There’s been a notion lately that the media focuses too heavily of the negative stories in college football. That we – myself included – make too much of scandals at Ohio State, Southern California or with Cliff Harris and Bill Stewart when more precedence should be put on the likes of guys like Mark Herzlich and Eric LeGrand.
As much as folks claim to clamor for the feel-good stories, at day’s end the media is giving you exactly what you want.
I’m speaking generally, of course but when thinking back to the early days of allCanes Radio, our goal was to convey the great stories that past and present players and coaches have to offer. We quickly found that people don’t care all that much for fluff as it doesn’t make for good Monday morning water cooler fodder.
In the end, we’re no different than your nightly news that will have an entire ‘A block’ dedicated to murder, death and destruction. Sure, they’ll eventually get to the heartwarming piece about a lost dog found two years later to the day in another state, but that’s halfway into the newscast and personally I can’t tell you the last time I called a friend to discuss the ‘lost dog’ story.
This really isn’t the fault of the media and Sports Information Directors of the nation, take note. The more you shut out the media, the less we’ll know about those great off-the-field stories that exist. Sure, you’ll get the ‘state run media’ accounts of great stories, but isn’t it a bit more genuine when independent media outlets do those stories? When an unbiased party writes, the piece reads with less of a ‘winning your wings’ feel and has authenticity.
As a fan, the recent videos, stories, blogs and social networking posts coming out of big times schools these days are much appreciated, but we all know they’re not telling the complete story.
With less media access, it creates a world where writers have to go on tips and rumors when drumming up story ideas. I’ve fond in my time covering sports that you aren’t getting tips about star running backs giving up their Thursday nights to tutor fifth graders and I can’t recall the last time someone emailed me a picture of a linebacker coaching a little league baseball team in his spare time.
On the other hand, phone calls about players out and about on a Saturday night publicly acting like idiots is the norm. I’ve gotten pictures of cars parked in handicapped spots and detailed emails about players arrested for public drunkenness.
Most of the time I do nothing with the leads as I don’t see the point in making front page news out of a random night in the Grove. In this case, for the sake of giving you a positive example, I’ll share this true story.
A while back I got a phone call from a friend who was at a park coaching an optimist team. He rang me up on a Sunday morning to let me know that a player was dealing drugs in the same park. I made a few calls and word got back to the head coach that this was going on. In the end, the player got the help he needed and this wasn’t a story that got out there for the sake of getting out there.
If my friend calls someone else in the media, this particular story doesn’t end up the way it did.
This wasn’t the first nor last time I’ve received a phone call like that, getting back to the original point that no one calls me with feel-good stories.
Two years ago, before our present SID staff was in place, I walked into the office and asked if there were any ‘good’ stories to tell. I was looking for some tales of academic success or glowing off-the-field stories. Their collective answer to me; “we have no idea”.
I still shake my head regarding that frustrating moment.
In the old days you’d have a SID call or invite you down to the office to let you know that so and so volunteers at a homeless shelter on Tuesday nights and asking if the media would like to do a story on it. Or sometimes, in the old days when things were a bit looser, you’d talk to a player for a while – off the record, after practice – and you’d learn that his dad was in the military, serving Iraq or that his mom works three jobs but still makes every home game.
Sadly, those days are gone and while there are some good stories out there, it’s much more difficult to find out about them.
In the end, it really does go back to the user, though. It’s a demand thing and if there was truly an outrage from fans about the lack of positive stories, maybe the industry would finally change their approach. That said, there’s simply no demand and it’s that lack of demand that inevitably brings such notice to the few feel-good stories that do surface. It’s like that spring that pops up in the desert. If there were a plethora of water fountains in that arid terrain, you wouldn’t make such a big deal about that random spring.
Getting back to where this piece started, I don’t think the Ohio State scandals of the world got more attention than deserved. Imagine if there were wrongdoings at Apple or with Wal-Mart. It’d receive around-the-clock news coverage just like we saw with the BP oil disaster, Toyota recalls and crooked ways of half the banks on this planet.
Maybe all this media attention and focus on the bad helps bring attention to situations and prevents others from following suit. Maybe the bulls eye on Columbus, Ohio this off-season will force other universities to do a better job regarding their own housekeeping.
Or maybe all that truly is a bunch of bunk and the media simply exists to bring the whole world down, truly having it out for everyone. Yeah, that’s the ticket.