Consider this a prequel, as it were to the big, huge, massive, ginormous, David Beckham rant coming shortly, i.e., before he cuts his hair again.
Right now, my ire is locked and loaded and pointed squarely at the backbone of the American sports media -- the Associated Press.
Readers of this here slice of the Inter-web may or may not know that I spend my day job (which is actually at night) as a mild mannered traditional sports reporter at a mid-sized daily paper. Part of my duties has me going over the 'wires' which is essentially navigating through each and every sports story filed by the Associated Press, plus a variety of other columns from papers across the nation.
So when the "URGENT" news passes across that the Buffalo Sabres have hired a new coach, I get to read it and all the subsequent write-thrus. Fun times.
Naturally, the news that is filtered through our server, and I'd assume most other American media outlets is limited in its soccer scope. Something mammoth, like the Thierry Henry move to Barcelona might get picked up. Everything else...touch and go. Usually they aggregate a European roundup and at least move MLS scores and standings.
Rest assured though, should there be a fan riot or some kind of violence the AP will let you know about it, such as Sunday's riot in Lithuania in the Intertoto Cup. (Toto!)
Why should this matter?
After ESPN, the Associated Press probably influences the minds of sports fans and sports editors more than anything. Just about everyone uses the AP stories, from newspapers to websites. So if the AP decides to send a stringer out to the Tour de Kazakhstan, it might find its way into some kind of printed or digital media. (We'll leave ESPN alone, even in wake of the Gene Wojciechowski column that as the soccer-net all in a tizzy. The Worldwide can't just cover a game, it's gotta have attitude!)
This has been going on for a long time, so why the ire all of a sudden?
Reading the dispatches filed from Venezuela for the USMNT from the Copa America was an absolute joke. Considering the limited limelight soccer carves out on the national sporting scene, moving a dull, disinterested story of about 16 inches following the USMNT loss to Colombia Thursday night is unacceptable. The writer -- Joshua Goodman -- even decided it would be useful to throw in a quote from Kasey Keller and he didn't even play that night!
With few -- if any -- American media outlets deciding to spend the money and risk their reporter being kidnapped in Venezuela, the AP report is crucial.
In fairness, Goodman is probably one of the few English speaking/writing AP staffers in the entire country of Venezuela. So to have him write about soccer instead of the Hugo Chavez regime was likely a stretch.
Sadly, this seems par for the course. Let's use some bullet points and check some of the other AP transgressions.
** No "National" soccer writer. For most sports -- baseball, football, auto racing, etc. the AP has a writer solely devoted to enterprise and feature stories on a given sport. In the build-up and during the 2006 World Cup, the AP did 'embed' Ronald Blum with the team. Blum seemed to know what he was doing, but has subsequently disappeared. Chicago-based national writer Nancy Armour at least thinks she knows soccer and went over to Germany, but anyone with half a brain come come to another conclusion.
Mondays, the AP does file a soccer-only column from writer Robert Millward, based in London. As you can imagine its the typical stodgy, Limey-based view that does not resonate with American.
Still, it's abundantly clear that within its news-HQ in New York no one at the AP sports desk has a clue about the sport.
And when big events roll around, say a USMNT game or say the MLS Cup, the duties are assigned to the local AP sports staffer in the city who usually doesn't have any point of reference and comes up with the most throughly uninteresting and vanilla story he or she can file.
Reading these stories you can almost feel the disdain in the writer, "I've got to cover a soccer game. Sheesh."
** What the AP does to cover MLS is nothing short of criminal. Four-paragraph game summaries? Why even bother.
The AP can move every baseball stat known to mankind, but in my time I've never seen an 'MLS Leaders' file move. How hard is that?
And how does the WNBA. The W-Fucking-NBA have a weekly 'Notes' package, while MLS does not? One on a rare while a feature might move. About as often as 'The Wire' is recognized by Emmy voters (read never).
Now, granted, there isn't a huge demand editorially for MLS summaries, but you're telling me you can find ANYTHING interesting from a 90 minute game. Is the non-bylined staffer so busy he or she can't grab a quote or two?
This will get interesting in the next couple weeks when the Beckham hype machine rolls around. The AP and other big news organizations will care. But will they get the story right? Or will they show how truly clueless they are unless they are spoonfed the information? Imagine something like, "David Beckham right foot kicked the ball and pranced around the field."
From a personal standpoint, while this remains a big deal in the long term, it's not that bad. You know why?
Because of people like you and me.
The thirst for knowledge of American soccer fans has never been higher. Thanks to innovations in the web like YouTube, etc. we can put together clips and analysis and form our own conversations away from the idiots at the AP and the Worldwide Leader.
It's not outrageous to say that no sport has benefited from the blog explosion quite like soccer. We fans have been sick and tired of being ignored and now we can take it into our own hands.
Still, as good as the work we can accomplish blogging and YouTubing and podcasting the nights away, there is still a place for good old fashioned journalism. I can rant and rave all I like but I don't have access to players and coaches...and that's fine. It's always good to read a feature from a respectable writer like Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl or the Washington Post's Stephen Goff.
No matter which way the wind blows sports journalism there is always a need for in-depth feature writing with access to the subjects that blogging can never replace.
And since this is a blog I'm starting to degenerate into full rant-and-rave mode. Might as well wrap this up. Ugh...don't even get me started on ESPN's 'Who's Now' exercise in stupidity, pitting Kobe Bryant vs. Ronaldinho in who is more "now"?
I'm just going to bash my head in with a ballpeen get it over with.
Adios.
Right now, my ire is locked and loaded and pointed squarely at the backbone of the American sports media -- the Associated Press.
Readers of this here slice of the Inter-web may or may not know that I spend my day job (which is actually at night) as a mild mannered traditional sports reporter at a mid-sized daily paper. Part of my duties has me going over the 'wires' which is essentially navigating through each and every sports story filed by the Associated Press, plus a variety of other columns from papers across the nation.
So when the "URGENT" news passes across that the Buffalo Sabres have hired a new coach, I get to read it and all the subsequent write-thrus. Fun times.
Naturally, the news that is filtered through our server, and I'd assume most other American media outlets is limited in its soccer scope. Something mammoth, like the Thierry Henry move to Barcelona might get picked up. Everything else...touch and go. Usually they aggregate a European roundup and at least move MLS scores and standings.
Rest assured though, should there be a fan riot or some kind of violence the AP will let you know about it, such as Sunday's riot in Lithuania in the Intertoto Cup. (Toto!)
Why should this matter?
After ESPN, the Associated Press probably influences the minds of sports fans and sports editors more than anything. Just about everyone uses the AP stories, from newspapers to websites. So if the AP decides to send a stringer out to the Tour de Kazakhstan, it might find its way into some kind of printed or digital media. (We'll leave ESPN alone, even in wake of the Gene Wojciechowski column that as the soccer-net all in a tizzy. The Worldwide can't just cover a game, it's gotta have attitude!)
This has been going on for a long time, so why the ire all of a sudden?
Reading the dispatches filed from Venezuela for the USMNT from the Copa America was an absolute joke. Considering the limited limelight soccer carves out on the national sporting scene, moving a dull, disinterested story of about 16 inches following the USMNT loss to Colombia Thursday night is unacceptable. The writer -- Joshua Goodman -- even decided it would be useful to throw in a quote from Kasey Keller and he didn't even play that night!
With few -- if any -- American media outlets deciding to spend the money and risk their reporter being kidnapped in Venezuela, the AP report is crucial.
In fairness, Goodman is probably one of the few English speaking/writing AP staffers in the entire country of Venezuela. So to have him write about soccer instead of the Hugo Chavez regime was likely a stretch.
Sadly, this seems par for the course. Let's use some bullet points and check some of the other AP transgressions.
** No "National" soccer writer. For most sports -- baseball, football, auto racing, etc. the AP has a writer solely devoted to enterprise and feature stories on a given sport. In the build-up and during the 2006 World Cup, the AP did 'embed' Ronald Blum with the team. Blum seemed to know what he was doing, but has subsequently disappeared. Chicago-based national writer Nancy Armour at least thinks she knows soccer and went over to Germany, but anyone with half a brain come come to another conclusion.
Mondays, the AP does file a soccer-only column from writer Robert Millward, based in London. As you can imagine its the typical stodgy, Limey-based view that does not resonate with American.
Still, it's abundantly clear that within its news-HQ in New York no one at the AP sports desk has a clue about the sport.
And when big events roll around, say a USMNT game or say the MLS Cup, the duties are assigned to the local AP sports staffer in the city who usually doesn't have any point of reference and comes up with the most throughly uninteresting and vanilla story he or she can file.
Reading these stories you can almost feel the disdain in the writer, "I've got to cover a soccer game. Sheesh."
** What the AP does to cover MLS is nothing short of criminal. Four-paragraph game summaries? Why even bother.
The AP can move every baseball stat known to mankind, but in my time I've never seen an 'MLS Leaders' file move. How hard is that?
And how does the WNBA. The W-Fucking-NBA have a weekly 'Notes' package, while MLS does not? One on a rare while a feature might move. About as often as 'The Wire' is recognized by Emmy voters (read never).
Now, granted, there isn't a huge demand editorially for MLS summaries, but you're telling me you can find ANYTHING interesting from a 90 minute game. Is the non-bylined staffer so busy he or she can't grab a quote or two?
This will get interesting in the next couple weeks when the Beckham hype machine rolls around. The AP and other big news organizations will care. But will they get the story right? Or will they show how truly clueless they are unless they are spoonfed the information? Imagine something like, "David Beckham right foot kicked the ball and pranced around the field."
From a personal standpoint, while this remains a big deal in the long term, it's not that bad. You know why?
Because of people like you and me.
The thirst for knowledge of American soccer fans has never been higher. Thanks to innovations in the web like YouTube, etc. we can put together clips and analysis and form our own conversations away from the idiots at the AP and the Worldwide Leader.
It's not outrageous to say that no sport has benefited from the blog explosion quite like soccer. We fans have been sick and tired of being ignored and now we can take it into our own hands.
Still, as good as the work we can accomplish blogging and YouTubing and podcasting the nights away, there is still a place for good old fashioned journalism. I can rant and rave all I like but I don't have access to players and coaches...and that's fine. It's always good to read a feature from a respectable writer like Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl or the Washington Post's Stephen Goff.
No matter which way the wind blows sports journalism there is always a need for in-depth feature writing with access to the subjects that blogging can never replace.
And since this is a blog I'm starting to degenerate into full rant-and-rave mode. Might as well wrap this up. Ugh...don't even get me started on ESPN's 'Who's Now' exercise in stupidity, pitting Kobe Bryant vs. Ronaldinho in who is more "now"?
I'm just going to bash my head in with a ballpeen get it over with.
Adios.
Labels: anger, ESPN sucks, Soccer, sports journalism
Great post. One can only hope the bigwigs will see the interest in soccer demonstrated by the growth in blogs about it in the U.S. and upgrade their coverage.
Hey you watching the HR derby?
sorry.
Just wanted to say I completely agree. As a fellow peruser of the AP wire its disappointing what soccer coverage is provided.
Although the soccer-phile assistant sports editor at my paper does manage to put in 25 inches of EPL wrapup every Sunday. Unfortunately our aged 70+ readership thinks its a communist sport.
You pissed off about something?
Here's a great example of this:
http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/7007962
AP story by Tim Dahlberg.
to sum it up - Beckham's coming - who cares? Soccer's still boring.
I hate these close minded punks.
KK
KK -- Pretty funny. I actually was going to update the post with an inclusion of that article. I actually emailed Dahlberg. doubt he has the balls to respond. -- Mike
Great post. I'm tired of the American sportswriters who don't understand soccer describing the sport as boring. These are the same people that will extol the excitement of golf and baseball.