Dissecting Prime Time Sports on Morris/Ibanez

To follow up to my initial piece on the Jerod Morris/Raul Ibanez controversy from this past week, I figured I'd discuss the reaction of the guys on Prime Time Sports on Friday. For those not familiar with it, Prime Time Sports is a radio/television program broadcast across Canada daily on the FAN 590 and its affiliates as well as Rogers Sportsnet. It's probably comparable in reach to ESPN's Around The Horn (a show I've complained about previously), but is generally much more insightful. The regular broadcasts tend to feature host Bob McCown and Globe and Mail writer par excellence Stephen Brunt interviewing top-tier guests from the media and sports worlds, and often have some great stuff. The Friday shows are more of an Around the Horn feel than an interview show, with a couple of other Toronto media personalities joining Brunt and McCown to discuss sports, but the emphasis still tends to be on thoughtful discussion over yelling and extreme opinions, which is nice to see. Unfortunately, that emphasis went out the window Friday.

First off, don't blame McCown and Brunt for this one; both were off this week. Instead, the Friday lineup was Sportsnet personality Rob Faulds, Sports Illustrated hockey writer and Fan 590 host Jim Kelley, National Post columnist Bruce Arthur and former Winnipeg sportscaster John Wells. Not a bad group of guys, though, and they have plenty of experience in the media, so you'd expect rationality from them. By and large, that failed to materialize, though. You can download the show here from the Fan 590 website. The Ibanez segment starts at 15:01 of the file and runs to about 26:30 (with a few minor tangents). Below, I look at some of the more outrageous quotes from the program.

Rob Faulds, introducing the story: "Raul Ibanez was not too happy with some accusations of a blogger saying that his great start was probably due to steroids. Now, this happens all the time with blogs. Where are they now fitting in, or do they even fit in?"

Analysis: First off, referring to Morris as just "a blogger" (I don't think they mentioned his name or his site anywhere, but I could be wrong on that) is one of the typical mainstream media failures of attribution I discussed here and isn't a good start. Guys like Morris who blog under their real name give up the benefits of anonymity and exchange them for the benefits of increased responsibility and accountability; the mainstream media should be willing to at least give them some credit for that.

Moreover, such a generic reference is a low-class move by Faulds and it doesn't bode well for the show. Without mentioning his name or the site, they force interested listeners to go to Google. They'd probably find Morris' material anyway, as one of his posts is the second result for "Ibanez steroids", but it might be tough to pick the original out from the massive amount of reaction pieces out there. That takes time, effort and persistence, and many people won't be willing to do that. Instead, they'll take the Prime Time Sports' guys' representation of Morris' words at face value, and that's a big mistake. In many ways, that's what started this whole thing off; what Morris wrote wasn't highly controversial or highly unusual on its own, but the way the Philadelphia Inquirer represented his story made it appear much worse than it was [Alana G, alanag.com]. Unfortunately, Prime Time Sports follows in those less-than-stellar footsteps with mischaracterizations of their own.

Bruce Arthur: "With journalism, we have gatekeepers. We have editors, we have safeguards, we have standards."
Jim Kelley: "What scares me is we’ve lost that gatekeeper wall if you will."

Analysis: This is one of the common refrains in the old-media hymnal, and it has some truth to it. Editors do add value at times and can make sure that what's reported is fair and accurate. The problem is that they don't always do that, though; check out Craig Silverman's Regret The Error site for a cornucopia of examples of where those editors, safeguards and standards have failed (see Blair, Jayson for one of the worst). That's not to say that the editorial standards and safeguards don't have value; of course they do. The point is that they aren't infallible. Furthermore, those editors, safeguards and standards are not universal; look at the difference between the New York Times and the New York Post for an excellent example.

The other key point here is that Arthur and Kelley, like so many mainstream media personalities, unfairly portray the blogosphere as full of people without editors, safeguards or standards. Many of the bigger blogs do have rigid editing processes, and everyone has safeguards and standards of some sort. Yes, many bloggers have their safeguards and standards below what the mainstream media considers acceptable, but you have to consider the audience as well; people read sites like Kissing Suzy Kolber for entertainment and opinion, not hard news, so it isn't as important to have rigid standards there. Those of us who run more serious sites do have safeguards and standards, and sometimes we are more conservative than the mainstream media thanks to the absence of a massive conglomerate backing our reporting. It's unfair to portray the mainstream media/blogosphere divide as a black and white picture where one group has rigid standards and the other doesn't; the real, grey truth is that each site or organization has its own standards and should be evaluated on its own merits.

Rob Faulds: "I have no problem with blogs. I have a problem with the facts, when the facts aren’t right."

Analysis: I hate to break it to you, Mr. Faulds, but mainstream media outlets get the facts wrong just as frequently as the blogosphere, sometimes more frequently. Part of that is because much of what they're reporting is new and original, so of course errors tend to be made, while it's harder to make definitive errors if you're writing an analysis piece (unless you misrepresent what's already been reported). In fact, your own lofty radio station isn't exactly pure and unblemished; consider the Sean Avery/Jason Blake flap, where the FAN reported that Avery had made derogatory remarks about Blake's leukemia. They weren't able to prove that, and FAN reporter Howard Berger had to apologize on-air [Regret The Error]. So, if your problem isn't with blogs but with bad facts, perhaps complain about the stick in your own eye before targeting the mote in someone else's.

Jim Kelley: "The guys you pointed out, the good bloggers, they have that grounded background in journalism for the most part."

Analysis: I can't say that a journalism background isn't helpful for blogging, as that's the area I come from as well. However, it certainly isn't a prerequisite. Many great bloggers have no background in journalism at all. As I wrote in my piece on Geoff Baker's similar criticisms, "It's part of a disturbing trend in the sports media where some sportswriters feel the need to claim that the experience they have covering other subjects makes them superior." Journalism backgrounds can be useful, but they certainly
aren't mandated for bloggers, and many can do great things without them.

Bruce Arthur, on the differences between how mainstream media and bloggers approach covering teams: "We don’t have an interest in making [the teams] look good necessarily."

Analysis: I think it's pretty hard to claim that all bloggers are out there to make the teams look good and the mainstream media are out there to keep them accountable. In fact, the converse is generally true. The limitations of mainstream pieces mean that you have to carefully differentiate news and opinion, and the preponderance of mainstream game stories or trade stories (news pieces) just tell you what happened (which I don't have a problem with, but it does mean that there isn't a lot of room for criticism or analysis in those stories). Sometimes, you'll see opinion columns on games or trades as well, which can be more critical and analytical, but aren't always. Meanwhile, most pieces on team blogs include plenty of opinion and analysis, and much of it is not favourable to the team's players, coaches or management. For example, consider the coverage of the Leafs in the Toronto Star and at the excellent Pension Plan Puppets. After reading pieces from the two sites, would you really say that PPP and his crew of writers have "an interest in making the team look good?" I don't think you would. I think you'd find that they're more critical than the mainstream media (even their site name is a shot at the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's ownership stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment), and often for good reasons. They're certainly not sucking up to ownership or management, and I don't think most bloggers or mainstream outlets are.

Jim Kelley: "We’re in trouble, all of us, differentiating between truth and simply what’s out there. ... That’s where you need those gatekeepers."

Analysis: No, Mr. Kelley, we're not headed for some pending blogpocalypse where no one knows what truth is any more. Like mainstream newspapers and radio stations, blogs have to work to earn their credibility. The good outlets in either category will get the facts right more often then not, be accountable for what they write and report and admit it when they screw up. The bad ones won't. Sports fans aren't stupid; they're not going to take blogger Eklund's latest trade rumours as gospel (in fact, funnily enough, the most prominent mainstream outlet to give Eklund any attention at all was Kelley's own Rogers Sportsnet, which featured him on one of their trade deadline shows) or believe everything mainstream media writer Bruce "Malkin to the Kings" Garrioch writes [full credit to Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy for that name]. Both sides have their share of reputable and disreputable sources, and smart fans take each source's record into consideration. They're perfectly capable of separating truth from fiction on their own without your vaunted gatekeepers.

Bruce Arthur: "It's not just in sports either. This happens in politics an awful lot. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the stuff about Obama being a Muslim, was nothing. It was never anything and yet it got slipped into the undernews. ... It’s harder and harder to figure out what’s real and what isn’t."

Analysis: Yes, Mr. Arthur, misinformation comes out in politics too. However, plenty of Internet sites such as the Huffington Post played key roles in debunking that particular rumour, and mainstream sources like Fox News did more to spread it than anyone (which Arthur acknowledged, to his credit). Moreover, as I mentioned in the Baker post, in the lead-up to the 2004 election, it was CBS that was fabricating stories and bloggers that were proving them false [ZDNet]. You can't just say the blogosphere is responsible for propagating lies and the mainstream media always tells the truth; it doesn't quite work like that. Each source and story needs to be evaluated on its own merits.

Anyway, it sounds like some sense is beginning to prevail on this particular issue. Much of the reaction in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere has taken a more reasonable tone as of late, and the discussion of it at the Blogs With Balls panel yesterday sounded very positive from the Twitter updates I saw. It's just unfortunate that the Prime Time Sports guys, with one of the largest media platforms in Canada, couldn't use it more responsibly to thoroughly discuss the issue. Instead, they did offer some insight, but mixed it in with the kind of uninformed and vitriolic comments presented above. In my mind, that's a shame, and it reflects poorly on the state of sports media discussion in Canada.

Thoughts? Opinions? Questions? Leave them in the comments below, or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com.

The folly of Geoff Baker's position on the Ibanez saga

I didn't write anything about the Raul Ibanez controversy [Jerod Morris, Midwest Sports Fans] yesterday outside of my Twitter feed, mostly because it was aptly handled everywhere else [links, in order, are Alana G, Joe Posnanski, Hugging Harold Reynolds, Rays Index and The Big Lead].

However, today saw some Canadian media types weighing in, and I thought their reactions deserved some coverage. First off, we have Geoff Baker. Baker's a Canadian guy who used to cover the Expos and Blue Jays, and now covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He's a good baseball writer, and I usually enjoy his stuff. Today, though, he produced one of the more annoying pieces on the matter, ironically enough on his blog. You know it's going to be bad as soon as you read the title, "The Difference Between Real Journalists and Basement Bloggers."

Baker does actually make some valid points. He has some good thoughts on the importance of accountability, and he's right that you have to be careful about what you're publishing. He also mentions his story about former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson's embellished tales from the Vietnam War, which eventually led to Johnson's firing, and he's quite right that bloggers without any access couldn't break that kind of news all on their own, as they wouldn't hear the speeches that caused the controversy. However, if quotes about Johnson's speeches were reported as-is by the typical media types, it could easily have been bloggers who did some fact-checking and found that Johnson really was only a reservist; consider the crucial role of bloggers in covering a certain other reservist's experience during the Vietnam era. Fact-checking and investigative legwork is by no means limited to mainstream media types in our current era, and bloggers have more resources to conduct that kind of journalism than ever before; Baker is only fooling himself if he thinks that investigative work is limited to traditional media outlets.

Moreover, I take issue with how Baker talks about his journalistic training, discusses his previous career as an investigative reporter and implies that that experience is somehow necessary for handling stories like this one. It's part of a disturbing trend in the sports media where some sportswriters feel the need to claim that the experience they have covering other subjects makes them superior. Look, I've spent plenty of time working in the mainstream media as well and probably will be doing so again. I've covered everything from business to politics to arts in addition to my regular gigs writing about sports, and those experiences certainly have helped to inform my writing. However, I will never claim that mainstream media experience is necessary or that covering areas outside sports is necessary in order to be a good sportswriter. Sure, it can help, but you can do just as well without it as well. In some ways, frequently talking about all the work you've done outside sports plays right into the hands of those who criticize the sports section as the "toy department" of the newspaper; if your validation has to come from areas outside sports, how will you ever convince anyone that your work on sports is important?

However, the worst part of Baker's article was still to come. Consider this quote:

"Now, can the blogger who wrote about Ibanez say the same thing? No, he cannot. Because he never really takes a position.
He throws some innuendo out there, under a provocative headline, then couches it with a bunch of well-researched statistics on park factors, and the like. Makes it all look like a fact-finding mission.
But come on. Baseball is a game played by men. When you cover this sport for a while, you realize that these "issue'' pieces some writers try to hide behind when they passive-aggressively go at a different topic really won't fly. Everybody knows what the "elephant in the room'' is beforehand. So, no matter how much research you couch it under, the real issue is what everybody -- especially media-seasoned ballplayers -- is going to focus on.
And in this case, the blogger really didn't have a leg to stand on. That much was clear when he was eviscerated on national television by Fox Sports columnist Ken Rosenthal, a longtime baseball writer for the Baltimore Sun. I've seen some commenters to various fan blogs the past 24 hours try to say the blogger "held his own'' but let's get real. It was ugly. I give the blogger -- I won't mention his name because I'm reluctant to give him his 15 minutes -- credit for going on with Rosenthal. If it was me on the air instead of Rosenthal, I would have torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way. Maybe even worse. I know Rosenthal and spoke to him at the ballpark yesterday after his ESPN appearance with said blogger. When you go on TV and radio a lot, you learn how to destroy people like the inexperienced blogger on-air. It was like that Korean dude pounding on Jose Canseco in Japan the other day. "

This is absolutely ridiculous in my mind. First off, refusing to mention Morris by name or link to him comes off as childish pique consistent with the holier-than-thou attitude Baker demonstrates throughout his piece. Second, Rosenthal hardly came off as the victor in that interview; he looked as crazy as Buzz Bissinger during his infamous anti-blog meltdown. In some ways it's good that Baker says he would have "torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way"; it clearly demonstrates what side he's on, that of the old-media types scrambling to tell the bloggers to get off their lawn. Notice the language as well; it's not about convincing someone through debate or persuasive arguments, it's about tearing them to shreds. Baker and company feel threatened by the bloggers invading their traditional turf, so they rise up to try and destroy them instead of working with them or debating them.

Baker also selectively ignores the faults of the mainstream media, as he demonstrates with this bit:

"And that's why you see mainstream media taking fewer potshots than bloggers. Because at the end of the day, reason and fairness has to win out. Nobody's perfect. But it's always better to err on the side of caution -- and do a little more legwork -- than to have Ken Rosenthal destroying you on national TV, when your only defense is mere cliches and half-hearted insinuations."

I'm pretty sure there have been lots of speculatory pieces around steroids in the mainstream media as well, Geoff. It's the result of the steroid era; no one can be viewed as completely above suspicion at the moment, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Mark Bradley details here. In fact, Morris gave Ibanez a lot more credit than many would; he sought to present a detailed statistical case for other factors that could be involved in his increased production. Clearly, though, because he's a blogger, if he writes it, it's irresponsible speculation. If someone writes that exact same piece for, say, the Seattle Times or Sports Illustrated, do you really think Baker and his camp would be so upset about it? What about if some of the Around The Horn talking heads yell about it without any subtlety or nuance in typically exaggerated fashionr and go further with their insinuations than Morris did? I don't think Baker and co. would be too upset in either case, as similar stuff has shown up in newspapers all over the place and Around The Horn frequently covers steroid stories. What they're concerned about isn't the content, but rather the source. It's apparently all right with them if you suggest this stuff if you're inside the mainstream media camp, but if you're outside the walls, they'll rip your throat out for daring to bring it up.

Fortunately, there are plenty of great writers in the traditional media who don't subscribe to the Baker-Bissinger school of thought. They do an excellent job of reaching out to and engaging readers and bloggers without any of the protectionism of their turf or attacks on bloggers that Baker and Bissinger have displayed; a few examples from include Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail and Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star. Unfortunately, there are still many who share the "get off my lawn" views put forth by Baker and Bissinger. That makes these words from Will Leitch, written last year after the Bissinger incident, seem rather prophetic:

"Buzz is not alone. Sure, he might be metaphorically alone, raining spittle on the imaginary demons that clearly haunt him. But if you don't think that almost every single person — with obvious, clear exceptions — who was on all those panels last night didn't come up to him afterwards and give him a fist pound and a "yeah, we really struck back tonight!" well, you weren't there. This really is what many of them think. Though most are a little calmer about it."

It doesn't have to be like this. The traditional sports media and the blogosphere have a lot in common, and they can work well together. It doesn't have to be an adversarial relationship; if both sides can mention each other in civil fashion from time to time, that benefits both them and their readers, who are exposed to more perspectives. It doesn't have to be a turf war, either. Why confine investigative reporting to newspaper staff, or opiniated pieces and sabermetric analysis to bloggers? Given the troubling economic times we're in and the resulting downturn in advertising in mainstream media sources and on blogs, both sides would be wise to heed Benjamin Franklin's famous advice: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

One final note on Baker's piece; what bothers me even more than any of his criticisms of the blogosphere is his blasting of Morris for not going far enough. As he writes, "But when you go all-in, you've got to go all in. He didn't do that. When you write about topics like killers, or Hell's Angels, or major leaguers and steroids, you can't pussy foot around. You've got to go at it hard, directly, with no b.s. and be able to defend yourself afterwards. This blogger couldn't because he went in only halfway. He tried to raise the "steroids issue'' then claimed he really wasn't pointing a finger at Ibanez."

As long-time readers of this blog will know, I can't stand this kind of all-or-nothing approach. It's the black-and-white, with us or against us school of thought that has caused so many of the world's problems. It isn't a world of absolutes, it's one filled with shades of grey and subtleties. Ignoring those details in favour of making an overwrought, absolutist argument is a dangerous path to walk; sure, it will bring attention and create controversy, but it takes us away from what's really involved. I'd much rather see well-thought-out arguments that present both sides like the one Morris advanced than bombastic diatribes like the one written by Baker.

I'll have more later on the discussion of the matter on the Canadian radio/TV show Prime Time Sports this afternoon.

Update: 10:08 PM: Great stuff from Craig Calcaterra on how Baker's violated his own standards in the past by suggesting that the 2004 Mariners'lack of offensive production was thanks to stricter drug testing. Link via Neate Sager.