Posted in Media
12 comments
08/24 2010

Study: Baseball Doesn’t Trust Bloggers. There’s A Shock.

Posted by Dan Levy.

Maury Brown at The Biz of Baseball has a story today quoting a study indicating that baseball doesn’t trust bloggers. We needed a STUDY for that?

The particulars: independent bloggers — more on that term later — have the most difficult time getting credentialed for events and games. That’s no surprise. What is surprising, however, is that the report indicates that bloggers who are affiliated with major media outlets aren’t “trusted” as much as their mainstream counterparts. In other words, a writer for a newspaper has, per this report, gained more trust with those handing out credentials than a blogger for the same paper.

This is more wide-spread than most people know. In Philadelphia, The 700 Level was recently purchased by Comcast SportsNet and has a credential to get into the press box, but NOT a credential to get into the clubhouse. The reason? The Phillies don’t let bloggers in the clubhouse.

While it’s understandable to be leery of letting some independent writers into the clubhouse, it seems rather ridiculous to not allow an employee of the network that carries 80% of your games to have every advantage a traditional ink and paper reporter is given.

Having said that, the paragraph below was written by someone who is allowed in the clubhouse because she is a traditional media reporter…yet she posted this – as part of an explanation of an almost-as-inflamatory blog entry about Jayson Werth – on a blog (July 20th):

I’m by no means saying the Phillies should trade Werth because of how he treats the media. I’m saying that his problems go way beyond the way he is with us. He said the F-word to that fan the other day, he hardly looks like he cares out on the field and believe me, many other things go on, that as reporters, we can’t talk about.

We can’t talk about? How can someone write that? That’s as bad as a prosecutor telling a jury that the defendant has a litany of other crimes he can’t discuss. You’ve opened the door, yet by not talking about specifics, you’ve actually made it worse because imaginations will run wild with how horrible the offense must be if you can’t talk about it. In the clubhouse. Where you are allowed to be. But bloggers aren’t.

More from The Biz:

Avery Holton, a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, surveyed 127 professional baseball teams from every organizational level to measure their “trust” in various media and how they responded to requests for press passes. Team media relations officials were asked to rank their trust in media ranging from the traditional to the non-traditional.

Holton developed a “trust index” to provide an unbiased picture of trust. The results showed a large divide between the levels of trust team management places in traditional media and bloggers.

Here is where the term “independent” gets a bit muddled. Brown notes that, “[m]any independent bloggers, such as MLBTradeRumors.com and Yahoo! Sports, have upward of two million pages views daily and represent some of the Internet’s heaviest traffic, yet they rank far behind traditional media on trust and are the most likely group to be rejected (29 percent) for a press pass vs. traditional media (8 percent).”

Yahoo is considered an independent blog? I can all but guarantee that Kevin Kaduk has not been denied any credential while at Yahoo. Having said that, it’s a wonder where sites like SB Nation fall in on their level of credential request acceptance. Are they independent still?

The bottom line is that studies like this never truly reflect each team and how they deal with the change in coverage concerning new media. It must be taken on a case-by-case basis. Is Mark Zuckerman of Nats Insider independent media? Yes, but only because his job at the Washington Times was cut. That doesn’t mean the quality of his work has suffered one bit, so does it suddenly mean he’s less trustworthy?

Maybe to baseball it does.

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Posted on August 24, 2010 at 11:39AM

 

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  1. Unsilent Majority
    08/24 2010

    You’d think that at some point Avery would have attempted to define the term “independent” as it pertains to the survey.

  2. Will Carroll
    08/24 2010

    Agree. My post on this from last week about defining bloggers speaks to this issue exactly. I’m a member of the BBWAA and have access to clubhouses, yet I’ve also been rebuffed by teams on very simple interview requests because I worked for a website.

  3. Jerod Morris
    08/24 2010

    I’m still miffed I can’t get access to the Phillies clubhouse. What’s up with that? (Actually, I’m not kidding. I didn’t even make any accusations, regardless of what you may have heard, yet the Phillies have credentialed reporters writing BS like that excerpt above about Werth? Lame.)

  4. Kevin McGuire
    08/24 2010

    Great topic of conversation. I will say that while I am far below the likes of our mutual friends at The 700 Level, I have been privileged with a full media credential with the Philadelphia Union through my association with Montgomery Media. We started up a community sports blog (secondstringblog.com) and applied for a media credential for the expansion soccer team. Maybe it is because the demand is not as high as it would be for the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers etc. but the Union have allowed me full access, including locker room, post game pressers and a seat in the press box.

    I will say that I have been warned about possibly losing my credential due to my comments on a local telecast recently but for the most part it has worked out well.

    What I am getting at is that the blogosphere is clearly expanding in terms of coverage available to fans and it would be wise for teams and leagues to re-evaluate where they stand on these issues. Not all blogs are the same. If a team does the research to differentiate blogs from each other then maybe they can judge which sites would be appropriate to allow in a locker room.

    Not letting The 700 Level in seems like a mistake. Not letting Zoo With Roy in is another story (with no disrespect aimed at ZWR of course).

  5. Kyle Scott
    08/24 2010

    I think you need to look at the other side of this too. Blogs don’t really need the inside access. In this age of Twitter- for better of worse- we can get the same news in real-time while sitting at home. This is one of the reasons we’ve been successful, relatively quickly. You have a hundred different writers (which we’ll always source), tweeting a quote, comment, or picture. We’ve been good at taking that nugget and turning it into a digestible form, padded with snark, long before a paper, website, or TV station. Why would I want to be there in person, when I can get the same information while sitting at the ready? You do miss out on that “inside” stuff, but as you alluded to above, that’s usually not stuff you can print anyway.

    Twitter is essentially the 10′s newswire. If you’re good at it and dedicated to it, you can be more timely, simply by padding news nuggets that come in- what media outlets have been doing for all of time.

    I’ve covered major DI basketball, the Flyers, and other events, and in no way did I gain more knowledge than sitting at my Twitter feed. Now, it does afford you the opportunity to ask the questions YOU want, but really, you can be very successful and timely just using these “nuggets” that come through.

    Probably the reason ESPN tried to ban its reporters from Tweeting stories before they went live…

    Back to the original topic- the reason teams won’t let bloggers in, is probably because we’re not afraid to take shots at players (I’m guilty) because we don’t have to look them in the eye. Vet a blogger and let him in, and my guess is that changes. You control the access- you control the content. Something I’m not sure I really want. A very Will Leitch like argument.

  6. Kyle Scott
    08/24 2010

    thought this would be included above- i run crossingbroad.com, that’s what i meant by “we”

  7. Will Carroll
    08/24 2010

    Re: Kevin, above — if a team is saying credentials can be pulled because of negative coverage, that’s just wrong. If you’re saying factual things in a professional manner, that should never even be addressed. If you’re saying “this team sucks and Jones is a douche”, that’s a whole different thing. A team doesn’t owe you anything special, but they should let you do your job.

  8. Will Carroll
    08/24 2010

    Re: Kyle – I agree, you don’t need it if you want to do that, but if all you aspire to is secondary sourcing and snark, that’s fine. I can do 99% of what I do via phone, text, email, Twitter, etc, but there are times when I do want to ask a player something or sit in on a press gaggle.

  9. Dan Levy
    08/24 2010

    I also think it’s worth noting that we can do our jobs at home because there are people at the games doing their jobs. I couldn’t do what I do if there wasn’t a TV crew and announcers, or beat writers or, heck, columnists I can rip on working the game.

    Also, it depends on the job. I know that many sites get their best traffic from events that happen at the stadium…even if it’s in the stands. Sometimes it is necessary to be at the games.

  10. Kyle Scott
    08/24 2010

    Dan, I agree with the first part of what you said- I couldn’t do this without people doing their jobs. Fair point. The world we live in today has created this wild west of sorts, that gives bloggers the ability beat media outlets, based on information, that reporters from said media outlets reported. All very weird. Plus, like you said. We can rip on them.

    Probably disagree with the second part. I have much better luck posting that happens at a game while I’m at home. Sure you can get lucky to see the stuff in person, but 90% of the time it’s either on TV or someone posted it online. Being there at the computer really allows you to get it up and out there long before anyone else. That type of stuff you really couldn’t do with good conscience from a press box.

    Will, completely agree there are times you want to be there. But rarely would I gain much from it. imo. the benefits of snagging others info (right or wrong) far outweigh the negatives of not being there. I’ve pursued the “traditional” route, for me, secondary sourcing works just fine and I can honestly say that I’m fine with that. I don’t look at it as “aspiring” to be only that. I’ve done the other site, went to a good school, had the opportunity, but I felt that I would just be another media member. I’m trying to differentiate it, use the fan’s voice BUT not be so careless as to be wrong or unfair. The minute I get in a press box, my voice changes. And that’s not saying I want to be reckless, but want to stir the pot, be entertaining, and create something that has some smarts behind it.

  11. Greg Wyshynski
    08/24 2010

    Can’t speak for Kaduk, but I can assure you that simply writing a blog for Yahoo! does not open every press box door in the NHL for yours truly.

  12. Avery Holton
    08/24 2010

    This is an absolutely terrific article with a great thread of comments. I should point out the study does, in fact, define the differences in traditional media, mainstream bloggers, and independent bloggers. However, the study also notes that exacting a definition can be difficult, much as everyone has pointed out.

    As the author of the study, I’d really like to hear more feedback for future planned studies. Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments, suggestions, questions, etc. at averyholton@gmail.com.