I forgot to bring my laptop computer to Jim Patterson Stadium the day this city discovered metal-bat baseball, so I’m having some difficulty following the First-Amendment violations that transpired as the University of Louisville was stomping Oklahoma State 20-2 and earning a first-ever berth in the College World Series. I could’ve been logged on to the Courier-Journal’s website to see blogging history in the making on June 10, but instead I was watching the Cardinals do routine things like pound out 21 hits and score five runs in two separate innings and four runs in two others. Now I’m forced to play catch-up on what I missed.
My attention was focused on Oklahoma State coach Frank Anderson, who twice in the early innings had venom-spitting altercations with the umpires. Will he, I wondered, get himself kicked out during such a big game? Alas, Anderson’s outbursts were deemed to be not as far outside of the lines as the actions of C-J reporter Brian Bennett, who was ejected from the stadium by NCAA officials in the fifth inning for filing live Internet updates during the super-regional finale. It appears that blogs have become the spitball of sports reporting and Bennett was loading up his postings, filing 16 reports in five innings before his credentials were revoked and he was asked to leave the premises. The NCAA considered this an unauthorized “live representation of the game” and sent the pitcher of the posts to the showers.
This game-within-the-game did not amuse the daily newspaper’s manager, who exploded off the bench and had himself quoted in the next morning’s edition — where news-users like me expect to see the good stories — adding that the Courier would consider filing a protest. Editor Bennie L. Ivory accused the NCAA of “extortion and thuggery” and threatened to bring lawyers in on what he called “clearly a First Amendment issue.”
There have probably been updates to “blog-gate” in the time-lag between this writing and your reading of it, but I’m quite sure about two things: In July, most of us will begin to forget about U of L’s magical post-season on the diamond, and it will become harder for us, try as we might, to tune out all of the noise that gets offered to us by our daily paper as it emphasizes Internet immediacy over the thoughtful summing up of the news.
As someone set to a monthly clock, I admit to a prejudice against instant-gratification media. I sp/files/storyimages/my time searching for stories with relevance that might last for several weeks. The trend, however, seems to be: Learn one or two things, then broadcast them and allow them to bounce around, like rumors, among an audience that becomes more attention-deficit as it is bombarded with inchoate information. The C-J and its parent company, Gannett, seem to have boarded this bandwagon, determining that the future will go to the fast. They’ve funneled resources to their website, steered many reporters into maintaining blogs while chasing deeper stories, and invited Joes and Janes to tell the world, through courier-journal.com, anything that comes to mind. They’ve moved away from being gatekeepers who help decipher events and toward becoming swimmers in the school that follows the main current.
Personally, I’m hoping that this blogging craze becomes something of a journalistic leisure suit, a fashion that brings media down to the masses but in an ultimately short-lived, unsatisfactory way. I don’t doubt that some people were following Bennett’s brief web updates, but why weren’t they watching the game live on ESPN or listening to the play-by-play on WAVG-1450? Why wouldn’t they want an excellent reporter and writer like Bennett to take in the entire contest, look for an interesting perspective on who and what determined the outcome and bring that to our attention with depth and clarity? On second thought, I imagine that’s exactly what his editors want him to do — and blog at the same time.
I think they call that multi-tasking, like driving and talking on a cell phone. The Courier ran up against the fact that the NCAA had already granted exclusive broadcasting and Internet rights to other media companies and didn’t want play-by-play competition. But the imperative to blog is strong, so I’m watching for more First Amendment maneuvering.
Meanwhile, this is my blog. It appears once a month in the magazine. You can even find my blogging from previous months online on our website. If you look up something I’ve written and want to share your thoughts with me, drop me a line. I’ll get back with you as soon as I can, probably after I get the next issue to press.
It’s my little way of participating in the new media. I must admit, though, it’s not going to get me ejected instead of any real players on the field.
