chats were to gauge if the shortstop is interested in an extension, one that would most likely be negotiated during spring training.

Q. Nice segue from a signing session to Eckstein’s contract – were you happy with that story?

A. I may have muffed it. There’s a possibility I buried the lead in that story.

Q. The news element was lukewarm – aren’t you being hard on yourself?

A. I second-guess myself constantly. I pick apart sentences – trying to see if they can be more muscular. Sometimes there’s no reason to.

Q. So style important to you?

A. There are two elements to the job – reporting and writing. Usually the better the reporter the better the writer. If anything voice and style has become more important because readers can get play-by-play, and stats and scores online – in any mode they want. What they get from the Post-Dispatch has to be more – and part of that has to be quality of writing. I would lie if I said I didn’t agonize over some sentences or smirk when I get a sentenced right, because style is important. A nice compliment to get is when people say ‘I know you wrote this without reading the byline’. I would like to be known as an excellent writer. Not saying I will be – but that’s a goal.

Q. Will the Cardinals re-sign Eckstein?

A. They’re going to talk to him about an extension – it will happen during spring training. The Cards have a pretty good track record of working out an extension with their own guys when they make it a priority. Both guys realize if it’s done early in the season it’s mutually beneficial. Eckstein has been an All-Star here and he was MVP on a World Series team. He was the engine of a lot of things they do and Cardinal Nation has a crush on him. There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense to work it out – I don’t see why they wouldn’t.

Q. How do you cover Albert Pujols, who is not usually talkative?

You try and cover him as best you can. Being around him on a daily basis, you do get a feel for his schedule — when he’s on his way to hit, when he’s on his way to eat, and when it’s best to attempt to get some time with him or a comment from him. He describes the ballpark as “his office” and creates a cocoon around him because he can.

Albert, however, will surprise you. He’s just as likely to curse at you or yell at you as he is to sit down and talk for a long time about several subjects. Last year, he was standing at his locker, chatting with a throng of media and he brought up drug-testing and steroids and even condemned reporters who question his age. It led to a story that essentially opened with Pujols saying he was clean and that MLB could test him every day. The year before, another reporter and I engaged in a long conversation with Albert about why he dislikes the media and how he was learning to become a leader in the clubhouse.

Albert has developed some assumptions about the media and every reporter that approaches him has to get through those assumptions first. Being respectful of his schedule is a start. Asking engaging – and not even “soft”, but pointed questions – helps. Patience and persistence can pay off, but not as much as picking the right day and the right topic.

Q. You recently put together a list of the Cardinals top 30 prospects for Baseball America – how much time did it take?

A. Lots. I spent weeks working on it. You’re dealing with a massive amount of information. I’m the type of guy who always feels there’s one more call to make – I probably push it too far. It’s a long process.

Q. Are you paid fairly for your time?

A. Interesting question. You get paid well enough. Benefits compensate the rest. I’m one of the Cardinals beat writers, and knowledge of the minor league system is important to my career, and my job, because it helps around the trade deadline, and it helps understand what’s going on in spring training, and it puts you in touch with the younger players. These are players who will be on the team in three years and when they land in the clubhouse I will know them. That’s a tangible benefit. It puts you in touch with members of the organization you should talk to but you’re so consumed during the season you don’t, even though it shouldn’t be that way. It’s valuable to me to be in touch with these people regularly – there are things you can learn – there’s no such thing as an empty interview. Every opportunity you have to talk to somebody about the team of the future is beneficial to covering the team now.

Q. Is covering the beat more intricate than fans realize?

A. It’s not just covering the games and knowing how to figure out an ERA. Sometimes it’s reading a CBA – there are a lot of intricacies to covering a team. Part of it is the fact that the Cardinals are important to the city – there is limitless interest in the Cardinals – not only all the way down to the minor league system but also in their business side and the details of the new stadium, and what some of the guys do with their charities. There’s really no such thing as over-covering the Cardinals.

Something people may not realize is how varied our days can be. One of the reasons you get into sportswriting is you cover not only games but also features and enterprise and you also have the possibility of covering cops and courts. Last year I covered a lawsuit here in St. Louis – in federal district court – about stats and fantasy baseball. I covered a ‘murder for hire’ trial – Mike Danton in hockey. I like the fact that you have to be tested under deadline fire but also have a chance to develop a long takeout feature. Sometimes it makes for a frenetic day as you cover all the things at once, but that goes with it, too.

One thing young sportswriters don’t realize is how many hats you have to wear, and the instant expertise you have to develop. The only way is to get experience. You can’t prepare for some things you have to cover. I found myself at a medical school library looking up wrist surgery for one story. It’s part of the thrill. Look at baseball right now. How many sportswriters ten years ago would have thought they would have a working knowledge of pharmaceutical reports and the definition of precursors? How many sportswriters ten years ago would have thought about whether there’s a blood test or urine test for HGH? That’s the job – it’s fascinating.

Q. Are you saying there’s no blueprint for the job?

A. I go speak at classrooms and they ask what kind of education you need. Education is fantastic but you can be a sportswriter with a political science degree as well as a journalism degree. Experience is the key. That’s the deal.

Q. What kind of personality does it take to succeed as a sportswriter?

A. A lot of different personalities can succeed. If ten sportswriters are in the same room they might not have one trait in common – except curiosity. And confidence probably – you see varying degrees of confidence. Maybe you have to have resolve in knowing what you write is not only going to be entertaining and have style and voice but that it’s also right and correct. Sometimes when you’re being thrown a lot of spin you have to have the resolve that you know what the story is. How that manifests depends on the person.

It helps to have passion – sometimes for newspapering – sometimes for the sports you cover – but somewhere in there you have to have passion because the hours and demands are so much. Passion is what drives you. Some guys have passion for the game they cover and some have passion for the job of journalism and sometimes guys have passion for both.

Q. What about you?

A. Probably passion for both. I know that newspapering is in my blood. The sports I grew up with and am most comfortable around is baseball – and always has been. Those were two constants. If you peel back my life before I realized what was going on it was starting a school newspaper, and watching baseball and having my dad hit line drives to me any chance he had.

Q. Where did you grow up?

A. Outside Boulder – Louisville, Colorado. I started a newspaper at my elementary school just for kicks, and I worked on the newspaper in high school, and on The Maneater at Missouri. I wrote for the Maneater and drew cartoons all four years.

Q. How do you balance this passion for your job with the rest of your life?

A. Good question. I’m not sure I do a good job – maybe I should pass the phone to my wife. It can be a 24/7 job. There’s no prescribed time for news to break and it’s a competitive business. You’re not just competing with what’s on the news that night or the in the paper tomorrow morning, you’re competing with what could be on a website 15 minutes from now – there’s a element of not just having the pulse of news but of being able to quicken the pulse of news – so you get that story out before anybody else.

A scoop in the paper is fantastic but it’s becoming more rare. The competitive nature of this business means there’s a 24-hour call to action – you deal with that in addition to the time commitment of being at the ballpark, which is 3 o’clock to whenever the game ends. And now thrown into the mix is all the mult-media stuff required of reporters – radio to TV to online – those are additional time commitments. Most reporters will spend time in the morning catching up and making beat calls like in the days of yore – you don’t lose that element of keeping up with scouts and G.M.s and things you need to know to parlay into a Sunday story or notes or a long-range feature. It’s become kind of a scattershot job – it can steal an hour there or a day there – and there’s really no off-season.

I’ve been asked if this off-season was harder because the Cards won the World Series. Yeah, maybe so, because there were more enterprise and feature stories to do, and more general thematic stories. But actually the work wasn’t all that different. I’m still trying to break news around the clock – there’s no off-season dead period.

Q. Do you get a vacation?

A. The last three years my wife and I have stolen some vacation time in January. We’ve been going out of the country so my cell phone doesn’t work. We got back from London a week ago. We have a little kid now, almost nine months old. You learn to treasure the time you do have but also to maximize what you can do. The cell phone helps – you’re not shackled to the desk during the free agency period. This year you could exchange text messages for an interview – I had never done that before. You can’t quote it, but at least you can keep up with what’s happening. Now you’re starting to see interviews with e-mails.

Q. What’s your paper’s policy about using e-mails in interviews?

A. My experience is that you write it was from an e-mail. There are times you are sent a statement via e-mail and you write what the person said. If it’s an e-mail in and of itself you write that it came from an e-mail.

Q. Writers you admire?

A. The SI guys – Gary Smith and Tom Verducci – both have a tremendous turn of phrase. (ESPN’s) Buster Olney’s book was fantastic – he has a nice touch with feature stories. Joe Strauss and Rick Hummel (Post-Dispatch) – it’s hard to find two guys who write better game stories. I’ve had the pleasure of working with the last two Spink winners (Hummel and Tracy Ringolsby of the Rocky Mountain News) in my last two jobs. I love Michael Lewis’ new book.

Paul Sullivan at the (Chicago) Tribune has a wit I’m jealous of. We got Gerry Fraley on board here and he’s strong. John Shea (SF Chronicle). Nick Cafardo and Gordon Edes (Boston Globe). If you’re looking for baseball coverage – for depth and expertise – you have to swing by the Globe. It’s tremendous what they do – probably what baseball coverage should aspire to be. I like to think we do a good job at the Post-Dispatch but if you look at the breadth and depth of coverage they offer a hungry, hungry fan base it’s very strong. I would be remiss not to mention the guys in Denver – Jack Etkin (Rocky Mountain News) as a national writer has such a strong feel for the game – he has such a great scope for the leagues. Troy Renck of the Post is a dogged reporter – the competition there makes both papers better.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo. He finds stories off the beaten path that more people should look for. Another Yahoo writer, Josh Peters – I worked with him at the Times-Pic – broke the story on the unnamed (SF Chronicle) informants in the Bonds case. He is one of the most inventive and unrelenting investigative reporters I’ve worked with – very nimble with sources but also able to find the information – he uses every entrance to get information. The other guy is Jeff Duncan (Times-Picayune) – the Saints beat writer – go back and look at his coverage of Katrina – at what he did staying on when everybody else evacuated. He’s the best example of the chops a very good beat writer brings to the table. Beat writers are journalists – you can throw them into whatever needs to be covered – and he is one of the best.

I’m partial to beat writers. A book agent talked to me about something that never came to fruition – they said to me ‘we’d be more comfortable if you were a magazine writer’. I said, ‘great, but you’re really missing something – there are a lot of great writers covering beats’. You might miss their great story because they’re asked to write dozens of articles and their high batting average reveals how truly great their writing is – and that’s lost too much.

There are a lot of beat writers out there who are exceptional writers and their body of work shows it – but if you pick the Thursday they had to write a rain delay story and file it 30 minutes before the game was done and that’s the story you read and judge them on – or a notebook – don’t confuse that with their ability. There’s more going on than just an ability to convey news and the nuggets of the day. These are quality writers – part of the reason is they get more practice than anybody. A lot of strong writers developed their voices by being a beat guy.

Q. Is the beat hard on your health?

A. It can be. You can eat a bad diet – you might be eating pretzels while writing at the airport. But I have a hard time going into that litany without saying that we get paid to cover a game we enjoy. We’re away from our families for seven or eight weeks for spring training, but at the end of the day we’re still covering a game. We get to see history, sometimes on consecutive days and at most places we have a good seat for it. And every day we get to chronicle it – it’s worth the 5. a.m. flights.

Q. You like being a beat writer?

A. I was built to be a beat writer – that’s just how I feel. There’s a prolific-ness – it’s a skill to be prolific – and I like the variety you find in beat writing. I like the idea you wake up each day not really knowing what’s ahead that day. You can be scouring police reports – one day I wrote a story on the oldest living ballplayer – Roland Stiles – and I was at his apartment having him tell me stories about pitching to Babe Ruth. Two weeks later I was doing a Q&A with the Cards’ top prospect. It’s a fascinating job.

I love the challenge that under duress you have to come up with a voice, while also under space constraints. You have to make a 12-inch story sing, and it’s easier to make a 30-inch story sing than a 12-inch.

Q. But isn’t your voice a constant – something that doesn’t have to be re-invented for each story?

A. I don’t mean inventing a voice under duress – I mean staying true to your voice under duress. You’re not conjuring a voice on a daily basis. The challenge is can I write it fast and well.

In sports a voice is more accepted, even though they call it the playpen, the form is better for voice than if you’re covering a City Council meeting. I remember covering a DUI – a guy was killed the day after his wedding invitations went out – and I was thinking this is not where I want to be. Should you write that story with style? Sure, and also with compassion, but I would much rather turn a story about a shortstop.

Q. Are blogs your competition?

A. I don’t know. I just did a survey for a professor at Ole Miss – about professional journalists who have blogs – some still writing for a paper and some who have left. If I say that blogs aren’t competition I don’t mean it to come across as a slight, but I do think blogs can be something we learn from. Blogs can be so specific – some Sabr-metric, some rumor mills, some personalities, some informative. Some are expanding now to fill the holes in our coverage – in that sense maybe they are competition. But more so they should be a lesson in what niches we aren’t covering and how maybe we should cover those. There’s no place in the paper for ‘my life as the Cardinals beat reporter’ – that’s not a forum we can contend with nor should we be.

The beauty of blogs is offering a medium and a voice – an outlet that wasn’t there before. That said, some blogs are covering minor leagues and doing interviews with minor league players and breakdowns of minor league lineups. Could we do a better job of covering the minor leagues? That’s something we talk about improving. Part of the thing that spurs me to ask that question is that blogs have looser rules than newspapers, so there are some things they can do before us and write without repercussions. I have seen many inaccurate news reports on blogs that they don’t apologize for that in the paper would have been more than a correction. It’s such a different medium it’s hard to call it competition. But we have something to learn from it.

Q. Do you read blogs?

A. Sure, some. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t have a feel for what fans are talking about. All of these things are tools we can use. They’re going to come across some stat you didn’t know, or link to some article you didn’t find. The newspaper isn’t a monolith – it’s part of the city – we would be remiss if we didn’t access fans. If you get a question that spurs a story, that’s fantastic.

(SMG thanks Derrick Goold for his cooperation)

Describe your pool of reliable sources?

How will your job be affected by the cards winning the world series?

What’s the hardest part about covering the cardinals beat?

Answering e-mails. Not awful. How many? Hard to say depends on what going on with cards or what we wrote recnelty. Can change. You find hotbutton topics – you find certain times – dtrade deadline tends to bring out the most – people try to float urmos to you or by your or get you to confirm or refut a rumor. Or they like to giv eyou opinion on what card should do.

How do you ask tough questions?

What’s your policy on using non-attributed information?

Who can you go to in the cards clubhouse?

Sports

Eckstein works hard autographing

By Derrick Goold ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

625 words

14 January 2007

Derrick Goold excerpted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 14, 2007.

While nowhere near as intensive as the pre-game mummy treatment David Eckstein needed to play in the World Series, the little shortstop that did had some prep work to do before Saturday’s autograph marathon.

Lessons learned from signings and blisters past, he clipped and filed the nails on his right hand and meticulously wrapped each fingertip in a Band-Aid.

Eckstein then signed for more than five hours.

The Cardinals are considering their approach to having him sign something a little less rigorous in the near future.

The World Series MVP and two-time All-Star is entering the final year of the three-year deal he signed with the Cardinals before 2005. Assistant general manager John Mozeliak confirmed Saturday that the team has had preliminary discussions with Eckstein’s agent about a new contract. The chats were to gauge if the shortstop is interested in an extension, one that would most likely be negotiated during spring training.

“Right now we’ve had just peripheral talks,” Mozeliak said, elaborating on a question he was asked during his session with fans at the 11th annual Winter Warm-Up. “Nothing has been set in stone. I think just moving ahead at some point we’re going to have to look into it.”

Eckstein said: “I would like to have the opportunity to explore something. That’s something that the Cardinals will have to want to talk about. So we’ll see. I love this place. It is very family-oriented, it is very much a family.”

The Ecksteins have made this weekend a family affair.

In addition to his wife and her parents visiting St. Louis this weekend, Eckstein’s mother Patricia, father Whitey and two sisters – Susan and Christine – have a booth at the Warm-Up, selling David’s book, “Have Heart.” Eckstein rewrote the book after winning his second World Series. The publisher, Builder’s Stone Publishing, is actually the Eckstein family.

“It’s more than just David’s story; it’s our family’s story,” Patricia Eckstein said. “We’re here because we do everything as a family.”

Said David Eckstein: “My family doesn’t get to do a lot of things together. This is a good holiday to get out and get together.”

The Ecksteins as a family feel adopted by Cardinal Nation, with Patricia being asked to pose for photographs and people recognizing Whitey and her at the airport as far back as the final weekend of old Busch Stadium. Winter Warm-up was a new experience for them, and they manned their booth as Eckstein signed some 400 autographs, amidst posing for photos, talking on a fan’s cell phone and offering to sign something else to spur the bidding at a live auction.

He then met with the media and said he’s all healed.

Before each World Series game, Eckstein underwent a series of treatments to bind and salve his various injuries. He received a cortisone shot in his left shoulder and his entire left side was wrapped. He also had daily acupuncture.

After he drove off with the MVP award, rest was prescribed. The shoulder has mended. The hamstring ache that bit into his September is long gone. The strained oblique that put him on the disabled list has vanished and he began swinging a bat on Dec. 26.

“Everything feels great right now after taking the extra time off,” Eckstein said.

Baseball

You just ranked the cardinals top 30 prospects – how did you report that?

That’s for bb amrercia. Free lance is par tof opportunity and repsonsiblity, oine of free lance jobs I hae that I enjoy – I gerw up reading bb amreica – writi8ng for prospect handbook – asked me to write fr it for first time – probably more than I thought it would be to be honest

I started going through stats – making notes on every player – wasn’t best orgnazioatn – I have stack of 3 by 5 cards to organize my access to players – one for each player – jotting down n otes on them, stats I saw or interviews I dd – most I talked to through year – minor league reporets for p-d or org roeproets for BA – talked ot as many ppl with oponins, minor league magrs, scouts, officals, reviews from scouts and reviww from managers, anonymous stuff that helped shape more detailed scouting reports, – cast a wide net and get as much info as you can – not only number son bb card – some finer point numbers – balls in play , whips – things you cant ge tin boxscore- how many pitcher they threw, how mnay consstntely. Now many major league qulity pitches, what is he learning. Is he starting with oine pitch and will he morph into reliever by double a o tripel a – you cant get this from one person – dissserivce talking ton e perison – sometimes conflicting – everybody does not see same thing in perispec t- very few unaminous op on prpesepct – you got with who you trust – sometimes a blend of diff opionons – obiovu concsnesus about rasum – diff op on picher like trey hearne – tremenoud production but in his words but in his words doenst light up radar gun

Do cards have a list one to 30?

Probably not. They might if they wanted to do it as exercise. But going to deal with depth chart rather tan pure ranking. Little reason to rank pitchers alongside pos players. Lots of reason to keep depth chart. What would org get from top 30. chris perez and haime Garcia are top 5 prospects but guys who are rnaked lcoser to 20 or 30 range much closer to majors than either of htos etwo. Prospects youre reanking what has gjy done but also what can he do. Org has to think this guy has done this stuff and is in positon to do this by this date. They’re thinking what need do we need to address in 07. not to say they don’t think ahead. But it’s more adepth chart and a schedule of arrivals and less a ranking of whose the best in the org.

But it’s great for a parolor game. Gets everybody talking and enc more knowledge of system as whole. Player si didn’t rank but I disc becuasea I was tyring to find out if they belonged in top 30.

How many overall were considsred?

I went through all draft picks – you cull it down – about 40-45 names belong on there and then you shave it down to 30.