Saturday, June 03, 2006

Controlling the Release of Information

There's a bit of a dust-up between Tennis Magazine's Peter Bodo and the rest of the International Tennis Writers' Association (ITWA), which wants to "embargo" press conference transcripts and things like streaming video of press conferences. They want to prevent the ATP and tournaments from providing live video feed to websites and other sources from many places, including the press conference rooms. They also want to keep press conference transcripts from being posted for 24 hours.

Bodo:

This is an attempt by the dead-tree media to keep a proprietary stake in the information dissemination business.

[...]

I am adamantly and deeply opposed to these protectionist practices, and to the underlying premise that the news media can or should be in the business of controlling the flow of information or news in order to mollify a part or all of its constituency. There is a huge ethical issue at the root of this, and I think it makes the press in general and the ITWA in this case look deeply conflicted....The bottom line is that nothing should impede the flow of information to the public in any way whatsoever (at least in this broad context of sports journalism).

More from him yesterday.

Matthew Cronin, co-president of the ITWA, replies:

Much to my dismay, my colleague Peter Bodo decided to write up a two non-International Tennis Writers Association (ITWA) 'controversies' on his tennisworld blog on Thursday. I guess that the prospect of cracking the Argentines again wasn't tasty enough.

Oooh.

This is really an inside the beltway issue that only some of you are interested in, so I'll be brief as possible.

No, actually I'm very interested. Not so much because of information withholding in sports, but because of the same in much more important matters. Just what makes the press think it has the right to embargo information and thus filter/control what we find out about and when?

Cronin goes on...

There is no substantial debate within the organization in regards to the 24-hour hold of interview transcripts. It's Peter and maybe two other people who object of our 105 members.

Of course, the members of the organization are interested parties. I don't care if 100% of them want this: 100% of them would gain from it. Try a poll of impartial yet knowledgable folks, please.

When you get past the point at which most readers stop he makes some valid points, though I just don't see how you can call this a matter of "fair trade" and claim copyrights to the QUESTIONS you ask in a press conference, let alone somebody ELSE's words in answer to them. He threatens that...

...fans would get very bored pretty fast if the tennis journalists stopped going to press conferences that are broadcast....Just wait and see how exciting those press conferences will be without any beat writers (apparently save for Peter and the tennis.com staff).

He accuses those other news sources of "theft" and of being "unethical." He accuses the ATP of "getting too deeply involved in the communications business." He accuses the tournaments of not caring about tennis but considering it "just another entertainment vehicle to make money off."

What? The reporters are doing their job for love of the game, not to make money themselves?

Here's where we are today: Tennis fans are facing the prospect of a dwindling corp of regular tennis journalists partly because the tours and tournaments themselves think that they can make more money by developing large media arms. Maybe they can in the short term. (Although, I doubt it). But imagine just how exiting it will be as a fan to read and hear about the sport only from the tournaments and tours. Just look as some of the stuff out there already: player blogs on visiting the dentist's office or on going shoe shopping.

My, how the sport will grow if everything is covered in a thick gray tarp of nicety-nice.

Nice ridicule there. Where have we heard that before? The old "those who disagree with us are evil and unsophisticated and don't care about the ___ [fill in the blank] and will bring the end of the world"?

Come on. Quit just throwing you-know-what and make a point.
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