A question, where do you look to get your news, sports and entertainment updates? Newspapers, television, magazines, the radio? In 2010 all of those mediums seem obsolete. If one cannot tell, I use the Internet and love doing so. Now all the information may not be creditable, but its fast and easy. In the world of information gathering more and more people are turning to the Internet. Blogs are becoming especially popular with sports enthusiasts; they can get the story from the point of view of fans and professional outlets.
Now the hard part about blogging comes in obtaining the proper press credentials. A lot of leagues (professional and college) take great strides in protecting the nature of their sports. In particular the NCAA has a committee consisting of representatives from institutions and conferences administers each NCAA game. This committee has developed policies for media credentialing. The one main event that is popular in obtaining these credentials is during the NCAA Championships. As found on the NCAA website the two ways media outlets can obtain these credentials are:
- By consistently covering a team during the regular season
- By meeting NCAA requirements for print-media circulation or electronic-media market size.
With those criteria in place a person would believe that a well-known confirmed media outlet would have the authorization to cover the event in any media. Well during an NCAA baseball game in June of 2007 a journalist for The Louisville Courier-Journal was removed from a game for live blogging. To the NCAA credit there was a memo sent out to all press stating “any blog that has action photos or game reports, including play-by-play, scores or any in-game updates, is specifically prohibited." In the reporters defense his supervisors informed him to continue with the blogging anyway.
The journalist updated his blog a total of 17 times with minor plays and some scores before his credentials were revoked and he was ejected from the game. The issue revolves around the First Amendment, freedom of speech. The newspaper had considered legal action against the NCAA and the University of Louisville for violating the journalist’s First Amendment rights, but decided against it. The original argument made by the Courier-Journal came from their representing attorney,
"It’s a real question that we’re being deprived our right to report within the First Amendment from a public facility," Fleischaker said, according to Bennett’s blog. "Once a player hits a home run, that’s a fact. It’s on TV; everybody sees it. [The NCAA] can’t copyright that fact."
I agree with that statement. If it’s happening and everyone can see it happening in a public area, how can one copyright that. The swing of a bat, the pitch of a ball, the scoring of a run, it’s something that happens at different times, on different levels and to different people.
A representative from the NCAA states that the NCAA has a bundled rights agreement with CBS and ESPN, which pays for the rights to cover NCAA championship games. A spokesperson from ESPN has said that their rights cover live TV, and that they did not request for the journalist to be removed and was never asked. There are individuals who are totally for blogging and feel that blogging is just another way to reach fans and newspaper readers. They mention what is to stop a person at home watching the championship from blogging. The NBA and NFL both allow credentialed reporters to report online during the games that are time-delayed and limited.
I see no harm in blogging during a sporting event. If people are able to watch a game on TV the chances of them giving that up to go online and read a blog is very rare. A blog like a newspaper is for people who miss the action and would like to know the score of a game, the highlights of a game and just the overall experience from their choice of media entity. We are in the day and age of the Internet and receiving information in that way. Some media outlets have gotten with the times, while others like the NCAA are still struggling to be open-minded.
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