The Paradigm Shift Is Real — But Not For The Reasons You Think
Sports journalism has changed drastically in a short amount of time, as Arik Parnass wrote for The Cauldron. Yet most beat writers seem completely unaware of the bigger picture.
The changes in access, content, technology, and media consumers’ tendencies all lead to one inevitable conclusion: If you’re a sports reporter, you ultimately have to engage with, and listen to, feedback. This is a shift that the “traditional” beat reporter doesn’t want, because it entails confronting uncomfortable realities — about the meaning of their own work; about the origins of their medium and platform; about themselves.
To be sure, reporters have always been getting feedback, from classmates in school, editors at work, peers in the field, and of course their readers. But it’s easier than ever now to be one of those peers — even if you didn’t go to school for journalism — and even easier to engage with the written word. In fact, journalists are more exposed to feedback than they’ve ever been, particularly that emanating from people who aren’t in the same demographic. Your typical beat writer, regardless of sport, tends to be a white, cisgendered man and — as I’ve written frequently and loudly before — fans aren’t always any of these things, and frequently aren’t any. As such, the feedback pool is becoming more diverse all the time.
Technology and its accessibility play an outsized role in this. For many, and especially certain human-rights activists, the Internet has long been considered a basic and universal necessity for modern civil society. As Western capitalism has moved quickly to try to sell and grow technology — to make it a fundamental aspect of every industry on Earth, including journalism — those in charge (again, largely white men) often seem surprised at the consequences. Selling smartphones, computers, and network connectivity to everyone wasn’t nearly as harmless (or as easy) dictating what content they would consume and at what pace. Everyone who uses social media, then, has become an automatic participant in the business of content creation and commodification.
However, contrary to what Arik Parnass seemed to imply in his recent Cauldron piece, this isn’t, in and of itself, the problem:
“Rather, sports journalism has failed to adapt to this change of dynamic not only in terms of speed, access, and “exclusivity”, but in its very basic frameworks — particularly as it concerns journalist accountability.”
Being long past the days of having a single newspaper delivering your daily news, accountability has become a much more complicated term. Your opinion column or front-page take isn’t the only thing people are reading.
From a purely capitalist perspective, this is problematic. It’s harder for journalists to get jobs, keep jobs, and stand out within those jobs than it’s ever been. It’s no secret that the “game story” isn’t what it used to be. Still, it seems a shame to define it by what it’s not (a interlocking series of boilerplate stats and boring quotes) rather than what it can be (commentary; expert observation; an experience in and of itself). It can be a multimedia piece teeming with quotes, .gifs, and tweets. It can be critical. It can be fun. And/or, it can be news. It’s allowed to be intimate and exciting, exacting and analytical, or anything and everything in between.
This is not a bad thing.
At the same time, that’s a lot to put together in such a short amount of time. We’ve winnowed the process of sports reporting down to a matter of seconds, rather than a matter of hours — or even days. If your Twitter account is even a few seconds behind the action, you’re old news. Creating your own game story can be a flexible process, just not at the expense of it being a fast process. Otherwise, you’re getting left behind.
Parnass understands that much.
What the piece doesn’t touch on, however, is that all of this — the crisis and the conversation — has been made possible by increasingly diversifying feedback and, more crucial still, the destabilization of traditional power structures within media.
Again, this is not a bad thing, at least not ethically. Although it does raise myriad other questions about how, and if, content creation/journalism can remain a viable career. Within the greater sports-writing community, lines are pretty well blurred between the amateur and professionals. For many — especially for those who want their work to pay for things like rent, food, and things for the family — it can be an uncomfortable level of democratization.
The flips side being that, before this contextual shift began, beat reporting (and professional journalism writ large) was all but closed off to women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. As sports reporting becomes more diverse, accountability becomes that much more important — and difficult. How does one navigate that?
I don’t know if I qualify as an expert, but these are a few things I try to keep in mind when I’m writing and sharing a story, whether it’s a gamer or a longer, more in-depth feature.
1. It’s not about you.
Even if you’re writing an essay or feature with a personal component, good writing and good reporting should look beyond navel-gazing and establish a connection with something other than oneself. Your own experience is only as good as your understanding and contextualization thereof. If you can’t anticipate and acknowledge the larger impact of what you’re putting out there, reconsider whether it’s worth publishing at all.
2. Be aware of your own biases.
Be up front about it. Be straightforward about things you don’t believe, things you don’t know, or things you don’t know yet. If you’re benefiting from some level of privilege (any privilege), approach any story with that in mind — even if you don’t feel the need to make it explicit.
3. Hold yourself to a high standard of accountability and question yourself and your writing frequently.
Edit and proofread. If you’re not sure about something, ask a peer or colleague. If you’re extra not sure about something — because it pertains to a difficult subject like gender, race, sexuality, class, etc. — ask someone who’s had that experience. Ask a woman, a person of color, or a trans person. Ask someone who might actually vocally disagree with you. Double check for factual accuracy. Read something multiple times before you hit “publish” or “post” or “send.”
Nobody can be expected to be perfect at this 100% of the time, but the genuine effort will show on the page. More importantly, your writing will be better and more nuanced for the trouble.
I had the great privilege of publishing this article on transphobia in sports at the Victory Press, and Andrew put it very well:
“We want so much for sports to be something separate, or even an escape, but they’re not. They’re not only a reflection of the society we live in, but they also shape that society by establishing normative cultural practices.”
It may be “just a game,” but the social-political implications of sports run much, much deeper than that. Unfortunately, the journalists we’ve traditionally entrusted with the sports-writing mantle — even the best longform stories — still fall short in terms of accountability. Moreover, bloggers (like myself) making the jump to being considered “real reporters” are still in the unenviable position of having to challenge and break the rules while often unconsciously falling back into established patterns of gatekeeping and egotism.
It isn’t a real paradigm shift if we just adapt the current structure of sports journalism to account for new tools. Nor is it a paradigm shift if we truly think figuring out how to put out a good gamer means the dawning of a new and better day.
Nor, too, will such a shift mean freedom from a formulaic game recap that — as Parnass does well to note — a computer can now do for us. Rather, it’s the change in how we see sports, how we view ourselves as fans and writers and athletes, that will prove not just the most fruitful, but the most meaningful as well. And that kind of change will only be possible by embracing the vast amounts of feedback — both direct and indirect — and filtering it accordingly.
This isn’t to take away from the singular effect of a story in print, independent of the oft-discouraging comments scrolling beneath it. And it’s certainly not an indictment of the vast energy we’ve expended honing our crafts — doing research, conducting interviews, developing informed perspective and opinions, etc. After all, these are things we did long before the Internet. Sometimes writing is just good.
Which is why all of this amounts to merely pulling back the curtain. While the scale, methods, and degree of inclusiveness have all changed drastically, journalism has always been interactive, communicative, and timely. We’re all still human — humans whose “beats,” once largely unsular and defined by highly specific and privileged dynamics, are beginning to shed their limits. Because of that, we the writers can better pull from that vast amount of feedback, to make better choices about how to cover sports.
At it’s best, it can be a beautiful process. But the choices still matter, and making them can be a challenge. Rather than mourn the loss of outmoded reporting that never allowed for these choices — because it systematically sequestered itself from diversity and from feedback — let us instead consider these choices carefully. We need that diversity to generate thoughtful criticism and enable diverse perspectives. Heck, we even need it to write about statistics. To give our writing the life it deserves.
In the end, that’s what really scares the traditional beat reporters who most malign these changes. Instead of working in a hermetic vacuum of facts, stats, and craft, we’re all being challenged to think on our feet about how it all comes together: the “game story,” the “hit piece,” the “think piece,” a brand new website. All of which might sound kind of scary —particularly if you’re not used to thinking about it at all. if you continue to not think about it, or push back against the shifting tide, that’s certainly a choice.
Just don’t be surprised if the spaces where your bylines used to show suddenly start filling up with much more nuanced, interesting, and challenging work.
It might be what we want after all.
