tensions in the press box: understanding relationships among media and communications professionals...

Tensions in the Press Box 1

Running head: Tensions in the press box

Tensions in the Press Box:

Understanding Relationships among Media and Communications

Professionals

in Intercollegiate Athletics

David Welch Suggs, Jr.

University of Georgia

© 2014, all rights reserved


Abstract: Sports journalists have long enjoyed close—many would say too close

—relationships with their sources. As suggested by a neoinstitutionalist understanding of

organizational relationships, routines and professional expectations become accepted

over time by journalists and sports organizations alike. However, new competition from

online media, as well as new opportunities for teams to bypass the media, have threatened

the legitimacy of journalists and the work practices. A survey of 437 reporters and

communications personnel found key differences in the ways those in the professions

perceived access, suggesting that traditional work patterns are evolving in ways that

could delegitimate journalists.

Keywords: Sports journalism, institutionalism, college sports, sport media, sport

communications


Tensions in the press box: understanding relationships

between journalists and communications professionals in

intercollegiate athletics

Introduction

The media credential is a key signifier of status at a sporting

event. Dangling from lanyards or flapping from belt loops, the small

placards tell everyone who sees them that the bearer can go to

restricted places, take pictures or record video, and enjoy special

access to players and coaches.

The issue of access symbolized by the credential is most obvious

and perhaps most routinized in sports, but it is a primary concern for

journalists on all beats, including government, business, and

education. Access to decision-makers, “elite sources,” takes place

through a complex network of spokespeople and representatives, and

reporters in turn depend on such access for news content as well as

prestige.1

Access is a value-laden concept: While governmental officials

must speak in public and individuals may be required to speak with law

enforcement, nobody is required to provide special access to the

media. Access can be subject to custom, as with sports reporters in


locker rooms, or as a form of quid pro quo between source and

reporter that can compromise standards of objectivity.

Many recent reports suggest that journalists on a range of beats

are experiencing reduced access to elite sources.2 According to the

Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one out of every five

journalists who had applied for an organizational credential was denied

at least once.3 Washington reporters have complained about being

frozen out by the public-affairs offices originally created to serve

them.4 A recent survey of journalists in education found that

communications professionals regulated access to the point of

interfering in reporting.5 And SCOTUSBlog.com, the Peabody Award-

winning outlet covering the U.S. Supreme Court, recently had its

credentials revoked because it was deemed not to be an independent

news organization.6

The realm of sports is perhaps the most institutionalized field

within media, given the decades in which credentials, press

conferences and locker-room availabilities have been key elements of

work patterns. Here, too, trends are threatening the traditionally broad

level of access granted to reporters. In 2014, Clemson University’s

sports-communications department produced a mission statement that

read, in part, “It will always be of importance to treat the media

professionally and provide them with the tools to do their jobs.


However, it is not the singular focus or even foremost priority of our

department.”7

The past decade has witnessed seen two primary threats to

access in sports, specifically American intercollegiate athletics. The

first has been sports organizations claiming that reporters covering

games in real time on the Internet infringes on broadcast rights. In

2007, the National Collegiate Athletic Association attempted to prevent

reporters from publishing blog updates on baseball championships on

these grounds.8 The Southeastern Conference attempted to do the

same in 2009.9 And at the University of Washington, the athletics

department in 2012 announced a cap on the number of social-media

updates posted during games by credentialed media.10 However; the

NCAA’s policy was rescinded, the SEC’s never has been enforced., and

it does not appear that reporters have been sanctioned at Washington

or the University of Southern California, which also has such a cap.11

Second, new online-only or online-primary organizations have

sprung up to challenge traditional news outlets. Websites such as

Rivals.com, BleacherReport.com, SBNation.com, 247.com, and

Scout.com employ reporters who request the same kind of access as

traditional media.

The purpose of this study is to compare how sports journalists

and the organizations they cover view and value access, independent

reporting, and the autonomy of journalists to publish information when


and how they come across it. Two surveys were conducted in the

summer of 2013, one of independent media and another of sports-

communications professionals, both in American college sports. As an

exploratory study, the results will pertain most to the specific sphere of

intercollegiate athletics, but the results have ramifications in the

coverage of other sports and other beats.

Sports information

The existing literature on sports and media is largely silent on

the structure of relationships between sports organizations and media

organizations. Historical views of sports and media focus on the efforts

of reporters to protect sources, namely players, by not printing

embarrassing information.12

Most sports-information departments (known variously as “sports

information,” “sports communications,” or “departments of athletic

media relations”) are organized along the lines of a traditional news

service bureau. Employees of such departments, known as SIDs or

sports information directors, are considered to be the primary

spokespeople and public-relations officials within collegiate athletics

departments and act as gatekeepers between teams and media.

Because of the frequency of games and other events, SIDs tend

to have formalized, routinized contact with independent media at

contests, press conferences, and through interview requests with


players and coaches far more frequently than media-relations officers

in other sectors. Sports organizations "institutionalize contacts with

journalists and again create a bridge between themselves and the

news world," according to Theberge and Cronk.13

Sports-communications personnel tend to place a premium on

operating in Grunig’s "public information" model of public relations.14

Their jobs generally tend to be technical: They are expected to

produce material for media and teams and manage requests from

members of the media, but they are not central to departmental

decision-making.15 According to McClenaghan, independent media

were historically the primary constituency of SIDs, but jobs have been

reconfigured to focus more on marketing, and reporters themselves

are deemed less important than donors and others.16 By the mid-

1990s, SIDs also were overwhelmed by the growth of media outlets

connected to athletics departments, such as cable and radio.

Sports journalists

The history of sports media depicts a cozy relationship, wherein

reporters had traveling and interviewing privileges with athletes and

“Godding up the players,” in the words of Red Smith.17 Writing in 1944,

F.G. Menke asserted that newspapers had given sports-event

promoters a “golden bonanza” by covering their events without

charging for advertising, as had been the case in the 19th century.18


Newspapers invested in sports coverage in the early twentieth century

because that and crime news were the top draws for audience.19

Reporters in the 1960s and 1970s brought a more critical strategy to

covering sports, questioning team decisions and covering labor unrest

in baseball, among other topics.20 While a few journalists earned the ire

of teams and leagues, many more continued to cover teams glowingly,

and many of the traditional practices have remained in place to this

day. Studies have generally found sports journalists to be more

credulous of and more protective of their sources than journalists in

other fields.21

Salwen and Garrison found that sports journalists tended to

struggle with hallmarks of professionalism used by journalists as a

whole, being slow to adopt codes of ethics and being more tolerant of

questionable ethics such as accepting free trips and paraphernalia.22

They, as well as Reed, saw progress made on the professional

standards of sports journalists during the 1990s as the need to appear

unbiased, willing to investigate, and aggressive on scoops supplanted

previously cushy relationships with sources.23 Anderson found the

activities of sports journalists too complex to label as purely

cheerleading for their sources, but "sports journalists who wanted to

gain and maintain professional credibility had to do so while sustaining

a close relationship with the source of information.”24


The research may indicate that sports journalists are more

favorably disposed to their subjects than other journalists, but the

challenge of maintaining access while trying to report impartially

echoes the findings about the practice of, among other beats, political

journalism. A growing body of work by theorists of political

communication depicts journalists who occupy a curious space—partly

the “fourth estate” model of participating in governance and partly

negotiating an often vague and unregulated domain to construct news

from a small group of sources with agendas of their own.25

The neoinstitutional perspective

Cook, Sparrow, and others frame their understanding of the news

media as individual journalists choosing what to cover and how to

cover it under conditions of considerable apparent freedom, which

paradoxically results in news that is prevailingly similar in tone and

content across organizations and platforms. Reporters appear to have

latitude to create content to fill pages, consume broadcast minutes,

and appeal to advertisers, and their work routines consist of constant

decisions about how to gather facts and how to frame them.26 These

decisions are all constrained, however, by enduring, systemized

principles mediated by other forces. Editors create professional

expectations, sources share information shaped by their own agendas,

and to be legitimized by both parties, reporters must conform to


certain patterns of behavior and expectations, such as objectivity and

factual accuracy. Stories, then, are homogenized by reporters’

dependency on a common set of sources; the professionalization of

editors and senior reporters; and adherence to a set of norms.

According to Cook, there is a basic uncertainty surrounding news

and the status of those who create it.27 Moreover each news

organization (even one consisting of one individual writer/blogger) has

the ability to decide what constitutes news. Instead, journalists

attempt to obtain a level of authenticity on the news they publish by

adhering to what Cook calls “a series of rituals that protect objectivity,

factuality, and other indicators of so-called journalistic ethics.”28

Among these rituals are the information subsidies provided to the

press in exchange for more favorable coverage, as described by Oscar

Gandy, and to which reporters begin to feel entitled.29 According to

Cook, such have their origins in the political journalism of the

nineteenth century.30 To replace the practice of sponsoring partisan

publications, political actors began to provide explicit entitlements

favoring the “bona fide” press, such as favorable rates for periodicals,

press bureaus at executive-branch agencies, and special press

seating.31

This framework is derived from neoinstitutional theory, found

mostly in the literature of organizational sociology. From this

perspective, a researcher examines the products, services, techniques,


policies and programs that are defined by prevailing concepts of

organizational work and have been deemed legitimate by society.32

More specifically, organizations are shaped according to myths that

have taken on a social power through various channels, such as public

opinion, aphorisms transmitted through educational channels, or the

assertions of dominant institutions.33 Acceptance of such myths,

particularly in an uncertain environment, occurs through isomorphic

pressures that come from emulating more successful organizations;

from new laws or political pressures; or from individuals within

different organizations spreading common practices through

professional networks.34

Meyer and Rowan, in their foundational article, describe

institutionalized organizations as being resistant to rational scrutiny

and expectations. Instead, they are very mindful of external

legitimization through ceremonial criteria, such as prizes and awards.

Certification and accreditation processes also fall into this category, as

does anything that demonstrates the “social fitness of an

organization.”35 What develops in an institutionalized field is a situation

in which the activities of an organization are decoupled from the formal

organizational structure and rules.36 Activities take place without the

active oversight of managers, goals are made ambiguous, and

ontological and teleological goals are separated.


Neoinstitutionalist theory would posit that relationships between

athletics departments, sports-communications offices, and

independent media are mediated by this process of decoupling, and

that subsidies are provided not according to rational process of

whether media access and coverage serve the needs of the athletics

program, but at the discretion of organizational actors. Those actors

wield a great deal of power in their relationships with media

organizations because of the strong level of legitimacy sports

organizations enjoy with the public, as suggested by Meyer and

Rowan’s proposition that societally-legitimated organizations are the

ones able to command the resources and survival capabilities in the

long run.37

Access to elite sources is thus a form of media subsidy as

described by Cook and Gandy. But it is subject to the tensions between

formal organizational policies—those permitting independent

journalists to report and publish news about the organization—and the

desire of the team to minimize scrutiny and negative evaluation by

outsiders. Thus, journalists must negotiate conditions of access with

organizational actors.

Hypotheses and research questions

The work of Cook and others suggest that sports reporters work

in environments not dissimilar from journalists covering other beats,


but routines and interactions tend to be more clearly defined and

regularized than in other sectors. CEOs and senators do not typically

have weekly press briefings, but football and basketball coaches

typically do. This leads to two key questions:

RQ1: Are there systematic differences in the perspectives of

journalists and representatives of sports organizations on

access?

RQ2: Are changes in the organizational field—primarily the

growth of team media and online independent media—affecting

how communications professionals and journalists understand

access?

A neoinstitutionalist perspective on these issues leads to the

following hypotheses:

H1: Institutionalized reporting and publishing practices will be

viewed similarly by media and sources.

The basic practices of newsgathering and reporting have

remained nominally unchanged in the realm of sports: Reporters are

given credentials to attend games and events such as press


conferences, and are granted access to players and coaches for

interviews for both stories and features. In an institutionalized field,

conditions under which credentials and interviews are granted should

be commonly understood from both sides. If not, one would expect

such practices to be undergoing a change process, shifting from one

paradigm to another.

H2: Athletics departments tend to exercise discretion, rather

than objective evaluation, of journalists in deciding whether to

grant credentials.

If relationships between independent sports media and athletics

programs have been institutionalized over time in the cultures of both

types of organizations, the process of requesting and granting access

have been routinized to the point that sports-communication officials

make such decisions without formally evaluating the costs and benefits

of such practices.

H3: Most sports organizations will attempt to minimize scrutiny

and reject outside examination, unless it comes from an

organization with too much power in the field to turn away.


If an organization is attempting to prevent or punish negative

coverage, or if it is perceived as doing so, then it suggests the

existence of “rules of the game” that have consequences for breaking

them, even if no clear evidence suggests that such coverage actually

harms the program. Of course, the First Amendment entitles American

journalists to write what they want subject to certain restrictions, but

teams and sports organizations also are free to decide not to speak

with particular individuals. As such, the existence of rules in this space

is evidence of institutionalization.

H4: Additions of new channels of communication (i.e., owned and

contracted media and social media) and new media competitors

(i.e., independent websites) have not affected working conditions

for reporters.

As implied in H1, institutionalized practices of access and

freedom to publish have remained durable over the years, despite

changes to the composition of major college sports, the rise of over-

the-air television and then cable television, and the early days of the

Internet. While social media might have the potential to de-

institutionalize organizational relationships, if access and autonomy

are strongly institutionalized concepts, then the advent of social media


and new competitor platforms should not mean a difference in

reporting practices.

Data and methods

Assessing these questions was undertaken through two online

surveys conducted in the summer of 2013. Participants for the first

were recruited from the membership of the Football Writers

Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association,

both of which agreed to solicit responses from their members. Both

organizations include public-relations officers, event organizers, retired

reporters, and student media as well as currently-employed media

members, but the cohort was reduced to a combined population of 777

working media. After three invitations (one from organizational

presidents and two from the author), 268 members of the media

agreed to participate, for a total response rate of 34.5%.

The second survey was sent by CoSIDA, formerly the College

Sports Information Directors Association, to 1,588 members on its

Division I membership list (i.e., members working at institutions

belonging to Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association)

by the organization’s interim director. Two follow-up requests also

were sent by the author, resulting in 239 usable responses, for a

response rate of 15.1%.


The media survey instrument consisted of 84 items, and the

instrument for sports-communications professionals consisted of 106

items. Hypotheses were tested using descriptive results of the survey

as well as independent-sample t-tests to assess differences between

journalists and SIDs or among journalists from different kinds of news

outlets.

All questions requested responses on a four-point Likert scale to

require respondents to make judgments instead of remaining neutral.

No previous measures from other studies could be found, so this

should be considered an exploratory study. Each variable was

represented in the survey by a minimum of two items and as many as

six. Variables that did not return a Cronbach’s alpha score of at least

0.70 were dropped from the study. Those used included the following:

H1: Similarity of perspectives on access issues

• Do reporters receive access to elite sources (i.e., coaches and

athletes) outside of group press conferences?

• Does reporters’ access to elite sources exceed that of donors

or boosters of the program?

• Do journalists receive useful and relevant material from

teams (journalists only)?

• Are seats for journalists are in advantageous positions, or

have they have been moved?


H2 Lack of evaluation

• Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s

audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant

credentials (SIDs only)?

• Do teams take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s

audience into consideration when deciding whether to grant

interviews (SIDs only)?

• Do teams review the size and demographics of the audiences

of the news outlets that cover them (SIDs only)?

H3: Avoidance of scrutiny/discretionary access

• Do reporters from “big-name” national outlets get better

access than local beat reporters (journalists only)?

• Do reporters from outlets with larger audiences and those

with better demographics get better access (journalists only)?

• Do reporters with good relationships with SIDs get exclusive

access than those without?

• Can reporters can maintain access even writing critical stories

(assuming they are accurately reported)?

• Can reporters can publish injury information or other material

they learn during practice or informally (noting the University


of Southern California coach’s attempt to ban a reporter

mentioned above)?

H4: Structural changes

• Are reporters are subject to limits on the number of online

(blogs or social media) posts they can publish during games?

• Had access has decreased since the signing of the athletics

department’s last broadcast contract?

• Has access has decreased over the course of a reporter’s

career?

• Is access worse for bloggers and representatives of online

news outlets, as opposed to those from traditional print and

broadcast outlets?

• Do reporters get enough access to provide the coverage their

editors and audience expect?

• Do athletics programs breaks their own news on the Internet

or social media?

Table 1 provides summary data for each variable, including

scores for each variable’s items.

[Insert Table 1 about here]


Results

Participants

The sample skewed heavily male (93% for media, 79% for SIDs)

and white (88% for media, 92% for SIDs), figures comparable to other

studies of sports media.38 Among media, the largest numbers of

members of minority groups were in independent blogs (20% of all

participants), while the largest representation of women was in sports

publications (10%). Traditional news organizations tended to skew

older, with 68% of participants from local news outlets reporting that

they were at least 40 years old. Bloggers reflected just the opposite,

with 68% reporting they were under age 40. Among SIDs, roughly 60%

reported being under 40.

H1

SIDs and journalists disagreed in several ways that suggested

that communications professionals believed that reporters had greater

access than reporters themselves believed. While a majority of

reporters (55%) believed that interviews with elite sources only took

place in group settings or press conferences—i.e., not in one-on-one

“exclusive” settings—over 87% of SIDs disagreed. Beliefs were

consistent across three items, and t-tests showed significant

differences (t (359) = -8.75, p < 0.001).


A small but consistent majority of reporters (55%) said that they

got better access than donors and supporters of programs. SIDs did

not report consistent responses to this variable. Fifty percent of

journalists reported that seats had been moved away from prime

viewing areas, a subject of contention between journalist groups and

the NCAA. However, 63% of SIDs disagreed, resulting in a statistically

significant difference (t (359) = -4.06, p < 0.001).

Thus, disconfirming H1, the survey found clear evidence that

reporters and SIDs disagreed on critical aspects of work and access.

SIDs appear to believe that journalists have the kind of access to

events and elite sources that is crucial for their jobs, a majority or

plurality of journalists indicated that they did not.

H2

When asked about their own practices, SIDs did not report

consistently on whether they took the size of a news outlet’s audience

or demographics into account when deciding whether to grant

credentials. A majority did report consistently that they did take these

characteristics into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-

one interviews (57%). A majority (59%) reported that their department

had never reviewed the size or market penetration of the outlets that

covered them.


For their part, 80% of reporters agreed with the statement that

journalists from national news outlets got better access than local beat

writers, and 79% agreed that having a more desirable audience meant

getting better access. Most journalists disagreed with the statement

that having a good relationship with an SID was necessary for getting

one-on-one access (60%), while SIDs did not report consistently on the

statement.

All of these suggest that there is little transparency or rational

choice going on when a decision is being made whether to grant a

particular reporter or news outlet access. While some athletics

departments may be performing a cost-benefit analysis when it comes

to granting interviews or other forms of access, the inconsistency

being reported between journalists and SIDs suggests that these are

unsettled issues across institutions.

H3

H3 states that sports organizations, like other kinds of

organizations, will attempt to minimize scrutiny and reject outside

examination. This is assessed primarily in terms of whether reporters

are able to maintain access even while writing critical stories,

assuming that these stories are factually accurate. Reporters

themselves believed this was true: 83% said they could maintain

access even after writing a critical story. SIDs answered the question


inconsistently, with nearly all (96%) saying that reporters would

maintain access, but 89% saying that reporters would not get access if

they were working on a critical story.

Neither reporters nor SIDs reported consistently whether limits

had been put in place regarding publishing injury information or other

news bits gleaned during practice sessions, as in the case that

prompted Southern California coach Lane Kiffin to declare a reporter

persona non grata.39

H4

H4 states, in essence, that the institutionalized practices of

sports media have been strong enough to withstand the new

opportunities and challenges created by two forces: the popularization

of the Internet in general and social media in particular, and the wave

of new, munificent broadcast contracts signed between networks and

athletic conferences. Both SIDs and journalists agreed consistently that

their institutions and conferences to which they belonged had not

established limits on blogs or other kinds of social media posted during

contests; 89% of SIDs and 81% of journalists agreed with this

statement. Among the items testing this agreement, t-tests showed

that consistently more SIDs than journalists agreed with this

statement, suggesting that more journalists feel constrained than SIDs

believe they are constraining journalists (t (356) = -2.81, p < 0.01).


SIDs reported consistently that independent media had

maintained the same access to elite sources that they had before the

athletics department (or its conference) signed its latest broadcast

contract, with 75% agreeing with that statement. Journalists also were

consistent but evenly split: 50% reported that they had less access

than they did prior to the signing of the latest broadcast contract. T-

tests consistently showed that reporters said they received less access

than SIDs reported they did. Moreover, journalists who reported that

the program had recently entered into a new broadcast contract

reported they had worse access than before at higher rates than those

who reported that the program had not begun a new contract (t (362)

= 8.23, p < 0.001).

Generally speaking, reporters and SIDs agreed that online-only

publications, including independent blogs and online networks such as

Rivals.com and Scout.com had achieved enough legitimacy to receive

credentials to events and access to interviews, with both groups

agreeing with the statement that both traditional media and startup or

online-only publications got credentials (77% of journalists and 76% of

SIDs agreed).

Roughly half of SIDs reported consistently that independent

media receive news at the same time as they publish it online or via

social media. Journalists did not report consistently on the matter, but

t-tests on all three items showed more of them than SIDs believed that


athletic programs did break news using their own channels before

releasing to independent media (t (356) = 5.21, p > 0.001).

These findings suggest three things. First, new broadcast

contracts and opportunities appear to be affecting the access of

independent news media, at least according to those media

themselves. Second, online media seem to have achieved enough

legitimacy to gain the kind of access that traditional media enjoy.

Third, as suggested in the findings for H1, sports communications

professionals appear to believe that reporters have greater access

than reporters themselves think they have. Taken together, these

findings partially support H4, but they also indicate that reporters and

SIDs have different definitions of the kind of work needed to produce

valuable content for audiences. Barely half (54%) of journalists agreed

with the statement that they got enough access to provide their

audience with the coverage desired.

Discussion

Seeing the newsgathering and publishing process as activities

that take place in an institutional field helps make clear the

organization-level dynamics that affect the quality of the work

journalists can do, and thus their ability to perform the function of

providing news and information to society. Specifically, access to

sources, events and information occurs through the interaction of


reporters and organizational representatives. These forms of access

traditionally have been provided as a subsidy to encourage journalists

to provide more information about the organization to their audiences.

What neoinstitutionalist theory does not address is when

institutionalized practices, such as the provision of subsidies, lose their

legitimacy. The surveys found evidence that conflicts are creeping in

between definitions of the adequacy of subsidies provided to sports

journalists, indicating a lack of support for H1. Specifically, SIDs tended

to agree with the statement that journalists had the access they

needed to do their work, while journalists themselves did not.

Furthermore, the process of granting access and other subsidies

seems relatively opaque. SIDs agreed that they took the audience of a

news outlet into account when deciding whether to grant one-on-one

interviews, but most of them did not review the reach or value of the

media thus favored. Journalists themselves believed that having

desirables did result in better access, but SIDs were inconsistent on

that account. While exercising discretion, SIDs reported inconsistency

on whether they would continue to maintain access if journalists

published critical (albeit accurate) stories about their organizations.

Reporters themselves did believe that they would continue to receive

access under such circumstances, one of the few cases in which they

reported believing they had greater access than SIDs reported them

having.


This speaks to a level of strategy in decoupling work practices

from the nominally-accepted rules in the environment. While Hirsch

and Bermiss discuss strategic decoupling in the context of nation-level

institutions, individuals can adopt strategies of decoupling as

organizational actors negotiating with others in the field.40 In this case,

SIDs have the autonomy to operate with discretion when it comes to

granting access to journalists, thanks to the tremendous public interest

in their teams and organizations. As such, they can base access

decisions on parochial needs rather than adhering to commonly-

accepted standards or measurable strategic goals for their

organizations.

Also, some subsidies appear to be more durable than others.

While munificent and expansive new broadcast contracts appear to

have had some impact on the access of independent journalists,

athletics departments did not appear to be using the Internet or social

media to bypass independent journalists and direct information

subsidies at a wider public, such as fans or donors. Also, very few

journalists or SIDs reported that journalists were being prevented from

covering games on new-media platforms such as blogs or social media,

suggesting that free wireless Internet access is becoming a very

common information subsidy.

Coming back to the original research questions, there are indeed

systematic differences in the perspectives of journalists and sports


communications professionals, as suggested in RQ1. These differences

suggest that on the whole, journalists believe that access to elite

sources is constrained in a way that impedes reporters’ ability to do

their work, but SIDs do not see constraints in the same way. Questions

were asked in a way that did not require individuals in either

profession to evaluate the work of those in the other line of work, so it

does not seem likely that SIDs were simply expressing the opinion that

journalists “need” less access than journalists believe they do. Instead,

it appeared that SIDs believed they were providing more access than

journalists believed, raising interesting questions for the profession.

In terms of RQ2, it did not appear that anecdotes about athletic

departments restricting access or ability to publish (especially on social

media) were indicative of a larger trend. Instead, news subsidies such

as conditions of access and publishing appear to be largely unaffected

by rapidly-changing forms of media.

In sum, many of the basic routines of media coverage of sports,

particularly college athletics, appear to have become institutionalized

to the point that they do not change in the face of evolving media and

new opportunities. The smoke and clatter of press workrooms filled

with typewriters may have been replaced by the quiet rattle of

keyboards, and screen crawls are succumbing to Twitter hashtags, but

reporters still gather to interview coaches and players after watching


games from Press Row. Even if Press Row has been moved back so

athletics programs can sell premium courtside seats.

However, such subsidies remain contingent on the actions of the

sports-communications office, as demonstrated by the constraints on

access identified by journalists. SIDs retain the discretion to negotiate

access on their own terms. While there was no indication that reporters

or SIDs believed that exchanges of positive coverage for access were

requested or provided, there were suggestions that SIDs could

withhold access if they deemed it prudent. Reporters, in other words,

have no guaranteed privileges in the press box or the locker room.

Both of these conditions, and many of the findings listed above,

fit well with the notion of an institutionalized culture. However, more

work remains to be done in understanding the strategy behind the

decisions of individuals to reshape their own work and renegotiate

agreements in the context of an organizational field. The media-SID

conflicts of 2012 do not appear to be commonplace, and the

relationship between media outlets and athletics departments does not

appear subject to renegotiation on a broad scale, but it does appear

that some organizations are testing boundaries. Neoinstitutional theory

would predict that through a process of mimetic isomorphism, if some

of the leading programs in the field established new restrictions on

access, other programs would follow suit.41


Limitations

The primary limitation of this study is that it is focused on

American intercollegiate athletics, which is a major focus for most

outlets with an interest in sports media but which covers a vast array

of universities and teams. With more than 300 basketball teams and

almost 130 football teams in the “big time” of Division I and the BCS

competing for media attention, most if not all college athletic programs

have incentives to provide access and other subsidies to media outlets

to increase their chances of coverage. The study was not able to

separate responses from such elite institutions from those coming from

colleges with a greater need for publicity.

A secondary limitation is that this was a national, anonymous

study, and it was impossible to match responses from journalists

covering a particular institution with those of SIDs from that same

institution. Paired responses would have yielded more specific

information about differences in media relations from institution to

institution.

Getting a truer picture of the status of media and sports-

communications professionals in the organizational field of sports

communication would require comparative work with other segments

of the field, such as professional sports and international sports. Other

research suggests that national factors may play a greater role in

determining access conditions and reporter-source relationships than


organizational or field-level characteristics.42 It would be expected that

in the context of American sports, the much smaller supply of major-

league teams would create more demand for access to any individual

club, giving sports-communications officials more leverage to manage

news subsidies, resulting in different patterns of institutionalization.43

Conclusions

Bryan Goldberg, one of the founders of BleacherReport.com, an

online sports outlet that got its start as a platform for fans, wrote in an

op-ed on Pando.com that “as for the type of stories that ‘insiders’ need

to ‘break’… my generation just does not care about the ‘insider game’

of building relationships with GMs and team presidents in order to get

a ‘scoop’ three hours before the guy at the other newspaper can get

it.”44

Goldberg left the outlet in 2012 after selling it to Turner for over $200

million, according to media reports.45 Since his departure, the site and other Web 2.0-era

startups have begun marching upmarket, de-emphasizing user-generated content and

hiring full-time reporters with careers spent covering specific sports and thus bringing

with them the relationships and confidences of sources, i.e., access. This is a trend

common in the maturation of products that have disrupted markets, according to Lowrey

and Christensen: After finding a niche that displaces upmarket goods (in this case, news

organizations), cheap disruptors begin to adopt the standards and structures of legitimized

competitors, themselves moving upmarket.46 In fact, BleacherReport.com has begun


adding tag lines to reported stories, emphasizing that quotations were obtained via

traditional reporting. An emphasis on exclusive access has become a hallmark of

BleacherReport’s competitors, such as SBNation.com’s “Longform” section and

ESPN.com’s Grantland.com property. All three now emphasize intensively-reported

magazine features, which generally require access far exceeding a beat reporter.

This trend suggests a potential conflict with Mark Cuban’s suggestion to

align a program’s access policies with its marketing priorities. If source

organizations move toward freezing out journalists, it would create a

significant problem for those seeking to tell the stories the public

needs and wants to hear. While these surveys did not find strong

evidence of trends in this direction, the topic will be worth revisiting as

new channels and platforms mature and offer new opportunities for

organizations to tell their own stories instead of permitting the media

access to do so.

Works Cited

1 Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality, New York (1978).2 Cary Coglianese, "The Transparency President? The Obama Administration and Open Government," Governance 22, no. 4 (2009); Leonard Jr. Downie, "The Obama Administration and the Press: Leak Investigations and Surveillance in Post-9/11 America," (Washington, D.C.: The Committee to Protect Journalists, 2013).3 Jeffrey P. Hermes et al., "Who Gets a Press Pass? Media Credentialing Practices in the United States," (2014), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2451239.4 Edirin Oputu, "Hacks Vs. Flacks: Do Public Affairs Offices Get in the Way?," Columbia Journalism Review (2013).5 Carolyn S. Carlson and Megan Roy, "Mediated Access: Education Writers’ Perceptions of Public Information Officers’ Media Control Efforts," Education Writers Association (2013), http://www.ewa.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/ewa_survey_report_2014.pdf.6 Tom Goldstein, "The Walls Erected by Traditional Media," SCOTUSBlog (2014), http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/the-walls-erected-by-traditional-media/.7 Bob Gillespie, "Commentary: Clemson Reinvents Media Access," The State (2014), http://www.thestate.com/2014/05/19/3454873/commentary-clemson-reinvents-media.html.8 Frank LoMonte, "Going on the Offense," Student Press Law Center, http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=108; Christian J Keeney, "Kentucky Fried Blog: How the Recent Ejection of a Blogger from the College World Series Raises Novel Questions About the First Amendment, Intellectual Property, and the Intersection of Law and Technology in the 21st Century," J. Tech. L. & Pol'y 13 (2008).9 Michael Kruse, "For SEC, Tech-Savvy Fans Might Be Biggest Threats to Media Exclusivity," Tampa Bay Times (2009), http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/for-sec-tech-savvy-fans-might-be-biggest-threats-to-media-exclusivity/1027680.10 University of Washington, "Credential Policy," University of Washington, http://www.gohuskies.com/genrel/credentialpolicy.html.11 Monica Guzman, "UW Policy Restricting Reporter Tweets Is Not Just Claiming Rights, but Taking Turf," Geekwire.com (2012), http://www.geekwire.com/2012/uws-policy-restricting-reporters-rights-turf/.12 Rick Telander, "The Written Word: Player-Press Relationships in American Sports," Sociology of Sport Journal 1, no. 1 (1984).13 Nancy Theberge and Alan Cronk, "Work Routines in Newspaper Sports Departments and the Coverage of Women's Sports," ibid.3, no. 3 (1986)., p. 19814 J.E. Grunig, "Organizations, Environments, and Models of Public Relations," (1983); Mick Jackowski, "Conceptualizing an Improved Public Relations Strategy: A Case for Stakeholder Relationship Marketing in Division Ia Intercollegiate Athletics," Journal of Business and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (2006).15 Marie Hardin and Erin Whiteside, "Consequences of Being the "Team Mom": Women in Sports Information and the Friendliness Trap," Journal of Sport Management 26, no. 4 (2012); Robin Hardin and Steven McClung, "Collegiate Sports Information: A Profile of the Profession," Public Relations Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2002).16 J. Sean McCleneghan, "The Sports Information Director -- No Attention, No Respect, and a PR Practitioner in Trouble," ibid.40 (1995).17 Jerome Holtzman, No Cheering in the Press Box (Henry Holt, 1978).18 Frank G. Menke, The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Sports (Glenview, Illinois: Progress Research Corp., 1963).19 Howard J. Savage, "American College Athletics, with a Preface by Henry S. Pritchett. New York City, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1929," Bulletin, no. 23; Murray Sperber, Onward to Victory: The Crises That Shaped College Sports (New York: Henry Holt, 1998).20 Robert Lipsyte, "An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir" (2011).

21 William B. Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78, no. 2 (2001); Marie Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments," Newspaper Research Journal 26, no. 1 (2005); Michael B. Salwen and Bruce Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”," Journal of Sport & Social Issues 22, no. 1 (1998).22 "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”."23 Sada Reed, "Sports Journalists' Use of Social Media and Its Effects on Professionalism," Journal of Sports Media 6, no. 2 (2011); Salwen and Garrison, "Finding Their Place in Journalism: Newspaper Sports Journalists' Professional “Problems”."24 Anderson, "Does the Cheerleading Ever Stop? Major League Baseball and Sports Journalism."25 Timothy E. Cook, "The News Media as a Political Institution: Looking Backward and Looking Forward," Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006); Bartholomew H. Sparrow, "A Research Agenda for an Institutional Media," ibid.26 Timothy E. Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution (University of Chicago Press, 1998).27 Ibid.28 Ibid., p. 20629 Oscar H. Gandy, Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy. (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Co., 1982).30 Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution.31 Ibid.; Frederick B. Marbut, News from the Capital: The Story of Washington Reporting (Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, 1971).32 P.J. DiMaggio and W.W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (1983).33 J.W. Meyer and B. Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony," American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1977).34 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields."35 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony."36 DiMaggio and Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields."37 Meyer and Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony."38 Hardin, "Survey Finds Boosterism, Freebies Remain Problem for Newspaper Sports Departments."39 Scott Gleeson, "Southern Cal Lifts Practice and Game Ban on Reporter," USA Today (2012), http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/09/12/usc-lane-kiffin-bans-reporter-from-practices-games/70000236/1#.UnPBSpFXW4Y.40 Paul M. Hirsch and Y. Sekou Bermiss, "Institutional “Dirty” Work: Preserving Institutions through Strategic Decoupling," in Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations (2009).41 Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," American sociological review (1983).42 Christoph G. Grimmer and Edward M. Kian, "Reflections of German Football Journalists on Their Relationships with Bundesliga Club Public Relations Practitioners," International Journal of Sport Communication 6, no. 4 (2013); Zvi Reich and Thomas Hanitzsch, "Determinants of Journalists' Professional Autonomy: Individual and National Level Factors Matter More Than Organizational Ones," Mass Communication and Society 16, no. 1 (2013).43 Mike Cardillo, "Newcastle United Proposes to Charge Journalists for ‘Exclusive Access'," The Big Lead (2013), http://thebiglead.com/2013/12/11/newcastle-united-proposes-to-charge-journalists-for-exclusive-access/.

44 Bryan Goldberg, "How I Respond to the Haters," Pando Daily (2013), http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/01/how-i-respond-to-the-haters/.45 Lizzie Widdicombe, "From Mars: A Young Man's Adventures in Women's Publishing," The New Yorker (2013), http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/23/130923fa_fact_widdicombe?currentPage=all.46 Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013); Wilson Lowrey, "Institutionalism, News Organizations, and Innovation," Journalism Studies 12, no. 1 (2011).

Table 1:

Variables tested in survey

Journalists SIDS

Interviews with athletes/coaches only take place in press conferences, not 1-on-1

nMean (SD)(no. of items)

2132.61 (0.82)0.82 (3)

1481.92 (0.60)0.75 (3)

Fans/donors get at least as much access as I/reporters do


2102.46 (0.75)0.72 (2)

1462.20 (0.67)0.69 (2)

Material I receive from SIDs is not very useful for my reporting


2071.88 (0.71)0.77 (3)

Media seats have been moved away from prime seating areas


2132.57 (0.84)0.82 (3)

1482.20 (0.84)0.78 (3)

We take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s audience into account when deciding whether to grant credentials


1482.60 (0.73)0.62 (3)

We take the size and demographics of a news outlet’s audience into account when deciding whether to grant interviews


1482.64 (0.74)0.72 (3)

We review reach, audience, and/or market penetration for outlets that cover our teams


1482.47 (0.66)0.78 (3)

Reporters from big-name publication get better access than local beat writers

nMean (SD)A (no. of items)

2173.08 (0.77)0.74 (3)

Having a desirable audience means getting better access


2063.04 (0.72)0.72 (3)

Reporters need to have good relationships with SIDs to get one-on-one interviews with coaches and athletes


2112.42 (0.73)0.74 (3)

1481.93 (0.59)0.44 (3)

I/reporters can get access even after writing critical stories


2152.94 (0.65)0.79 (3)

1473.13 (0.46)0.56 (3)

I/reporters cannot publish injury information or other information we learn in practice


2062.66 (0.82)0.54

1482.27 (0.70)0.47

The athletics department (I cover) or its conference has established limits on the type or number of blogs/social media posts I/reporters can publish during contests

Mean (SD)(no. of items)

2102.02 (0.73)0.87 (6)

1481.80 (0.69)0.85 (2)

Independent media have the same access to coaches and athletes as they did before the athletic department or its conference signed their latest round of broadcast agreements


2162.44 (0.72)0.79 (3)

1483.02 (0.57)0.72 (3)

I/reporters used to get more informal access than I/they do now

n Mean (SD)(no. of items)

1912.87 (0.90)0.50 (3)

1472.41 (0.69)0.54 (3)

All questions were original to this survey. Responses were solicited on a four-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree 4 = strongly agree). Cronbach results over 0.70 are in boldface.