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Chapter 6 Blogging: Finding a Unique Perspective

Jason Sobel may not have met the Dalai Lama, but he found a sports journalist’s version of total consciousness when he was covering the 2007 Masters golf tournament. Unlike Carl Spackler in the movie Caddyshack, Sobel didn’t have to caddy for the 12th son of the lama to gain that clarity.

Instead, as golf editor for ESPN.com, Sobel blogged live from golf’s first major event of the year—writing more in one day than he normally would have in four. Along the way, he noticed things he’d never focused on in traditional stories, and he wrote with a personal perspective and a humorous tone that wouldn’t have made it into the print edition of most magazines and newspapers. But that’s the point, really. Blogging is supposed to be different.

Here’s how Sobel started his blog for Friday’s second round at the Masters:

8 a.m.: Welcome back to the Masters. I’ll be your tour guide for Round 2 today. On our trip through the wild world of Augusta we’ll see a few underdogs, some guys playing chicken and one prowling Tiger. Keep an eye out: We may even witness the rarest bird of all—the, uh, birdie. (Don’t worry, the puns will get better as the caffeine kicks in.)¹

Overall, Sobel wrote about 35,000 words in four days, usually posting something every three to five minutes from early morning to early evening.

“That took about ten years off my life,” he says.

In blogging, Sobel still covered the basics—player performances on select holes, leaderboards, analysis. But he also described what happened off the course, tested readers with golf trivia, and explained proper course attire for fans. He solicited golf jokes and Caddyshack references, inviting readers to make him laugh out loud if they wanted their comments included on his live game blog—glog.

The live blog generated thousands of e-mail responses for ESPN.com, far more than the dozen or so he receives during most other tournaments. “It was a lot of work,” he says, “but it paid off.”

As a blogger, Sobel did the job of at least four people. Besides reporting, he edited, posted, and offered commentary usually heard on TV or radio.

He was a reporter and a columnist.

He was an analyst and a stats geek.

He was both solemn and irreverent.

In the end, Sobel bridged the gap between old-school reporting and new media.

“I wanted to tell the story informally,” Sobel says, “and not be so insider-ish. I wanted to offer some quick thoughts.”

Here’s a little-known secret about blogging, something the talented but humble bloggers rarely mention. To live-blog well, one must have considerable knowledge of the subject at hand. A fan who has watched a few golf events and read a little about the players on the PGA Tour wouldn’t have a clue how to blend stats, anecdotes, and analysis the way an experienced journalist like Sobel does.

Consider the knowledge it took to write these two posts during the Masters. Someone posting comments online every few minutes can’t take time to look this stuff up. Experience matters.

By the way, Wetterich’s rise through professional golf is akin to if Gary Coleman had won that California gubernatorial race . . . and was named President of the United States a year later.

Eighteen months ago, Wetterich was toiling away at Q-school. He made it through, got hot during a six-week span last season during which he won the Byron Nelson, made the Ryder Cup team and now he’s giving interviews in Butler Cabin. Even Tiger can’t say he did all of that.

2:04 p.m.: Staring at the leaders, it finally hit me: This is the Masters, it’s playing like the U.S. Open . . . and we have a PGA Championship leaderboard.

It really is, with a bunch of guys who aren’t necessarily household names, but aren’t bad players, either. Sort of like what we usually see at the year’s final major, where it’s just an eclectic, unpredictable leaderboard. A leaderboard only a diehard could love.²

Blogs Are Here to Stay

Live game coverage has yielded ground to social media, where sports writers offer real-time commentary on Twitter and video on Instagram. But blogs remain relevant because they offer contextual coverage of a live event not allowed in about 140 characters. And like more modern game stories, blogs address trends, key plays, and analysis.

CBSsports.com, for example, produced a live blog during the NCAA basketball tournament, and the Knoxville News-Sentinel offered rolling live coverage when Tennessee football coach Butch Jones addressed the media ahead of spring practice, which is major sports news in every Southeastern Conference media market. The News-Sentinel offered a series of 18 videos from Jones and his coaching staff that lasted from about 39 seconds to four-plus minutes, along with a brief running commentary on each speaker. Plus, they included the dates for each of the 15 spring practices that culminates in a traditional intrasquad game. In this case, the Orange & White Game.

Sports Insider: Facebook is Really Today’s Newspaper

Let’s face it—Facebook is the new daily newspaper. We check it every morning, lunch, and night. We sneak a peak at it during business hours. We customize it to receive news and updates from friends/family/teams/rock bands/political parties/beers/foods/brands we like, all a thumb scroll away. It’s sort of the best and worst thing to ever happen to traditional media in that sense: Instead of scouring the newsstand for publications and genres of interest, those publications and genres come to you. The parallel with Facebook as our daily news service didn’t really hit home with me until Berkeley Breathed brought “Bloom County” back—I adored “Bloom County” as a kid, it helped shape me into the cynical adult I am today—as part of his daily feed a few years ago.

As a tool, then, first off, you’ve got to treat it like a daily newspaper, and feed the bugger. Constantly. And when you get comments, as long as the audience isn’t threatening to steal your kidney in the middle of the night, engage them. I used to love CoverItLive chats with readers/fans in my newspaper days, and our occasional Facebook live posts are a chance to revisit that interaction a bit. Audiences don’t want an expert to just talk at them anymore: You’ve got to talk with them. I’ve used Facebook to promote; Facebook to crowdsource; Facebook to brainstorm; and Facebook to reach out to sources. As a medium, for better or worse, it’s not “optional” anymore. It’s essential.

Sean Keeler, sports columnist, Landof10.com

You’ll still find blogs that address everything from college football recruiting to fantasy sports, such as “Kissing Suzy Kolber,” which for years was among the best blog anywhere on the web. You’ll also find blogs that are packaged together. FanNation.com, for example, has an eclectic mix of blogs from both veteran journalists and fans who address issues ranging from college basketball to ultimate fighting. Sports Illustrated bought a stake in this blogging website, which gets millions of unique visitors each month. SB Nation is another portal for sports blogs that offers regular beat coverage of every major sports league.

The NHL was the first pro sports league to embrace bloggers, realizing that any kind of coverage could only increase interest—and attendance—for its league franchises. Bloggers now regularly report on every professional sports league.

Will Leitch, a novelist and sports journalist, turned Deadspin.com into one of the most popular sports blogs, with its mix of news, gossip, commentary, smart-ass remarks, along with content that a few critics derided as vulgar and obscene. Leitch has since departed, now writing columns and producing podcasts for Sports on Earth (along with the foreword for this book). Deadspin, meanwhile, continues to attract a large audience— about 10 million unique visitors a month during early 2017.

Here’s a lesser-known fact about bloggers: The best of them are erudite, something they don’t always want others to know. They’re just as likely to mix in references to farts as Shakespeare, politics, or sports history, perhaps all in one paragraph. Even people who don’t immediately understand every esoteric reference can still follow along—sort of like listening to comedian Dennis Miller. Consider Bill Simmons, who turned his “The Boston Sports Guy” blog into a regular gig writing nontraditional blogs for ESPN that were extraordinarily longer than most others and that mixed sports and entertainment. He later created Grantland.com, conceived ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries, and now runs TheRinger.com, another sports entertainment website he developed. Blogging is a great way to learn craft and get exposure. (Heck, I received the contract for this book after blogging about sports journalism for a few years.)

Every college newspaper should have a sports blog linked to the newspaper—and in addition, a regular sports podcast and perhaps a YouTube channel. You can start a blog on a site like WordPress in about five minutes. So what’s your excuse?

Blogging is just another way to convey information for readers—and a way to help fledgling sports journalists improve writing, videotaping, editing, and observational skills.

“Your powers of observation are doubled and tripled when you live-blog,” Associated Press baseball beat writer Ben Walker told The Poynter Institute. “You see things and look for things that you would not look for in a story. You might look at a situation in a different way.”³

Sports Insider: On Starting Out

New media literally landed me this job with USAHockey.com. I was a print reporter and moved into online, because that’s where a better paying job was. I work solely online now and do some random freelancing for print, but for the most part it’s all online. Magazines and newspapers are going to have to work hard to catch up, because I feel there are a lot of managers out there wanting to stick to a print formula in a digital world. If you’re just entering the field, diversify as much as possible.

Cameron Eickmeyer, USAHockey.com

Carving a Niche

Niche is essential to blogging. Nobody’s covering Little League in your town? Volleyball coverage at your school is nearly nonexistent? Start a blog. Even if you have a small staff, you can start a blog that covers sports in general at your university, although it might be better to break out blogs for your most popular sports—usually football and basketball.

Dan Woike, a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times who used to cover Southern Cal for Rivals.com, says his readers didn’t care as much what was happening in the rest of the college football world. They wanted info on their team, USC. So he didn’t focus on national or league issues unless he could localize how those issues affected Southern Cal athletics.

If a softball pitcher from Arizona State got arrested, Woike could have blogged about how the arrest could affect the Trojans’ chances in a scheduled game. He wouldn’t have to write a straight news story saying that a top-rated team had lost its top player, because other media outlets would do that.

Though blogs don’t have stringent deadlines, most professional journalists try to post something as soon as an event concludes, adding newer details after speaking with coaches and players in the locker room. This resembles an old process in which reporters used to file quick game stories for a newspaper’s first edition and then keep revising the story for later editions through the night.

“You have to bring the latest information as soon as you get it,” says Greg Bedard, now a senior NFL writer for Sports Illustrated. “If a reader knows you have everything first, why would they go anywhere else?”

The Associated Press still uses this process for all breaking news, which means the wire service may send out more than a dozen write-thrus (revised versions of one story) before an editor selects the latest possible one for newspaper publication. Readers see only that final choice. With blogs, in contrast, Internet surfers can watch as a story develops and changes.

Tips for Blogging Sports

Individual blog posts can range from one paragraph for notes and quick updates to 1,000-plus words for features and game stories. “Not being tied to a budgeted length allows for the story to grow more organically,” Woike says. “There are temptations to get wordy at times, but really, if there’s good information, there’s always room for it.”