David Cameron on the new look of baseball media
Of course as a member of the online community and not a reader of newspapers I pretty much completely agree with him.
Hey, who's this Kalkman guy on the list at the end?
almost 3 years ago
iamawesomer
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I think that the wealth of baseball knowledge online is an amazing thing
but the death of print media is a bad thing for baseball fans and society in general. Analysts are indispensable, but so are journalists.
The whole “blogs vs. old media” thing is a false divide, and we all need to be aware of the consequences of a society without real journalism.
They talked about that on Bill Maher last night
Not about baseball obviously, but about bloggers dependency on journalist to get there information.
vivaelbeñsheets
by vivaelpujols on Feb 28, 2009 7:25 AM EST up reply actions
Get bloggers some credentials then?
I think I recally Geoff Young of Ducksnorts saying he had been offered press box access before but turning it down (could be wrong). While this doesn’t necessarily solve the investigative aspect, there are certainly way around it.
Also print media =! journalists.
Can't get enough of the Oakland A's? Visit Oaktown Awesomer's. For further statistical analysis, Beyond the Box Score.
but are bloggers going to do what's "required" to have those credentials?
i.e., having someone cover all the games in person? i don’t mean to disrespect bloggers here but there’s a pretty big difference between us sitting at home and analyzing a game or team from our desk/couch to showing up to the ballpark three hours before a night game – or, god forbid, a 1pm weekday day game – and staying until midnight (or potentially even later) to wrap up player/management interviews and get the story out. and i’m not even getting to the other 81 games that are on the road. that sounds a heck of a lot like a full-time job, which most of us already have, or at the very least a very expensive and time-consuming hobby.
there would need to be a paradigm shift in the perception of bloggers (and how bloggers perceive themselves) and also some serious revenue shifting to blog sites in order to sustain the time/money commitment it takes to cover a team well. maybe the start is giving bloggers credentials for home games. i dunno. lots of moving parts on this.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
Isn't at least part of the shift the fact that people are a bit less interested in the depth of reporting and more interested in discussion/analysis?
I agree reporting is never going anywhere, but why can’t the reporting be done by Jon Heyman or Peter Abraham for CNNSI.com or LoHud.com instead of USA Today or some New York daily paper?
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
that's not quite the reporting i'm looking for.
i like daily insight on my team. from a guy who is actually at the stadium talking to the players and management. you know, beat reporting? the national guys are good for the big news but who’s going to cover the stories and players who are a bit further down the depth chart? jon heyman isn’t going to be covering the competition for second base on the white sox.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
That's Peter Abraham, no?
In a much smaller market than NYC for for many teams, though. Can’t that be done by a dude who publishes his thoughts online rather than in print? Faster from mouth to page, too.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
we're obviously miscommunicating here.
of course someone can do it online. the newspapers already do. the question sort of is whether someone will do that job, and do it as effectively, solely via an online platform, potentially separate from a major media outlet, and whether that will work in every market. cameron makes the point that people expect content to be free. newspapers and magazines, at least so far, have at least partially propped up their “free” content online with revenues from sale of hard copies. i’m only vaguely familar with lohud.com but my understanding was that they have a paper presence. maybe that’s no longer the case.
in chicago, like the situation in denver cameron references, the sun times will likely disappear over the next year or two. that means a further reduction in daily coverage of the white sox (along with everything else in the city). the two major papers don’t cover the same things or in the same ways. will the quality and quantity of coverage be replaced online? elsewhere? like i said in my original post, i’m skeptical that someone will actually be able to cover a baseball team daily in the way newspapers have. maybe that’s just the way of the world now. and maybe (no, likely) there’s another twist in this saga that we don’t see.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
If you think the free market even comes close to functioning the way it's supposed to
I think you would have to expect that consumers will change their expectations regarding free news content. There’s no way there isn’t a demand for news reporting.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 5:37 PM EST up reply actions
well, i often get the sense that i'm older than people on here. you know, wasn't in junior high at the turn of the century or something.
and i remember when there were quite a few beat reporters – from radio, tv, and most especially multiple newspapers – covering a team (and other things). maybe i’m missing something but i certainly don’t see as much reporting going on as i saw then. maybe those outlets were providing more news reporting than the free market wanted. makes sense considering they’re going out of business/changing their models. but i don’t think the quality of reporting, especially in terms of variety, is as good as it once was. and it seems to be trending down, down, down.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
I wouldn't disagree at all regarding the quality of news reporting.
I do think that there’s a common misconception about the failure of print media, however. It’s not dying because demand is lacking; far from it. Far more people are reading newspapers, whether it be physical copies or online, than ever. It’s an issue of a terrible business model. Newspapers are almost entirely dependent on advertising revenue. When that’s gone, so is their income.
From a business standpoint, the newspapers were incredibly short sighted in pretty much every meaningful way for years. If they can hold on through the recession and restructure after the advertising revenue comes back, that’s going to be in everyone’s best interest. If not, the news media is going to look drastically different five years from now, and I’m not confident that it’s going to be for the better.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 6:04 PM EST up reply actions
well, i think that's the issue cameron points out. people expect the content to be free.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
Right, but if the newspapers can't provide the content for free in a sustainable way
the consumers will have to decide between paying for it and not having it. I find it hard to believe they would choose the latter.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 6:11 PM EST up reply actions
seems to me that's the reason for the consolidation, though.
and seeking replacement coverage from other “free” sources (tv, for one). the value people paid for newspapers was a pittiance. it would take a large adjustment to change that perception for what price is appropriate for the content that was delivered. and i haven’t seen a great public outcry about this yet. people seem satisfied to just get less quality coverage.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
We'll see.
I think the Christian Science Monitor is an interesting thing to keep an eye on. They’re the first major daily to go all-online. How it works out for them will be a good case study going forward.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 6:27 PM EST up reply actions
Blazers Edge, the Portland Trailblazers blog on SBN, has an author with credentials
After every home game, he reports back with what Nate McMillian said in interviews and interviews with players. To say that all bloggers are not willing to cover a team well is incorrect.
There are no good individual basketball statistics.
54!
the operative part being "after every home game"
first, i’m not aware of the NBA playing day games on weekdays. second, i don’t consider a beat writer who covers only home games to be doing their job “well”. they’re kind of missing half the games, no? and this all has less to do with “willing” than “able”. if we’ve got some guys and gals who can cover 162 games (or the substantial equivalent), i’m all for it. i just don’t see it being possible at this point.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
Journalism isn't just about having access.
It’s about being trained and knowing what to do with that access.
I’m not assigning this to you specifically, but there seems to be this idea in certain corners of the blogosphere (and not just the baseball blogosphere) that anyone could do the job of a reporter, and that’s simply not true.
I’ll use a non-baseball example; over the last 5-10 years, Seattle has undergone a ton of changes. There’s been a huge influx of people into the urban core that isn’t really showing any signs of slowing down. Most people recognize that Seattle is going to have to change its approach to zoning/affordable housing subsidies/density/transportation infrastructure, but there’s a ton of disagreement on the best way to do those things (or whether they should be done at all.)
Each camp has their own blogs they read, forums they post in, etc. and there’s not a lot of crossover. But all of us read the same reporters, because they’re trained journalists that everyone respects. It takes a lot of time, training, hard work and a very rare combination of skills and personality to become a good reporter. If we lose that, we’re far far worse off as a society.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 4:38 PM EST up reply actions
I'd like to completely agree with this:
there seems to be this idea in certain corners of the blogosphere (and not just the baseball blogosphere) that anyone could do the job of a reporter, and that’s simply not true.
Reporting is tough. Analysis is tough. There are different. We need both. Both can be done independent of the avenue of dispersal (print vs. online), right?
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
...
Both can be done independent of the avenue of dispersal (print vs. online), right?
Well, sure. And I’d like to clarify; when I speak of print media, I’m talking about print media in the larger context; not just the physical newspapers, but the news-gathering organizations themselves.
And that’s the key thing; as long as there exists an outlet for reporters as they now exist, even if it looks a lot different than the one they have now, we’re fine. And I don’t think anyone is arguing against the fact that the business model being used by print media needs some drastic changes. But there are some (and they seem to be growing in number) who believe that news reporting is irrelevant and that the hole left by reporters can be filled by citizen journalists and bloggers. And that’s just not true. It’s not even close to true.
I’d love for someone to read an important, ongoing piece of investigative journalism and try to convince me that someone with no formal training, limited contacts, and a lack of the support system provided by a major newspaper could accomplish such a thing. It’s just not realistic. And without that sort of journalism, the world seems like a much scarier place to me.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 5:16 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
they can be done independently.
but will they be done as well?
and i’d disagree that analysis is as hard (at least in the same way) as reporting. you can sit in your proverbial mom’s basement and never venture into the outside world and do analysis. with reporting, you have to do some significant legwork. and that legwork has a significant cost, too. and for someone who is skeptical of bias, conscious or unconscious, having one reporter instead of two, or two reporters instead of three, covering something is a problem.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
To do the kind of analysis that is actuall important requires a fair amount of training and hard work.
There are a lot of things I’ll never be able to do on my own because I don’t have the skills required.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 5:43 PM EST up reply actions
that's true of course.
but i rather doubt it will cost someone many tens of thousands of dollars each year to do that, like it would to properly report on a team from mid-february, by living in arizona or florida for a month and a half, and then travelling with the team around the country from april until october/november. plus, i see plenty of people who do very good analysis without it being their primary job. i do not see how someone could have a regular, full-time job and be a reporter covering a baseball team.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
The primary flaw I see with this argument is that you're basing your assumptions off the old model
The broken one that newspapers don’t realize is broken and don’t recognize the solutions to, because like you, they don’t understand people driven media. For one blogger to take on all these tasks would be financially prohibitive, that’s true, but if you spread it out to a community, the costs of entry become moot. If a blog has a couple of trusted community members making a trip to Arizona one week, a couple more the next, why couldn’t they shift a single credential from one to the other? If one user shows up early to a game and reports and another late, why should it matter? The bias problem actually starts to disappear with multiple views anyway. People unused to this idea are afraid of hive driven reporting, but it’s not too far away from taking over.
by Rox Girl on Mar 3, 2009 12:04 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
i see your point.
but i’d be concerned about quality. are their really that many people who write that well and have that good of rapport with the players and management and all the other attributes that are normally associated with beat writers? i’m skeptical, especially regarding the depth of knowledge. there are advantages to having a single source in some cases. if you’ve even been to a team hotel on the road, you know where you’ll find the beat writers. they’re in the bar bullshitting but also exchanging information and so on. some guy who isn’t on the road with these other guys (and the team) for the full year just aren’t going to have the same access and connections. i simply don’t see how you can do the job as well in a part time capacity. maybe things will change in the future – i don’t know the future, either.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
Writing well could be solved one of two ways
By either having a large enough pool to choose good writers from or by selecting a couple of good editors to fix the moderate writers. The second way is probably easier, but either road leads to Rome in that case. A pool of talent actually has an advantage when it comes to rapport building and contacts, right now the remaining Denver paper has a solid in with Rockies players but a touchy (at best) relationship with management. By having multiple parties, it would be much easier to gain friends in both camps. And sitting in a bar exchanging information isn’t that difficult for anybody. Again, that’s the thing, you don’t have to do the full job in a part time capacity if you have enough of the right complementary parts fulfilling the other aspects of it, and a lot of these community blogs are close to if not past that point. They just need to realize how to better marshal their communities into accomplishing this. I think that starts happening when sites and advertisers both start to see some more tangible returns from ad placements, as more money will give greater incentive to raise the quality of the product and some enterprising person will figure out a way to make it work.
Writing well and reporting well are two very different things.
I’m not saying we’ll never see that sort of shift, but it’s not happening any time soon. The skill set of a quality beat reporter is really, really hard to come by.
by Aaron Campeau on Mar 3, 2009 5:46 PM EST up reply actions
Do you really think so?
In terms of sports journalism, in any case, it seems to me work ethic and ability to adapt to the lifestyle are, outside of knowledge of the game, the two primary issues.
If we’re talking more generally, however, I’m not sure. On the plus side, you could look at what Sean Quinn did covering the field operations during the presidential campaign for 538. That was quality reportage and good writing, funded, afaik, entirely by themselves. Quinn’s expertise came from his work on Jon Tester’s campaign, not any formal reporting background.
The critical component does seem to be fostering a community. Quinn and Silver would never have gotten off the ground if everything hadn’t started on Kos in the first place. Similarly (and to get outside SBN), I’ve been reading/interacting on mgoblog damn near since its inception. The site’s author, Brian Cook, has been at it for 4 years now and is pretty much an Ann Arbor sports journalism anchor and he’s even begun breaking stories thanks to the reputation he’s accrued. Tips come to him as a function of his standing in the community.
Then again, I think he’d probably admit AOL is pretty critical to his success, since they pay him to blog on The Fanhouse (he’s their college football editor, iirc), and he’s had a Maple Street Press deal for the past two Michigan football seasons.
I tend to think the types of people who will do it best are the people who do it out of obsession, willing to work for something they love with no obvious incentive. And frankly, I’d doubt they exist if they didn’t seem to be everywhere on these here tubes. This obsessive impulse seems to be intrinsically tied to the blogger ethos and it’s the sort of thing that can rapidly make up ground on those who have formal training.
I can lead you to 4 Wisdom, but I can't free your brain from the evil of Punto.
Not to beat it into the ground
but I wonder how much longer BPro will be around given that they offer almost nothing behind their pay wall that isn’t done elsewhere. Yes, PECOTA is still probably the best projection system, but the differences between it and CHONE/ZiPS are mariginal. Their fantasy stuff is good, but that’s not why you subscribe to it (well, I did…), and it’s not hard to see someone doing the same thing elsewhere just as well.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
THT's fantasy stuff is in the same league.
I’m not even sure if BP is relevant at all at this point.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 6:36 PM EST up reply actions
does THT have the same PECOTA-based projections?
If Fangraphs had someone to do the same thing with CHONE/Zips/whatever that BP does with PECOTA and fantasy… it would be all over.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 28, 2009 6:39 PM EST up reply actions
Fangraphs does have fantasy coverage
And while I love all 3 sites mentioned, The Hardball Times is far and away the best at fantasy. They’re analysis is far ahead of simply ranking based on projection systems. They actually ask questions about how the projections got there and where they are being thrown off.
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
I know about the fantasy coverage
I mean giving detailed and adjusted projections based on a good system (PECOTA/CHONE/ZiPS) combined with playing time adjustments and customizable league settings…
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 28, 2009 7:37 PM EST up reply actions
and yet their subscriptions keep increasing...
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
good point
I finally subscribed after all these years of wishing I had one (and about 2 years after it was good).
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 28, 2009 6:39 PM EST up reply actions
they could be the model for the sort of stuff we're talking about above
where content moves to being paid for. i dunno. we’ll see. while it’s true that their analysis has been pretty readily replicated elsewhere, i still don’t mind paying for goldstein, as he does prospects pretty well (and i’m really not aware of anyone covering prospects at that level for free) and, being a history buff, i very much enjoy kahrl’s transaction analyses, if only for the arcane references. carroll still seems to be the gold standard for injury analysis.
but then i’ve got shitloads of money so the price is kind of a pittiance for me (what is is, like $35?).
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
yeah, it is a good deal
a full year of Shanlder is like $100 or more, right? It’s great fantasy stuff, but that’s all it is
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 28, 2009 7:10 PM EST up reply actions
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the mainstream sports media is finally coming around to analysis
and BP is the most prominent name for baseball analysis.
by Aaron Campeau on Feb 28, 2009 6:42 PM EST up reply actions
it's a deserved reputation.
I can lead you to 4 Wisdom, but I can't free your brain from the evil of Punto.
PECOTA can't be the best projection system (because it doesn't understand defense)
can it?
by JI on Mar 1, 2009 3:43 PM EST up reply actions
seems like he was talking about for fantasy purposes.
southsidesox.com - now the best place on the interwebs for chicago white sox analysis and discussion.
yes
And that they’ve gone through the effort to use it along with observation of who teams are likely to play in order to adjust for playing time, etc.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Mar 3, 2009 3:46 PM EST up reply actions
I'm not sure ANY projection system attempts to rate defense at this point.
Sean projects it, but I don’t know that it’s part of CHONE, specifically. And he doesn’t use bUZR, which would make it better. ZiPS doesn’t. Marcel sure doesn’t.
I think it’s ok to treat projecting offense and defense separate for crowning a projection king, just like you can keep offense and pitching separate. You can also keep projecting rate stats separate from projecting playing time.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
Sky, do you know of any projection system comparisons that looks at pitchers specifically?
I was going to do a bit about AL Central pitchers and was wondering what sort of error rate between the various systems looked like and, maybe, which kinds of pitchers they tend to miss on (age/handed/velo/whatever being possible relevant variables).
I can lead you to 4 Wisdom, but I can't free your brain from the evil of Punto.
you totally forgot Will Carroll and Kevin Goldstein
both of whom are worth paying for. i’d also include Joe Sheehan. and you don’t like the chats? those are pretty great. not to mention the basketball/football operations they run/fund to varying degrees. i mean Pomeroy is writing for them! BP is definitely not irrelevant. they’ve experienced a ton of attrition over the years and have always come back to find highly competent replacements. i do hope their beat reporting improves. i personally don’t have a lot of need for the saber stuff because i’ve internalized the concepts and now i read Tango and his assorted link buddies, as do you i believe. but there’s plenty of great content to be had on BP and i expect there will continue to be in the future.
I can lead you to 4 Wisdom, but I can't free your brain from the evil of Punto.
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