SUMMARY: Randy Covitz of the
Kansas City Star does a superb job of analyzing how the NFL is trying to take
complete message control over its product.
Posted on
Tue, Oct. 3, 2006
NFL exercises football message control
Proliferation of new
media has helped fuel distrust and curtail access to information on players and
coaches.
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
A few days before the season opener, two Arizona sportswriters noticed during
the 30 minutes of practice open to the media that the Cardinals had shuffled
some offensive-line starters.
The writers confirmed the position moves with the two players involved and
reported it in the next morning’s newspapers.
Coach Dennis Green wasn’t happy.
“One of the things you guys (reporters) make a mistake is you see something and
you write it as if it’s true,” Green chastised them. “The fans are counting on
you telling the truth, and you don’t know the truth.”
Turned out the news was accurate as reported, despite Green’s admonition.
Welcome to the sometimes contentious relationships between NFL clubs and the
reporters who cover them.
The NFL is unquestionably the most successful and popular sports league in
America, fueled by record attendance in 2005, off-the-chart television ratings
and a TV contract worth nearly $25 billion over the next six years.
That kind of interest demands accurate, in-depth reporting by newspapers, radio
and television stations and Internet sites, where fans historically have gotten
most of their information on their favorite teams. It requires access to
players, head coaches, assistant coaches and practices.
But the proliferation of so much new media, including talk-radio and Web sites —
not to mention the immense pressure on head coaches to win — has led to an
uneasy coexistence and even a distrust between the teams and reporters.
Consequently, newspapers and other media wanting to provide fans with
satisfactory coverage are running into roadblocks.
All but nine of the NFL’s 32 teams close practices to reporters; some
high-profile players don’t speak with the local media; at least seven teams
limit or deny access to assistant coaches; and on game day, only one local
television affiliate per market is allowed an on-field camera. That affiliate
must share its video with the other competing stations if they want to
supplement already-seen network game footage in their sportscasts.
“My nightmare scenario is 10, 20 years from now, you will not be able to cover
the NFL unless you pay a rights fee,” said David Elfin of The Washington Times
and president of the Pro Football Writers of America.
“As The NFL Network gets established and the teams’ Web sites get established,
and you have the whole ESPN machine, anybody who is either not working for the
team or not paying a rights fee is not getting great access.”
Indeed, the NFL itself has moved into the media business, having launched The
NFL Network in addition to its own Web site and team sites that show the league
and franchises in a mostly favorable light. In other words, you’re not likely to
find a story about steroids on nfl.com, or the news of Jared Allen’s DUI on
kcchiefs.com.
“We know the NFL wants to govern everything it does,” said Andrew Lackey,
director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at
Arizona State University. “Any business can try whatever it wants, but they have
to realize they’re part of a public trust and have a responsibility to the
public.
“A lot of it is about control, but one place they haven’t been able to control
is the media. Because the media are all over the place, and their job is to find
what’s interesting, unusual or perhaps negative in some cases, what (the NFL) is
doing is keeping these people from doing their jobs.”
Greg Aiello, the NFL’s vice president for public relations — who, incidentally,
has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia — says access to teams is
better than ever. It’s just difficult to spread the love to so many.
“There’s more and more media covering a team,” Aiello said. “It’s more
competitive than ever. If you watch television and read newspapers, it would be
hard to conclude there is a lack of access to NFL players and coaches.”
•••
The latest flap involves restrictions on what newspapers can put on their Web
sites from game-day coverage. An increasing number of newspapers, including The
Kansas City Star, are posting game stories and still photographs from games on
their sites during and immediately after games.
However, the NFL will not allow newspapers (or any non-rights holders) to show
their postgame coverage of news conferences or locker-room interviews on their
Web sites. Even video from a newspaper’s reporter asking questions of a coach or
player at a podium or locker cannot be posted on the newspaper’s site.
The NFL contends anything that happens on game day is proprietary to the league
and its rights holders, NBC, CBS, FOX and ESPN.
“We understand the rights issues with (not allowing) game action,” said Jim
Jenks, executive sports editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the president of
Associated Press Sports Editors. “But once you’re in the locker room, in a media
setting, at a postgame news conference where they bring in a coach and players,
we don’t understand why we can’t use a talking-head video.”
It’s not just sportswriters and editors who are concerned about providing fans
with better news. Any restrictions to newspapers’ ability to provide information
are unacceptable in the eyes of the Associated Press Managing Editors, said Otis
Sanford of The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. He is that organization’s
representative on dealing with NFL issues.
The Washington Post and The Associated Press, together with their attorneys,
plan to ask new NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for permission to show postgame
coverage online. Jenks will endorse the request on behalf of APSE, which counts
more than 600 newspapers among its membership.
“Video from our stadiums on game day is one of our most valuable assets,
including video of our people, players, coaches talking about the game,” Aiello
said. “The policy is designed to ensure that our rights holders, who have paid
for access to that asset, receive the value they’ve paid for.
“At the same time, it ensures that news organizations have a fair, reasonable
and equal opportunity to cover the news from NFL game sites. There’s no limit to
the amount of written NFL information that Web sites can carry.”
Aiello emphasized that newspapers can post video interviews of players and
coaches from weekday news conferences and open locker rooms on Web sites in
addition to transcripts from game-day coverage.
“That sounds really nice, but the reality is the written transcript is very
different from the audio or the video,” said Bob Steele, a senior faculty member
at the Poynter Institute, a training and research institute for journalists in
St. Petersburg, Fla.
“Many of the users of Internet services will want to hear the coach talking or
want to see the linebacker who bats down the pass at a key moment in the game.
To say, ‘Well, you can put written words on there, not the audio or video,’ is
creating a restriction that is going to limit the storytelling ability of the
journalists. When you do that, it ends up as a disservice to the public.”
To which Aiello responded: “Of course, they’d like to see the actual play. At
some point we have to draw the line.”
By prohibiting postgame video on the Web site, the NFL says it is following the
Olympics model, in which the International Olympic Committee forbids any cameras
at venues except for its current rights holder, NBC. However, the United States
Olympic Committee brings athletes to the main press center, and nonrights
holders are allowed to put video on their Web sites, though it cannot be live,
said Bob Condron, USOC director of media services.
“The million-dollar question is whether this is a journalistic question for (the
NFL), or is it just money?” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, sports editor of The
Washington Post. “Are they going to take and sell the access they are denying
everybody else? They’ll go to a Yahoo or Google or AOL and maybe sell that for
$50 million.”
Aiello says no plans are in the works to sell the rights to postgame video.
However, the league, like any billion-dollar business, is always searching for
more revenue streams, and what happens if someone makes an offer too good to
refuse?
“There is a smell here,” said the Poynter Institute’s Steele, “and it gives the
impression that the NFL and the teams are more interested in their own financial
protection than they are helping the public understand what goes on in the field
with the players in the games.
“If that’s the case, the audience, the public, is the loser.”
•••
The NFL contends that there is more mandated access for the media than ever.
After listening to concerns voiced by the Pro Football Writers Association and
APSE, the NFL determined that locker rooms now must be open a minimum of four
days a week instead of three; and for a minimum of 45 minutes, instead of 30.
On the surface, that sounds good. But on many occasions when reporters enter a
locker room, key players are not around. They are in the weight room, training
room, lunch room or meeting room until the 45-minute period ends. Some talk only
on certain days. Others, like Chiefs center Casey Wiegmann and the Denver
Broncos offensive linemen, do not speak to reporters.
When former Rams head coach Mike Martz returned to St. Louis on Sunday as
offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions, he was not made available to any
media during the week of the game, even though he customarily has a Thursday
news session. Nor was he available after Sunday’s game.
Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, the face of a publicly owned franchise who
has been candid and cooperative throughout his 15-year career, is now talking to
the media just twice a month.
“He has one bad year, and this is how he reacts,” Elfin said. “What kind of
message is he sending to the fans and younger players when things go bad? But
they’re letting him get away with it.”
There are no repercussions from the league or clubs for players who refuse to
speak to reporters. Other sports, such as the NBA and NHL, have guidelines that
try to ensure cooperation with the media. In the wake of the NHL’s labor
stoppage, the league adopted a media policy that states, in part, “Cooperation
with the Media, to the maximum extent, is obligatory.”
To those on the outside, it wouldn’t seem that the availability of assistant
coaches is important. But on some teams, the head coach has very little to do
with one side of the ball. And some assistant coaches are more eloquent than the
head coaches and give the fan more insight.
However, the NFL is a copycat league. Once New England coach Bill Belichick, who
like his mentor, Bill Parcells, denied access to his assistants and won three
Super Bowls, other coaches followed. Historically, Chiefs assistant coaches have
been available to Kansas City media, but all requests to speak with staff
members must now be cleared with coach Herm Edwards through the public-relations
department.
Under former Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil, practices were open on Fridays, but now
all practices are closed, except the first 20 minutes or so when reporters can
take roll and see what players might not practice because of injury. Super Bowl
participants Pittsburgh and Seattle are among the teams that open all their
practices to local media during the regular season, along with San Francisco,
Atlanta, Carolina, New Orleans, Houston, Indianapolis and Tennessee.
Philadelphia offers open practice on two days.
There’s a tacit understanding between the media and franchises that reporters
who watch practice do not write about strategy and trick plays, but depth-chart
changes are fair game. Or are they?
Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis threatened to eliminate the first 20 minutes of
practice open to the media after a reporter asked who would start in case
cornerback Deltha O’Neal was unable to play against the Chiefs.
Lewis announced it would be Johnathan Joseph, but when asked who would replace
Joseph as the nickel back, he got testy.
“This is our business … that’s why the rules are the way they are,” he said.
“Otherwise, we’ll shut it down.”
Elfin, president of the Pro Football Writers, believes newspapers will gain a
more sympathetic ear now that Goodell has replaced Paul Tagliabue as
commissioner.
“Goodell is more hands on, more involved with us than Tagliabue ever was,” Elfin
said. “Roger grew up as an intern in the business sort of like Pete Rozelle was,
while Tagliabue was a lawyer who didn’t know anybody. Roger is a politician’s
son, he’s a lot smoother, he does appreciate what we do and that we still are
important to this league. That’s a positive.”
(To reach Randy Covitz, NFL writer for The
Star, call (816) 234-4796 or send e-mail to [email protected])
