Blogging vs beat writing
Bloggers weren’t always the primary culprit for the decline in newspaper readership. Before beat writers started blaming “kids with computers in their mom’s basement,” they said television programs like SportsCenter were giving people sensationalized news before they got a chance to read a better account in the following morning’s paper. Well, it looks like these two are teaming up now as readers are looking for sources, like blogs, that can give them more than a late recap.
In his most recent podcast, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons spoke with NBA beat writer Ric Bucher. If you’re not interested in being overwhelmed by more Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett news, jump ahead to about the the 35 minute mark for their take on bloggers and beat writers. Below are some of the more interesting quotes, transcribed as closely as I could.
Bill Simmons: The way the internet’s evolved now, if you want to get into basketball writing, it almost makes more sense just to start a blog… I think you almost have a better chance being a blogger and hopefully gaining an audience that way.
This is probably the case. Go ahead and ask former LexBlogger Henry Abbott of TrueHoop.
Bucher agrees that blogging is the best way to go, but notes that beat writers have something most bloggers do not: relationships with NBA teams and personnel. He says this insight gives them a great deal to write about, but most reporters don’t have the freedom to use said insight in their articles.
Ric Bucher: If you’re a beat writer, you should no longer be going by the old way we do things. The beat writers should take the European angle in how beat writers operate over there. They’re columnists, they’re expressing opinion. That’s the only way they’re going to get their leverage and authority back and give you something fresh. By the time the newspaper out the next day, you’ve already seen the highlights on TV, you’ve already read online the play-by-play. You’ve already read the quotes…you can’t give anything new there. Because of all your insight, if you can explain the personalities and some of the internal stuff going on, and you had the liberty to express that without having to have it red-checked by the old newspaper journalistic standards, then you could bring something to the table that people would be picking up in the morning. Short of that, there’s no reason to look at the paper in the morning.”
Bill Simmons: Well, I think some of these newspapers are seizing on the immediacy a little bit. What you’re seeing now is you’re seeing now is people being beat writers but they’re also blogging too and I think that’s probably where we’re heading.
When it comes to lawyer blogs, this whole scenario is flipped on its head. Lawyers with blogs have the relationships and insight to write on cases in the news while a cops-and-courts beat reporter does not. As I mentioned in a previous entry, blogs are at their best when they offer what many traditional news sources do not: insight and analysis. If a blogger is simply spreading already known news, they’re no different than other sites just pumping out AP news feeds. Bloggers who offer insight can gain leverage and credibility.