Media
Sports media types adjust on the fly to new normal of league coverage – EverythingGP
“People who are just simply good at telling stories, they’ll always find an audience,” said sportswriter David Shoalts, who recently retired after a long career at the Globe and Mail. “But I think there will just be less and less room for them.
“And for the reader, that reader will have to work a little harder to search out where the good storytellers are and who’s telling them.”
One of the biggest challenges for media members is that it’s much more difficult to get access to quality story material because the sports scene is so different.
For example, the days of reporters squeezing in pre-game player interviews on the field are over for now.
Sitting down in the manager’s office for an availability before batting practice? A Zoom call will have to suffice for the time being.
Chatting with an athlete in the locker room before or after a game? That won’t be happening any time soon.
In fact, most sportswriters will not even be on site at games this season. A handful of reporters will attend NHL games in the hub cities of Edmonton and Toronto. Same goes for the NBA bubble near Orlando.
Most scribes will have to settle for video or conference calls in a group setting instead of traditional in-person or one-on-one communication.
It may be the best that teams can do given the various hurdles in place, but it still presents a significant challenge for media members in their effort to present as deep a story as possible.
“When you move to digital, you lose that personal relationship,” said Laurel Walzak, an assistant professor at Ryerson University’s RTA School of Media. “You lose the fact that they see you around the field of play. That’s important.
“To be able to be in the field of play, they see you, you’re part of the overall group, you’re able to talk to many people to get the full story.”
Attending events in person allows reporters to gain a full view of the action and cultivate relationships with players, coaching staff, management and everyone from the locker-room attendants to the travelling secretary.
Jeff Pearlman, an author and former Sports Illustrated writer, said some of the best story nuggets can’t be seen on a television broadcast: players jawing at each other during a timeout, the sense of frustration in a locker room, or a manager being near tears in his office after a loss.
“For the job professionally, that’s what you exist for,” Pearlman said from Laguna Niguel, Calif. “Without that, the coverage is just flat. Anyone can get the score. What’s the point of media if you’re just giving the score and a couple of canned quotes? The whole job is to take (a reader) where (they) can’t go.”
When Shoalts first started in the business, he would routinely sit down with athletes and have one-on-one conversations.
“That’s what access is,” he said in a recent interview from the Bolton, Ont., area. “It’s building trust with those sources so they will open up to you. That became more and more difficult over the years because the leagues were restricting access.
“But now that’s doubly so because this whole pandemic thing has restricted (one on one) access to practically nil.”
Teams and leagues have generally done well to adjust on the fly and help facilitate interaction with the media during the pandemic. However, there have been some issues along the way.
The Professional Hockey Writers Association was upset with the NHL’s decision to allow three writers from its website into the “bubble” in hub cities, but not provide the same access opportunity for PHWA members.
PHWA president Frank Seravalli said that if significant news occurred within the bubble setting, such as at a morning skate or team practice, independent reporters would be in the dark.
“We won’t be there to chronicle it,” he said from Philadelphia. “And if the team decided not to share video from practice with us, we might have no idea that it’s happened. Because every piece of content that NHL.com puts out, the league approves it or edits it.
“So if it’s negative or if it’s something that the team doesn’t want out, NHL.com isn’t going to be the way that it (gets) out.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the league will continue to look at the media access situation and expected that things will evolve.
“We’re going to continue to monitor things, understanding your sentiments,” he told reporters before league play resumed. “But at the end of the day, we have a greater responsibility to the people who are required to be in the bubble, and to the communities in which we’re playing in. We’re doing the best we can.”
Seravalli said the PHWA was initially told that space limitations would prevent bubble access for media.
When advised later that NHL.com writers would have exclusive access in some areas for this unprecedented playoff setup, he said the feelings of his 300-plus member association varied between frustrated, disappointed and angry.
“If there truly were space limitations, NHL.com writers wouldn’t be inside,” he said, adding that the PHWA has no formal recourse to fight the decision.
The developments also put the spotlight on the grey area of whether league website writers should be considered working media.
“They typically have been given media credentials and are allowed in all the same places that we are to do our job similarly,” Seravalli said. “The NHL has always liked to think of them as media but now there’s been a quick shift in the dynamic, where the league is now saying that they are league employees and they should be subject to whatever access the league wants to give them because they are employees.”
The hub city approach has prevented many outlets from generating their own content, with cost, location and time commitment some of the prohibitive factors.
All NBA games, for example, are being played at the Disney World complex in Florida. Upon arrival, reporters have to quarantine for a week and the minimum cost of accommodation is US$550 per night.
A total of 10 “general media” members were in the bubble for the resumption of play, an NBA spokesman said.
At the outset, there were no Toronto-based reporters on hand to chronicle the defending champion Raptors although that could change if the team makes a deep playoff run. The Toronto Star is planning to send one writer in late August, the spokesman said.
Shoalts said being on site can provide a significant advantage over those who cover things remotely.
“The essential being of a journalist is you are the reader’s eyes on the scene,” he said. “You are there to soak it all in and give some context to it, and relay to the reader what’s going on.
“Even a limited amount of access in a venue is still better than you sitting at home and watching and writing it off TV.”
Walzak suggests that if reporters can think outside the box — regardless of their location — and show resourcefulness, innovation and resilience, they should be rewarded with solid content.
“There’s so many different types of stories you can tell that people still don’t have information on that are going to be relevant and interesting,” she said from Collingwood, Ont.
“So keep telling them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2020.
Follow @GregoryStrongCP on Twitter.
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
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The British Columbia government is putting its proposed online harms legislation on hold after reaching an agreement with some of the largest social media platforms to increase safety online.
Premier David Eby says in a joint statement with representatives of the firms Meta, TikTok, X and Snapchat that they will form an online safety action table, where they’ll discuss “tangible steps” toward protecting people from online harms.
Eby added the proposed legislation remains, and the province will reactivate it into law if necessary.
“The agreement that we’ve struck with these companies is that we’re going to move quickly and effectively, and that we need meaningful results before the end of the term of this government, so that if it’s necessary for us to bring the bill back then we will,” Eby said Tuesday.
The province says the social media companies have agreed to work collaboratively with the province on preventing harm, while Meta will also commit to working with B.C.’s emergency management officials to help amplify official information during natural disasters and other events.
The announcement to put the Bill 12, also known as the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, on hold is a sharp turn for the government, after Eby announced in March that social media companies were among the “wrongdoers” that would pay for health-related costs linked to their platforms.
At the time, Eby compared social media harms to those caused by tobacco and opioids, saying the legislation was similar to previous laws that allowed the province to sue companies selling those products.
Eby said one of the key drivers for legislation targeting online harm was the death of Carson Cleland, the 12-year-old Prince George, B.C., boy who died by suicide last October after falling victim to online sextortion.
“In the real world we would never allow a company to set up a space for kids where grown adults could be invited in to contact them, encourage them to share photographs and then threaten to distribute those photographs to their family and friends,” Eby said when announcing the legislation.
The premier said previously that companies would be shut down and their owners would face jail terms if their products were connected to harms to young people.
In announcing the pause, the province says that bringing social media companies to the table for discussion achieves the same purpose of protecting youth from online harm.
“Our commitment to every parent is that we will do everything we can to keep their families safe online and in our communities,” said Eby.
Ryan Cleland, Carson’s father, said in a statement on Tuesday that he “has faith” in Eby and the decision to suspend the legislation.
“I don’t think he is looking at it from a political standpoint as much as he is looking at it as a dad,” he said of Eby. “I think getting the social media giants together to come up with a solution is a step in the right direction.”
Business groups were opposed
On Monday, the opposition B.C. United called for a pause to Bill 12, citing potential “serious legal and economic consequences for local businesses.”
Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon said in a statement that his party pushed Eby’s government to change course, noting the legislation’s vague language on who the province can sue “would have had severe unintended consequences” for local businesses and the economy.
“The government’s latest retreat is not only a win for the business community but for every British Columbian who values fairness and clarity in the law,” Falcon said.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said they are pleased to see the legislation put on hold, given the “potential ramifications” of the proposal’s “expansive interpretation.”
“We hope that the government chooses not to pursue Bill 12 in the future,” said board president and CEO Bridgitte Anderson in a statement. “Instead, we would welcome the opportunity to work with the government to develop measures that are well-targeted and effective, ensuring they protect British Columbians without causing unintended consequences.”
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Donald Trump is set to secure on Tuesday a stock bonus worth US$1.3-billion from the company that operates his social media app Truth Social (DJT-Q), equivalent to about half the majority stake he already owns in it, thanks to the wild rally in its shares.
The award will take the former U.S. president’s overall stake in the company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), to US$4.1-billion.
While Mr. Trump has agreed not to sell any of his TMTG shares before September, the windfall represents a significant boost to his wealth, which Forbes pegs at US$4.7-billion.
Unlike much of his real estate empire, shares are easy to divest in the stock market and could come in handy as Mr. Trump’s legal fees and fines pile up, including a US$454.2-million judgment in his New York civil fraud case he is appealing.
The bonus also reflects the exuberant trading in TMTG’s shares, which have been on a roller coaster ride since the company listed on Nasdaq last month through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and was snapped up by Trump supporters and speculators.
Mr. Trump will be entitled to the stock bonus under the terms of the SPAC deal once TMTG’s shares stay above US$17.50 for 20 trading days after the company’s March 26 listing. They ended trading on Monday at US$35.50, and they would have to lose more than half their value on Tuesday for Mr. Trump to miss out.
TMTG’s current valuation of approximately US$5-billion is equivalent to about 1,220 times the loss-making company’s revenue in 2023 of US$4.1-million.
No other U.S. company of similar market capitalization has such a high valuation multiple, LSEG data shows. This is despite TMTG warning investors in regulatory filings that its operational losses raise “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain in business.
A TMTG spokesperson declined to comment on the stock award to Mr. Trump. “With more than $200 million in the bank and zero debt, Trump Media is fulfilling all its obligations related to the merger and rapidly moving forward with its business plan,” the spokesperson said.
While Mr. Trump’s windfall is rich for a small, loss-making company like TMTG, the earnout structure that allows it is common. According to a report from law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, stock earnouts for management were seen in more than half the SPAC mergers completed in 2022.
However, few executives clinch these earnout bonuses because many SPAC deals end up performing poorly in the stock market, said Freshfields securities lawyer Michael Levitt. TMTG’s case is rare because its shares are trading decoupled from its business prospects.
“Many earnouts in SPACs are never satisfied because many SPAC prices fall significantly after the merger is completed,” Mr. Levitt said.
To be sure, TMTG made it easier for Mr. Trump to meet the earnout threshold. When TMTG agreed to merge with the SPAC in October, 2021, the deal envisioned that TMTG shares had to trade above US$30 for Mr. Trump to get the full earnout bonus. The two sides amended the deal in August, 2023 to lower that threshold to US$17.50, regulatory filings show.
Had that not happened, Mr. Trump would not have yet earned the full bonus because TMTG’s shares traded below US$30 last week. The terms of the deal, however, give Mr. Trump three years from the listing to win the full earnout, so he could have still earned it if the shares traded above the threshold for 20 days in any 30-day period during this time.
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The B.C. government is putting its proposed online harms legislation on hold after reaching an agreement with some of the largest social media platforms to make people safer online.
Premier David Eby says in a joint statement with representatives of the firms Meta, TikTok, X and Snap that they will form an online safety action table, where they’ll discuss “tangible steps” towards protecting people from online harms.
Eby says the social media companies have “agreed to work collaboratively” with the province on preventing harm, while Meta will also commit to working with B.C’s emergency management officials to help amplify official information during natural disasters and other events.
“We have had assurance from Facebook on a couple of things. First, that they will work with us to deliver emergency information to British Columbia in this wildfire season that (people) can rely on, they can find easily, and that will link into official government channels to distribute information quickly and effectively,” Eby said at a Tuesday press conference.
“This is a major step and I’m very appreciative that we are in this place now.”
3:56
B.C. takes steps to protect people from online harms
The announcement to put the bill on hold is a sharp turn for the government, after Eby announced in March that social media companies were among the “wrongdoers” that would pay for health-related costs linked to their platforms.
At the time, Eby compared social media harms to those caused by tobacco and opioids, saying the legislation was similar to previous laws that allowed the province to sue companies selling those products.
5:46
Carol Todd on taking action against online harms
Last August, Eby criticized Meta over its continued blackout of Canadian news outlets as wildfires forced thousands from their homes. Eby said it was “unacceptable” for the tech giant to cut off access to news on its platforms at a time when people needed timely, potentially life-saving information.
“I think it’s fair to say that I was very skeptical, following the initial contact (with Meta),” Eby said Tuesday.
Eby said one of the key drivers for legislation targetting online harm was the death of Carson Cleland, the 12-year-old Prince George, B.C., boy who died by suicide last October after falling victim to online sextortion.
The premier says in announcing the pause that bringing social media companies to the table for discussion achieves the same purpose of protecting youth from online harm.
“Our commitment to every parent is that we will do everything we can to keep their families safe online and in our communities,” the premier said in his statement.
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