Sports journalists have long enjoyed close—many would say too close—relationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that could delegitimate journalists.
Original Title
Tensions in the Press Box: Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications Professionals in Intercollegiate Athletics
Sports journalists have long enjoyed close—many would say too close—relationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that could delegitimate journalists.
Sports journalists have long enjoyed close—many would say too close—relationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that could delegitimate journalists.
Tensions in the Press Box: Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications Professionals in Intercollegiate Athletics
David Welch Suggs, Jr. University of Georgia 2014, all rights reserved
Tensions in the Press Box 2
Abstract: Sports journalists have long enjoyed closemany would say too closerelationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that could delegitimate journalists.
Keywords: Sports journalism, institutionalism, college sports, sport media, sport communications Tensions in the Press Box 3
Tensions in the press box: understanding relationships between journalists and communications professionals in intercollegiate athletics
Introduction
The media credential is a key signifier of status at a sporting event. Dangling from lanyards or flapping from belt loops, the small placards tell everyone who sees them that the bearer can go to restricted places, take pictures or record video, and enjoy special access to players and coaches. The issue of access symbolized by the credential is most obvious and perhaps most routinized in sports, but it is a primary concern for journalists on all beats, including government, business, and education. Access to decision-makers, elite sources, takes place through a complex network of spokespeople and representatives, and reporters in turn depend on such access for news content as well as prestige. 1 Access is a value-laden concept: While governmental officials must speak in public and individuals may be required to speak with law enforcement, nobody is required to provide special access to the media. Access can be subject to custom, as with sports reporters in locker rooms, or as a form of quid pro quo between source and reporter that can compromise standards of objectivity. Many recent reports suggest that journalists on a range of beats are experiencing reduced access to elite sources. 2 According to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one out of every five journalists who had applied for an organizational credential was denied at least once. 3 Washington reporters have complained about being frozen out Tensions in the Press Box 4
by the public-affairs offices originally created to serve them. 4 A recent survey of journalists in education found that communications professionals regulated access to the point of interfering in reporting. 5 And SCOTUSBlog.com, the Peabody Award-winning outlet covering the U.S. Supreme Court, recently had its credentials revoked because it was deemed not to be an independent news organization. 6
The realm of sports is perhaps the most institutionalized field within media, given the decades in which credentials, press conferences and locker-room availabilities have been key elements of work patterns. Here, too, trends are threatening the traditionally broad level of access granted to reporters. In 2014, Clemson Universitys sports- communications department produced a mission statement that read, in part, It will always be of importance to treat the media professionally and provide them with the tools to do their jobs. However, it is not the singular focus or even foremost priority of our department. 7
The past decade has witnessed seen two primary threats to access in sports, specifically American intercollegiate athletics. The first has been sports organizations claiming that reporters covering games in real time on the Internet infringes on broadcast rights. In 2007, the National Collegiate Athletic Association attempted to prevent reporters from publishing blog updates on baseball championships on these grounds. 8 The Southeastern Conference attempted to do the same in 2009. 9 And at the University of Washington, the athletics department in 2012 announced a cap on the number of social- media updates posted during games by credentialed media. 10 However; the NCAAs policy was rescinded, the SECs never has been enforced., and it does not appear that Tensions in the Press Box 5
reporters have been sanctioned at Washington or the University of Southern California, which also has such a cap. 11
Second, new online-only or online-primary organizations have sprung up to challenge traditional news outlets. Websites such as Rivals.com, BleacherReport.com, SBNation.com, 247.com, and Scout.com employ reporters who request the same kind of access as traditional media. The purpose of this study is to compare how sports journalists and the organizations they cover view and value access, independent reporting, and the autonomy of journalists to publish information when and how they come across it. Two surveys were conducted in the summer of 2013, one of independent media and another of sports- communications professionals, both in American college sports. As an exploratory study, the results will pertain most to the specific sphere of intercollegiate athletics, but the results have ramifications in the coverage of other sports and other beats.
Sports information The existing literature on sports and media is largely silent on the structure of relationships between sports organizations and media organizations. Historical views of sports and media focus on the efforts of reporters to protect sources, namely players, by not printing embarrassing information. 12
Most sports-information departments (known variously as sports information, sports communications, or departments of athletic media relations) are organized along the lines of a traditional news service bureau. Employees of such departments, known as SIDs or sports information directors, are considered to be the primary Tensions in the Press Box 6
spokespeople and public-relations officials within collegiate athletics departments and act as gatekeepers between teams and media. Because of the frequency of games and other events, SIDs tend to have formalized, routinized contact with independent media at contests, press conferences, and through interview requests with players and coaches far more frequently than media- relations officers in other sectors. Sports organizations "institutionalize contacts with journalists and again create a bridge between themselves and the news world," according to Theberge and Cronk. 13
Sports-communications personnel tend to place a premium on operating in Grunigs "public information" model of public relations. 14 Their jobs generally tend to be technical: They are expected to produce material for media and teams and manage requests from members of the media, but they are not central to departmental decision- making. 15 According to McClenaghan, independent media were historically the primary constituency of SIDs, but jobs have been reconfigured to focus more on marketing, and reporters themselves are deemed less important than donors and others. 16 By the mid- 1990s, SIDs also were overwhelmed by the growth of media outlets connected to athletics departments, such as cable and radio.
Sports journalists The history of sports media depicts a cozy relationship, wherein reporters had traveling and interviewing privileges with athletes and Godding up the players, in the words of Red Smith. 17 Writing in 1944, F.G. Menke asserted that newspapers had given sports-event promoters a golden bonanza by covering their events without charging for Tensions in the Press Box 7
advertising, as had been the case in the 19th century. 18 Newspapers invested in sports coverage in the early twentieth century because that and crime news were the top draws for audience. 19 Reporters in the 1960s and 1970s brought a more critical strategy to covering sports, questioning team decisions and covering labor unrest in baseball, among other topics. 20 While a few journalists earned the ire of teams and leagues, many more continued to cover teams glowingly, and many of the traditional practices have remained in place to this day. Studies have generally found sports journalists to be more credulous of and more protective of their sources than journalists in other fields. 21
Salwen and Garrison found that sports journalists tended to struggle with hallmarks of professionalism used by journalists as a whole, being slow to adopt codes of ethics and being more tolerant of questionable ethics such as accepting free trips and paraphernalia. 22 They, as well as Reed, saw progress made on the professional standards of sports journalists during the 1990s as the need to appear unbiased, willing to investigate, and aggressive on scoops supplanted previously cushy relationships with sources. 23 Anderson found the activities of sports journalists too complex to label as purely cheerleading for their sources, but "sports journalists who wanted to gain and maintain professional credibility had to do so while sustaining a close relationship with the source of information. 24
The research may indicate that sports journalists are more favorably disposed to their subjects than other journalists, but the challenge of maintaining access while trying to report impartially echoes the findings about the practice of, among other beats, political journalism. A growing body of work by theorists of political communication depicts journalists who occupy a curious spacepartly the fourth estate model of Tensions in the Press Box 8
participating in governance and partly negotiating an often vague and unregulated domain to construct news from a small group of sources with agendas of their own. 25
The neoinstitutional perspective Cook, Sparrow, and others frame their understanding of the news media as individual journalists choosing what to cover and how to cover it under conditions of considerable apparent freedom, which paradoxically results in news that is prevailingly similar in tone and content across organizations and platforms. Reporters appear to have latitude to create content to fill pages, consume broadcast minutes, and appeal to advertisers, and their work routines consist of constant decisions about how to gather facts and how to frame them. 26 These decisions are all constrained, however, by enduring, systemized principles mediated by other forces. Editors create professional expectations, sources share information shaped by their own agendas, and to be legitimized by both parties, reporters must conform to certain patterns of behavior and expectations, such as objectivity and factual accuracy. Stories, then, are homogenized by reporters dependency on a common set of sources; the professionalization of editors and senior reporters; and adherence to a set of norms. According to Cook, there is a basic uncertainty surrounding news and the status of those who create it. 27 Moreover each news organization (even one consisting of one individual writer/blogger) has the ability to decide what constitutes news. Instead, journalists attempt to obtain a level of authenticity on the news they publish by adhering to what Cook calls a series of rituals that protect objectivity, factuality, and other indicators of so-called journalistic ethics. 28 Among these rituals are the information Tensions in the Press Box 9
subsidies provided to the press in exchange for more favorable coverage, as described by Oscar Gandy, and to which reporters begin to feel entitled. 29 According to Cook, such have their origins in the political journalism of the nineteenth century. 30 To replace the practice of sponsoring partisan publications, political actors began to provide explicit entitlements favoring the bona fide press, such as favorable rates for periodicals, press bureaus at executive-branch agencies, and special press seating. 31
This framework is derived from neoinstitutional theory, found mostly in the literature of organizational sociology. From this perspective, a researcher examines the products, services, techniques, policies and programs that are defined by prevailing concepts of organizational work and have been deemed legitimate by society. 32 More specifically, organizations are shaped according to myths that have taken on a social power through various channels, such as public opinion, aphorisms transmitted through educational channels, or the assertions of dominant institutions. 33 Acceptance of such myths, particularly in an uncertain environment, occurs through isomorphic pressures that come from emulating more successful organizations; from new laws or political pressures; or from individuals within different organizations spreading common practices through professional networks. 34
Meyer and Rowan, in their foundational article, describe institutionalized organizations as being resistant to rational scrutiny and expectations. Instead, they are very mindful of external legitimization through ceremonial criteria, such as prizes and awards. Certification and accreditation processes also fall into this category, as does anything that demonstrates the social fitness of an organization. 35 What develops in an institutionalized field is a situation in which the activities of an organization are Tensions in the Press Box 10
decoupled from the formal organizational structure and rules. 36 Activities take place without the active oversight of managers, goals are made ambiguous, and ontological and teleological goals are separated. Neoinstitutionalist theory would posit that relationships between athletics departments, sports-communications offices, and independent media are mediated by this process of decoupling, and that subsidies are provided not according to rational process of whether media access and coverage serve the needs of the athletics program, but at the discretion of organizational actors. Those actors wield a great deal of power in their relationships with media organizations because of the strong level of legitimacy sports organizations enjoy with the public, as suggested by Meyer and Rowans proposition that societally-legitimated organizations are the ones able to command the resources and survival capabilities in the long run. 37
Access to elite sources is thus a form of media subsidy as described by Cook and Gandy. But it is subject to the tensions between formal organizational policiesthose permitting independent journalists to report and publish news about the organization and the desire of the team to minimize scrutiny and negative evaluation by outsiders. Thus, journalists must negotiate conditions of access with organizational actors.
Hypotheses and research questions The work of Cook and others suggest that sports reporters work in environments not dissimilar from journalists covering other beats, but routines and interactions tend to be more clearly defined and regularized than in other sectors. CEOs and senators do not Tensions in the Press Box 11
typically have weekly press briefings, but football and basketball coaches typically do. This leads to two key questions:
RQ1: Are there systematic differences in the perspectives of journalists and representatives of sports organizations on access?
RQ2: Are changes in the organizational fieldprimarily the growth of team media and online independent mediaaffecting how communications professionals and journalists understand access?
A neoinstitutionalist perspective on these issues leads to the following hypotheses:
H1: Institutionalized reporting and publishing practices will be viewed similarly by media and sources.
The basic practices of newsgathering and reporting have remained nominally unchanged in the realm of sports: Reporters are given credentials to attend games and events such as press conferences, and are granted access to players and coaches for interviews for both stories and features. In an institutionalized field, conditions under which credentials and interviews are granted should be commonly understood from both sides. If not, one would expect such practices to be undergoing a change process, shifting from one paradigm to another. Tensions in the Press Box 12
H2: Athletics departments tend to exercise discretion, rather than objective evaluation, of journalists in deciding whether to grant credentials.
If relationships between independent sports media and athletics programs have been institutionalized over time in the cultures of both types of organizations, the process of requesting and granting access have been routinized to the point that sports- communication officials make such decisions without formally evaluating the costs and benefits of such practices.
H3: Most sports organizations will attempt to minimize scrutiny and reject outside examination, unless it comes from an organization with too much power in the field to turn away.
If an organization is attempting to prevent or punish negative coverage, or if it is perceived as doing so, then it suggests the existence of rules of the game that have consequences for breaking them, even if no clear evidence suggests that such coverage actually harms the program. Of course, the First Amendment entitles American journalists to write what they want subject to certain restrictions, but teams and sports organizations also are free to decide not to speak with particular individuals. As such, the existence of rules in this space is evidence of institutionalization.
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H4: Additions of new channels of communication (i.e., owned and contracted media and social media) and new media competitors (i.e., independent websites) have not affected working conditions for reporters.
As implied in H1, institutionalized practices of access and freedom to publish have remained durable over the years, despite changes to the composition of major college sports, the rise of over-the-air television and then cable television, and the early days of the Internet. While social media might have the potential to de-institutionalize organizational relationships, if access and autonomy are strongly institutionalized concepts, then the advent of social media and new competitor platforms should not mean a difference in reporting practices.
Data and methods Assessing these questions was undertaken through two online surveys conducted in the summer of 2013. Participants for the first were recruited from the membership of the Football Writers Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, both of which agreed to solicit responses from their members. Both organizations include public-relations officers, event organizers, retired reporters, and student media as well as currently-employed media members, but the cohort was reduced to a combined population of 777 working media. After three invitations (one from organizational presidents and two from the author), 268 members of the media agreed to participate, for a total response rate of 34.5%. Tensions in the Press Box 14
The second survey was sent by CoSIDA, formerly the College Sports Information Directors Association, to 1,588 members on its Division I membership list (i.e., members working at institutions belonging to Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association) by the organizations interim director. Two follow-up requests also were sent by the author, resulting in 239 usable responses, for a response rate of 15.1%. The media survey instrument consisted of 84 items, and the instrument for sports- communications professionals consisted of 106 items. Hypotheses were tested using descriptive results of the survey as well as independent-sample t-tests to assess differences between journalists and SIDs or among journalists from different kinds of news outlets. All questions requested responses on a four-point Likert scale to require respondents to make judgments instead of remaining neutral. No previous measures from other studies could be found, so this should be considered an exploratory study. Each variable was represented in the survey by a minimum of two items and as many as six. Variables that did not return a Cronbachs alpha score of at least 0.70 were dropped from the study. Those used included the following:
H1: Similarity of perspectives on access issues Do reporters receive access to elite sources (i.e., coaches and athletes) outside of group press conferences? Does reporters access to elite sources exceed that of donors or boosters of the program? Tensions in the Press Box 15
Do journalists receive useful and relevant material from teams (journalists only)? Are seats for journalists are in advantageous positions, or have they have been moved?
H2 Lack of evaluation Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlets audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant credentials (SIDs only)? Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlets audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant interviews (SIDs only)? Do teams review the size and demographics of the audiences of the news outlets that cover them (SIDs only)?
H3: Avoidance of scrutiny/discretionary access Do reporters from big-name national outlets get better access than local beat reporters (journalists only)? Do reporters from outlets with larger audiences and those with better demographics get better access (journalists only)? Do reporters with good relationships with SIDs get exclusive access than those without? Can reporters can maintain access even writing critical stories (assuming they are accurately reported)? Tensions in the Press Box 16
Can reporters can publish injury information or other material they learn during practice or informally (noting the University of Southern California coachs attempt to ban a reporter mentioned above)?
H4: Structural changes Are reporters are subject to limits on the number of online (blogs or social media) posts they can publish during games? Had access has decreased since the signing of the athletics departments last broadcast contract? Has access has decreased over the course of a reporters career? Is access worse for bloggers and representatives of online news outlets, as opposed to those from traditional print and broadcast outlets? Do reporters get enough access to provide the coverage their editors and audience expect? Do athletics programs breaks their own news on the Internet or social media?
Table 1 provides summary data for each variable, including scores for each variables items.
[Insert Table 1 about here]
Results Participants Tensions in the Press Box 17
The sample skewed heavily male (93% for media, 79% for SIDs) and white (88% for media, 92% for SIDs), figures comparable to other studies of sports media. 38 Among media, the largest numbers of members of minority groups were in independent blogs (20% of all participants), while the largest representation of women was in sports publications (10%). Traditional news organizations tended to skew older, with 68% of participants from local news outlets reporting that they were at least 40 years old. Bloggers reflected just the opposite, with 68% reporting they were under age 40. Among SIDs, roughly 60% reported being under 40.
H1 SIDs and journalists disagreed in several ways that suggested that communications professionals believed that reporters had greater access than reporters themselves believed. While a majority of reporters (55%) believed that interviews with elite sources only took place in group settings or press conferencesi.e., not in one-on- one exclusive settingsover 87% of SIDs disagreed. Beliefs were consistent across three items, and t-tests showed significant differences (t (359) = -8.75, p < 0.001). A small but consistent majority of reporters (55%) said that they got better access than donors and supporters of programs. SIDs did not report consistent responses to this variable. Fifty percent of journalists reported that seats had been moved away from prime viewing areas, a subject of contention between journalist groups and the NCAA. However, 63% of SIDs disagreed, resulting in a statistically significant difference (t (359) = -4.06, p < 0.001). Tensions in the Press Box 18
Thus, disconfirming H1, the survey found clear evidence that reporters and SIDs disagreed on critical aspects of work and access. SIDs appear to believe that journalists have the kind of access to events and elite sources that is crucial for their jobs, a majority or plurality of journalists indicated that they did not.
H2 When asked about their own practices, SIDs did not report consistently on whether they took the size of a news outlets audience or demographics into account when deciding whether to grant credentials. A majority did report consistently that they did take these characteristics into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-one interviews (57%). A majority (59%) reported that their department had never reviewed the size or market penetration of the outlets that covered them. For their part, 80% of reporters agreed with the statement that journalists from national news outlets got better access than local beat writers, and 79% agreed that having a more desirable audience meant getting better access. Most journalists disagreed with the statement that having a good relationship with an SID was necessary for getting one-on-one access (60%), while SIDs did not report consistently on the statement. All of these suggest that there is little transparency or rational choice going on when a decision is being made whether to grant a particular reporter or news outlet access. While some athletics departments may be performing a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to granting interviews or other forms of access, the inconsistency being reported between journalists and SIDs suggests that these are unsettled issues across institutions. Tensions in the Press Box 19
H3 H3 states that sports organizations, like other kinds of organizations, will attempt to minimize scrutiny and reject outside examination. This is assessed primarily in terms of whether reporters are able to maintain access even while writing critical stories, assuming that these stories are factually accurate. Reporters themselves believed this was true: 83% said they could maintain access even after writing a critical story. SIDs answered the question inconsistently, with nearly all (96%) saying that reporters would maintain access, but 89% saying that reporters would not get access if they were working on a critical story. Neither reporters nor SIDs reported consistently whether limits had been put in place regarding publishing injury information or other news bits gleaned during practice sessions, as in the case that prompted Southern California coach Lane Kiffin to declare a reporter persona non grata. 39
H4 H4 states, in essence, that the institutionalized practices of sports media have been strong enough to withstand the new opportunities and challenges created by two forces: the popularization of the Internet in general and social media in particular, and the wave of new, munificent broadcast contracts signed between networks and athletic conferences. Both SIDs and journalists agreed consistently that their institutions and conferences to which they belonged had not established limits on blogs or other kinds of social media posted during contests; 89% of SIDs and 81% of journalists agreed with this Tensions in the Press Box 20
statement. Among the items testing this agreement, t-tests showed that consistently more SIDs than journalists agreed with this statement, suggesting that more journalists feel constrained than SIDs believe they are constraining journalists (t (356) = -2.81, p < 0.01). SIDs reported consistently that independent media had maintained the same access to elite sources that they had before the athletics department (or its conference) signed its latest broadcast contract, with 75% agreeing with that statement. Journalists also were consistent but evenly split: 50% reported that they had less access than they did prior to the signing of the latest broadcast contract. T-tests consistently showed that reporters said they received less access than SIDs reported they did. Moreover, journalists who reported that the program had recently entered into a new broadcast contract reported they had worse access than before at higher rates than those who reported that the program had not begun a new contract (t (362) = 8.23, p < 0.001). Generally speaking, reporters and SIDs agreed that online-only publications, including independent blogs and online networks such as Rivals.com and Scout.com had achieved enough legitimacy to receive credentials to events and access to interviews, with both groups agreeing with the statement that both traditional media and startup or online-only publications got credentials (77% of journalists and 76% of SIDs agreed). Roughly half of SIDs reported consistently that independent media receive news at the same time as they publish it online or via social media. Journalists did not report consistently on the matter, but t-tests on all three items showed more of them than SIDs believed that athletic programs did break news using their own channels before releasing to independent media (t (356) = 5.21, p > 0.001). Tensions in the Press Box 21
These findings suggest three things. First, new broadcast contracts and opportunities appear to be affecting the access of independent news media, at least according to those media themselves. Second, online media seem to have achieved enough legitimacy to gain the kind of access that traditional media enjoy. Third, as suggested in the findings for H1, sports communications professionals appear to believe that reporters have greater access than reporters themselves think they have. Taken together, these findings partially support H4, but they also indicate that reporters and SIDs have different definitions of the kind of work needed to produce valuable content for audiences. Barely half (54%) of journalists agreed with the statement that they got enough access to provide their audience with the coverage desired.
Discussion Seeing the newsgathering and publishing process as activities that take place in an institutional field helps make clear the organization-level dynamics that affect the quality of the work journalists can do, and thus their ability to perform the function of providing news and information to society. Specifically, access to sources, events and information occurs through the interaction of reporters and organizational representatives. These forms of access traditionally have been provided as a subsidy to encourage journalists to provide more information about the organization to their audiences. What neoinstitutionalist theory does not address is when institutionalized practices, such as the provision of subsidies, lose their legitimacy. The surveys found evidence that conflicts are creeping in between definitions of the adequacy of subsidies provided to sports journalists, indicating a lack of support for H1. Specifically, SIDs Tensions in the Press Box 22
tended to agree with the statement that journalists had the access they needed to do their work, while journalists themselves did not. Furthermore, the process of granting access and other subsidies seems relatively opaque. SIDs agreed that they took the audience of a news outlet into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-one interviews, but most of them did not review the reach or value of the media thus favored. Journalists themselves believed that having desirables did result in better access, but SIDs were inconsistent on that account. While exercising discretion, SIDs reported inconsistency on whether they would continue to maintain access if journalists published critical (albeit accurate) stories about their organizations. Reporters themselves did believe that they would continue to receive access under such circumstances, one of the few cases in which they reported believing they had greater access than SIDs reported them having. This speaks to a level of strategy in decoupling work practices from the nominally-accepted rules in the environment. While Hirsch and Bermiss discuss strategic decoupling in the context of nation-level institutions, individuals can adopt strategies of decoupling as organizational actors negotiating with others in the field. 40 In this case, SIDs have the autonomy to operate with discretion when it comes to granting access to journalists, thanks to the tremendous public interest in their teams and organizations. As such, they can base access decisions on parochial needs rather than adhering to commonly-accepted standards or measurable strategic goals for their organizations. Also, some subsidies appear to be more durable than others. While munificent and expansive new broadcast contracts appear to have had some impact on the access of independent journalists, athletics departments did not appear to be using the Internet or Tensions in the Press Box 23
social media to bypass independent journalists and direct information subsidies at a wider public, such as fans or donors. Also, very few journalists or SIDs reported that journalists were being prevented from covering games on new-media platforms such as blogs or social media, suggesting that free wireless Internet access is becoming a very common information subsidy. Coming back to the original research questions, there are indeed systematic differences in the perspectives of journalists and sports communications professionals, as suggested in RQ1. These differences suggest that on the whole, journalists believe that access to elite sources is constrained in a way that impedes reporters ability to do their work, but SIDs do not see constraints in the same way. Questions were asked in a way that did not require individuals in either profession to evaluate the work of those in the other line of work, so it does not seem likely that SIDs were simply expressing the opinion that journalists need less access than journalists believe they do. Instead, it appeared that SIDs believed they were providing more access than journalists believed, raising interesting questions for the profession. In terms of RQ2, it did not appear that anecdotes about athletic departments restricting access or ability to publish (especially on social media) were indicative of a larger trend. Instead, news subsidies such as conditions of access and publishing appear to be largely unaffected by rapidly-changing forms of media. In sum, many of the basic routines of media coverage of sports, particularly college athletics, appear to have become institutionalized to the point that they do not change in the face of evolving media and new opportunities. The smoke and clatter of press workrooms filled with typewriters may have been replaced by the quiet rattle of Tensions in the Press Box 24
keyboards, and screen crawls are succumbing to Twitter hashtags, but reporters still gather to interview coaches and players after watching games from Press Row. Even if Press Row has been moved back so athletics programs can sell premium courtside seats. However, such subsidies remain contingent on the actions of the sports- communications office, as demonstrated by the constraints on access identified by journalists. SIDs retain the discretion to negotiate access on their own terms. While there was no indication that reporters or SIDs believed that exchanges of positive coverage for access were requested or provided, there were suggestions that SIDs could withhold access if they deemed it prudent. Reporters, in other words, have no guaranteed privileges in the press box or the locker room. Both of these conditions, and many of the findings listed above, fit well with the notion of an institutionalized culture. However, more work remains to be done in understanding the strategy behind the decisions of individuals to reshape their own work and renegotiate agreements in the context of an organizational field. The media-SID conflicts of 2012 do not appear to be commonplace, and the relationship between media outlets and athletics departments does not appear subject to renegotiation on a broad scale, but it does appear that some organizations are testing boundaries. Neoinstitutional theory would predict that through a process of mimetic isomorphism, if some of the leading programs in the field established new restrictions on access, other programs would follow suit. 41
Limitations Tensions in the Press Box 25
The primary limitation of this study is that it is focused on American intercollegiate athletics, which is a major focus for most outlets with an interest in sports media but which covers a vast array of universities and teams. With more than 300 basketball teams and almost 130 football teams in the big time of Division I and the BCS competing for media attention, most if not all college athletic programs have incentives to provide access and other subsidies to media outlets to increase their chances of coverage. The study was not able to separate responses from such elite institutions from those coming from colleges with a greater need for publicity. A secondary limitation is that this was a national, anonymous study, and it was impossible to match responses from journalists covering a particular institution with those of SIDs from that same institution. Paired responses would have yielded more specific information about differences in media relations from institution to institution. Getting a truer picture of the status of media and sports-communications professionals in the organizational field of sports communication would require comparative work with other segments of the field, such as professional sports and international sports. Other research suggests that national factors may play a greater role in determining access conditions and reporter-source relationships than organizational or field-level characteristics. 42 It would be expected that in the context of American sports, the much smaller supply of major-league teams would create more demand for access to any individual club, giving sports-communications officials more leverage to manage news subsidies, resulting in different patterns of institutionalization. 43
Conclusions Tensions in the Press Box 26
Bryan Goldberg, one of the founders of BleacherReport.com, an online sports outlet that got its start as a platform for fans, wrote in an op-ed on Pando.com that as for the type of stories that insiders need to break my generation just does not care about the insider game of building relationships with GMs and team presidents in order to get a scoop three hours before the guy at the other newspaper can get it. 44
Goldberg left the outlet in 2012 after selling it to Turner for over $200 million, according to media reports. 45 Since his departure, the site and other Web 2.0-era startups have begun marching upmarket, de-emphasizing user-generated content and hiring full- time reporters with careers spent covering specific sports and thus bringing with them the relationships and confidences of sources, i.e., access. This is a trend common in the maturation of products that have disrupted markets, according to Lowrey and Christensen: After finding a niche that displaces upmarket goods (in this case, news organizations), cheap disruptors begin to adopt the standards and structures of legitimized competitors, themselves moving upmarket. 46 In fact, BleacherReport.com has begun adding tag lines to reported stories, emphasizing that quotations were obtained via traditional reporting. An emphasis on exclusive access has become a hallmark of BleacherReports competitors, such as SBNation.coms Longform section and ESPN.coms Grantland.com property. All three now emphasize intensively-reported magazine features, which generally require access far exceeding a beat reporter. This trend suggests a potential conflict with Mark Cubans suggestion to align a programs access policies with its marketing priorities. If source organizations move toward freezing out journalists, it would create a significant problem for those seeking to tell the stories the public needs and wants to hear. While these surveys did not find strong Tensions in the Press Box 27
evidence of trends in this direction, the topic will be worth revisiting as new channels and platforms mature and offer new opportunities for organizations to tell their own stories instead of permitting the media access to do so.
Works Cited
1 Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality, New York (1978). 2 Cary Coglianese, "The Transparency President? The Obama Administration and Open Government," Governance 22, no. 4 (2009); Leonard Jr. Downie, "The Obama Administration and the Press: Leak Investigations and Surveillance in Post-9/11 America," (Washington, D.C.: The Committee to Protect Journalists, 2013). 3 Jeffrey P. Hermes et al., "Who Gets a Press Pass? Media Credentialing Practices in the United States," (2014), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2451239. 4 Edirin Oputu, "Hacks Vs. Flacks: Do Public Affairs Offices Get in the Way?," Columbia Journalism Review (2013). 5 Carolyn S. Carlson and Megan Roy, "Mediated Access: Education Writers Perceptions of Public Information Officers Media Control Efforts," Education Writers Association (2013), http://www.ewa.org/sites/main/files/file- attachments/ewa_survey_report_2014.pdf. 6 Tom Goldstein, "The Walls Erected by Traditional Media," SCOTUSBlog (2014), http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/the-walls-erected-by-traditional-media/. 7 Bob Gillespie, "Commentary: Clemson Reinvents Media Access," The State (2014), http://www.thestate.com/2014/05/19/3454873/commentary-clemson-reinvents- media.html. 8 Frank LoMonte, "Going on the Offense," Student Press Law Center, http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=108; Christian J Keeney, "Kentucky Fried Blog: How the Recent Ejection of a Blogger from the College World Series Raises Novel Questions About the First Amendment, Intellectual Property, and the Intersection of Law and Technology in the 21st Century," J. Tech. L. & Pol'y 13 (2008). 9 Michael Kruse, "For SEC, Tech-Savvy Fans Might Be Biggest Threats to Media Exclusivity," Tampa Bay Times (2009), http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/for-sec-tech-savvy-fans-might-be- biggest-threats-to-media-exclusivity/1027680. 10 University of Washington, "Credential Policy," University of Washington, http://www.gohuskies.com/genrel/credentialpolicy.html. 11 Monica Guzman, "UW Policy Restricting Reporter Tweets Is Not Just Claiming Rights, but Taking Turf," Geekwire.com (2012), http://www.geekwire.com/2012/uws- policy-restricting-reporters-rights-turf/. 12 Rick Telander, "The Written Word: Player-Press Relationships in American Sports," Sociology of Sport Journal 1, no. 1 (1984). Tensions in the Press Box 28
13 Nancy Theberge and Alan Cronk, "Work Routines in Newspaper Sports Departments and the Coverage of Women's Sports," ibid.3, no. 3 (1986)., p. 198 14 J.E. Grunig, "Organizations, Environments, and Models of Public Relations," (1983); Mick Jackowski, "Conceptualizing an Improved Public Relations Strategy: A Case for Stakeholder Relationship Marketing in Division Ia Intercollegiate Athletics," Journal of Business and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (2006). 15 Marie Hardin and Erin Whiteside, "Consequences of Being the "Team Mom": Women in Sports Information and the Friendliness Trap," Journal of Sport Management 26, no. 4 (2012); Robin Hardin and Steven McClung, "Collegiate Sports Information: A Profile of the Profession," Public Relations Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2002). 16 J. Sean McCleneghan, "The Sports Information Director -- No Attention, No Respect, and a PR Practitioner in Trouble," ibid.40 (1995). 17 Jerome Holtzman, No Cheering in the Press Box (Henry Holt, 1978). 18 Frank G. Menke, The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Sports (Glenview, Illinois: Progress Research Corp., 1963). 19 Howard J. Savage, "American College Athletics, with a Preface by Henry S. Pritchett. New York City, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1929," Bulletin, no. 23; Murray Sperber, Onward to Victory: The Crises That Shaped College Sports (New York: Henry Holt, 1998). 20 Robert Lipsyte, "An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir" (2011). 21 William B. Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78, no. 2 (2001); Marie Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments," Newspaper Research Journal 26, no. 1 (2005); Michael B. Salwen and Bruce Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional Problems," Journal of Sport & Social Issues 22, no. 1 (1998). 22 "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional Problems." 23 Sada Reed, "Sports Journalists' Use of Social Media and Its Effects on Professionalism," Journal of Sports Media 6, no. 2 (2011); Salwen and Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional Problems." 24 Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism." 25 Timothy E. Cook, "The News Media as a Political Institution: Looking Backward and Looking Forward," Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006); Bartholomew H. Sparrow, "A Research Agenda for an Institutional Media," ibid. 26 Timothy E. Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution (University of Chicago Press, 1998). 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 206 29 Oscar H. Gandy, Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Co., 1982). 30 Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution. Tensions in the Press Box 29
31 Ibid.; Frederick B. Marbut, News from the Capital: The Story of Washington Reporting (Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, 1971). 32 P.J. DiMaggio and W.W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (1983). 33 J.W. Meyer and B. Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony," American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977). 34 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields." 35 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony." 36 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields." 37 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony." 38 Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments." 39 Scott Gleeson, "Southern Cal Lifts Practice and Game Ban on Reporter," USA Today (2012), http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/09/12/usc-lane- kiffin-bans-reporter-from-practices-games/70000236/1#.UnPBSpFXW4Y. 40 Paul M. Hirsch and Y. Sekou Bermiss, "Institutional Dirty Work: Preserving Institutions through Strategic Decoupling," in Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations (2009). 41 Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American sociological review (1983). 42 Christoph G. Grimmer and Edward M. Kian, "Reflections of German Football Journalists on Their Relationships with Bundesliga Club Public Relations Practitioners," International Journal of Sport Communication 6, no. 4 (2013); Zvi Reich and Thomas Hanitzsch, "Determinants of Journalists' Professional Autonomy: Individual and National Level Factors Matter More Than Organizational Ones," Mass Communication and Society 16, no. 1 (2013). 43 Mike Cardillo, "Newcastle United Proposes to Charge Journalists for Exclusive Access'," The Big Lead (2013), http://thebiglead.com/2013/12/11/newcastle-united- proposes-to-charge-journalists-for-exclusive-access/. 44 Bryan Goldberg, "How I Respond to the Haters," Pando Daily (2013), http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/01/how-i-respond-to-the-haters/. 45 Lizzie Widdicombe, "From Mars: A Young Man's Adventures in Women's Publishing," The New Yorker (2013), http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/23/130923fa_fact_widdicombe?currentPa ge=all. 46 Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013); Wilson Lowrey, "Institutionalism, News Organizations, and Innovation," Journalism Studies 12, no. 1 (2011).
Tensions in the Press Box 30
Table 1: Variables tested in survey Journalists SIDS Interviews with athletes/coaches only take place in press conferences, not 1-on-1 n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 213 2.61 (0.82) 0.82 (3) 148 1.92 (0.60) 0.75 (3) Fans/donors get at least as much access as I/reporters do n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 210 2.46 (0.75) 0.72 (2) 146 2.20 (0.67) 0.69 (2) Material I receive from SIDs is not very useful for my reporting n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 207 1.88 (0.71) 0.77 (3)
Media seats have been moved away from prime seating areas n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 213 2.57 (0.84) 0.82 (3) 148 2.20 (0.84) 0.78 (3) We take the size and demographics of a news outlets audience into account when deciding whether to grant credentials n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 148 2.60 (0.73) 0.62 (3) We take the size and demographics of a news outlets audience into account when deciding whether to grant interviews
n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 148 2.64 (0.74) 0.72 (3) We review reach, audience, and/or market penetration for outlets that cover our teams n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 148 2.47 (0.66) 0.78 (3) Reporters from big-name publication get better access than local beat writers n Mean (SD) A (no. of items) 217 3.08 (0.77) 0.74 (3)
Having a desirable audience means getting better access n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 206 3.04 (0.72) 0.72 (3)
Reporters need to have good relationships with SIDs to get one-on-one interviews with coaches and athletes n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 211 2.42 (0.73) 0.74 (3) 148 1.93 (0.59) 0.44 (3) I/reporters can get access even after writing critical stories n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 215 2.94 (0.65) 0.79 (3) 147 3.13 (0.46) 0.56 (3) I/reporters cannot publish injury information or other information we learn in practice n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 206 2.66 (0.82) 0.54 148 2.27 (0.70) 0.47 Tensions in the Press Box 31
The athletics department (I cover) or its conference has established limits on the type or number of blogs/social media posts I/reporters can publish during contests Mean (SD) (no. of items) 210 2.02 (0.73) 0.87 (6) 148 1.80 (0.69) 0.85 (2) Independent media have the same access to coaches and athletes as they did before the athletic department or its conference signed their latest round of broadcast agreements n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 216 2.44 (0.72) 0.79 (3) 148 3.02 (0.57) 0.72 (3) I/reporters used to get more informal access than I/they do now n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 191 2.87 (0.90) 0.50 (3) 147 2.41 (0.69) 0.54 (3) Both traditional media and new organizations get credentials to events n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 209 2.74 (0.85) 0.84 (3) 147 2.91 (0.71) 0.80 (3) I/Reporters get enough access to provide the coverage my/their editors and audience expect n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 213 2.53 (0.84) 0.86 (3)
The program I cover/we break its/our own news on the Internet/social media before it is sent to news media n Mean (SD) (no. of items) 217 2.54 (0.76) 0.69 (3) 148 2.55 (0.76) 0.73(3)
All questions were original to this survey. Responses were solicited on a four-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree 4 = strongly agree). Cronbach results over 0.70 are in boldface.