Two years ago I was asked to write about the Pirates for an online magazine. If you clicked on that link, you'll get a pretty good idea of how often I've kept up my end of the bargain this year. This job came with zero pay (not that I had asked or even anticipated any) but the significant benefit of near-unlimited press access, which I utilized as a means to take some (hopefully decent) pictures, and occasionally send inane tweets from the press box, if the weather wasn't cooperating.
I was given carte blanche from the editor in terms of what to write about, with a few very rare exceptions: asking me to write a season preview, talking about the playoffs near the end of the season, etc. From my perspective, I made the executive decision that the online magazine was never going to be any person's primary source for news, in the objective/informative sense. I do think Steel Nation has some tremendous coverage on the Pittsburgh Power, MMA, and other sports that aren't traditionally the "big ticket" items, and I'm sure fans of those sports are comfortable heading to Steel Nation to get updates, reports, and columns that they may not get elsewhere.
But, major league baseball is saturated, news-wise. There's no national or regional outlet that DOESN'T cover baseball. So I decided to try to steer my articles toward the op-ed end of the spectrum, with some analysis thrown in there (because I jump at the chance to make math happen, obviously). My article writing is, for all intents, a long-form blog, gussied up with pictures and eye-popping font (Rich does an especially fantastic job at page design). I'm comfortable in that role. I won't even think of myself as a beat reporter, or even parallel to the Dejan Kovacevis or Ron Cooks of the world: guys that can write highly-charged articles that promote a specific opinion, to either solicit an agreement or an argument. I think I'm more like an arbitrator, but I'm battling out two opposing thoughts in my head, and working them out on paper.
Long story longer, near the end of last season...you know...the one where the Pirates eclipsed 81 wins and reached the playoffs for the first time in two decades, and hosted a celebration playoff game where the entire city screamed and cheered all the anger and frustration out of their bodies until Johnny Cueto dropped the ball (and then it somehow got LOUDER), my editor told me that we were effectively cut off from press access, as the major media outlets were starting to storm the stadium and there was simply no room for The Little Ezine That Could.
It was upsetting, to be part of the coverage for 74 games (not including ones where I attended as a fan) over two seasons, only to be told that ESPN wants to have a dozen people in the press box because hey, the Pirates are good and we're paying attention finally! It felt like a slight, because it was, but I understood it. It's a relatively obvious PR decision to leave us on the outside and make sure the giants stay happy.
And then this season rolls around, and I was told by the editor that we would not have press access at all.
The reason for this is because the PR manager determined that I was a blogger. Which is true. I mean. My contributor page is a Blogger page. I rarely wrote recaps, instead focusing on a particular player or play of the game that stood out, for better or worse. My tweets were more entertaining (in my eyes, at least) than insightful.
But what I did do...and what I probably love doing more than writing...was take pictures. Hundreds of them. Some of them made it to the Steel Nation Facebook page, others were used in the magazine or on the web site.
THAT is fucking coverage. Isn't it? A picture tells a thousand words? When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs (that was Ansel Adams, by the way...don't credit me with profundity)? A picture is a secret about a secret (Diane Arbus)?
This is way, way better than anything I've ever written about the Pirates:
I'm not Getty worthy, I'm sure. A/P hasn't called me in ever to ask for the rights to a picture. But to be so entirely dismissive of that facet of coverage was, and is, fucking insane. If the Pirates had said "we don't want you in the press box, but you can spend the entire day in the photo booths" I'd probably reply with something like "that's pretty much what I do anyway." I don't feel like I can cover a game any other way than being right next to a dugout. The press box gives me a fantastic view reminiscent of Tony LaRussa Baseball on the Sega Genesis: nondescript players running around a field, virtually two-dimensional.
And that's sort of where I'm at now. The whole situation soured me to baseball, which puts me in a relatively precarious situation. If I "write recaps" and provide the banal coverage that everyone else in the fucking world is doing, then they might reconsider. As my Steel Nation blog would indicate, I'm lukewarm to that idea, at best. Not because I'm not willing to do so (although I haven't really tried, either), but because that would be the expectation for the rest of my "career" for the magazine, in the Pirates' eyes. It's like selling out, except with no money involved.
Anyway, if the six or so folks that read this blog and my Steel Nation stuff wondered what happened to the latter, I guess that's your answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment