After an hour-and-a-half discussion between five sports information directors and a room of sports editors, Steve Kirschner stood up, smiled and declared the gathering a success.
“We should do this again,” said the associate athletic director at North Carolina said. “Soon.”
Five members of the sports information industry were panelists during this month’s APSE Mid-Atlantic region meeting at the News & Observer in Raleigh.
Art Chase, director of sports information at Duke; Annabelle Myers, assistant/AD media relations at N.C. State; Greg Jarvis, sports information director/assistant athletic director at Meredith College; and Anthony Jeffries, St. Augustine’s sports information director joined Kirschner.
The discussion – which varied from credentialing issues to social media to lesser coverage from traditional print media to more coverage from online outlets — was informative, at times entertaining, and was helpful to both sides of the aisle.
A serious question presented by Kirschner showed the greatest challenge for sports information departments now.
“Who’s legit enough now?”
Meaning which members of the ever-growing media should be allowed access to their programs?
While the amount of traditional media covering teams is shrinking – Kirschner said only one local newspaper covered the top-ranked Tar Heels in a trip to Las Vegas last year – the number of outlets covering North Carolina basketball is exploding.
And, if a person is denied a media credential one week, he or she may start up a web site the next week, trying to legitimize the request.
The panelists said they talk to each other constantly, asking which outlets they have allowed access.
“And we want to be fair,” Kirschner said.
Kirschner, who has worked at the basketball powerhouse for more than 20 years, also dropped perhaps the most surprising line of the day: “I don’t think we get enough coverage in our local media.”
North Carolina basketball. Not enough coverage. And he was serious.
(Sure, the coverage is less than in the past. Every newspaper has lost reporting resources.)
Kirschner then looked down the table to Jarvis and Jeffries.
“I can’t even imagine how they fight for coverage,” Kirschner said.
Because if North Carolina basketball is getting less coverage, what about St. Augustine’s sports?
Jeffries, occasionally, gets grief from others at the school when their programs don’t get enough coverage from a local newspaper.
“I don’t work there,” Jeffries tells them.
Jefferies and the other panelists know their athletes well, of course. They know that these athletes have terrific stories to tell, stories time-crunched reporters are not aware of.
“Maybe we haven’t changed with the times enough,” Myers said. “We need to pitch more stories. That’s something I am taking away from this.”
Said Kirschner: “I don’t think pitching stories is a part of our business. But it should be.”
Chase discussed the frustrations of being told “no” about a story idea. But if the 100th suggestion is accepted, “the first 99 ‘nos’ are worth it,” he said.
The other 99 times, though, there still can be coverage – on the university web sites.
Sports information department, as the panelists said, are public relations firms, service organizations designed to help the media and promote the program. But now, they have hired away former newspaper reporters who are writing news stories for the university’s official athletic web site.
The message, on the athletic web sites, is much more controlled, obviously. Good for the university and athletes, bad for readers wanting more unbiased coverage, of course.
Kirschner said he seemingly lives in fear of almost every athlete interview with traditional media members, especially after difficult losses.
“These are kids,” he said. “We put these kids out there with hope that they don’t appear on SportsCenter.”
Kirschner said he still is amazed that UNC athletics, what he described as a $62 million business, allows someone so young, someone with so little training represent the company.
“We cross our fingers and hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces,” Kirschner said.
But Kirschner said he always encourages athletes and coaches to talk to the media.
He recalled a television report in which a bride-to-be was talking to members of the media shortly after her husband-to-be was killed on the morning of their wedding.
“The next time you lose and you don’t want to talk to the media, think of that,” Kirschner said.
A greater fear than traditional media, though, is social media.
Myers said she and her colleagues do their best to education their athletes on the dangers of social media, and the Internet in general.
She recalled a warning she delivered to an athlete.
“Look what you just posted,” she said. “Did you really want me to see that?”
She continued: “I feel like I need to protect student athletes.”
