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Phillies vax issues put focus on what athletes owe fans

7/19/2021

For a few fleeting moments prior to Major League Baseball’s all star break, it all started to come together for my Phightin’ Phils.

The lineup was finally healthy and the bats were making contact. The suspect bullpen found some footing as young Ranger Suarez was finding success after being plugged into the team’s closer role. The Phillies had battled to a 45-45 mark, and due to the chaotic nature that is the National League East, had, even at .500, found themselves within shouting distance of first place.

Never at a loss to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, however, the shoe dropped Saturday, July 10 at Boston’s Fenway Park when the team's third baseman, Alec Bohm, tested positive for COVID. Homegrown ace pitcher Aaron Nola was pulled from his scheduled start the next day due to contact tracing.

Along with Nola, two of the team’s more consistent relievers — Connor Brogdon and Baily Falter — were also sidelined by protocol. The Phillies are one of MLB’s teams that have not had at least 85% of their traveling party of players, coaches and essential staff vaccinated. And don’t look for that to change anytime soon. Asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer if he or any of his teammates would be motivated by the last week’s events to get the shot, Nola said he thinks things remain unchanged.

“I don’t think it motivates anybody. It’s a personal choice,” Nola said Friday after rejoining the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. “I’ll leave it at that. I don’t know what other guys are doing. I think you just have to be careful.”

I, as much as anyone, support the idea of personal choice. Mine was to be vaccinated, but on a personal level, I can’t say I have much fault with those who decide not to. Everyone has the same information available, if at this point they decide against vaccination and get sick, they knew what they were getting into, so long as they don’t put others at risk.

Baseball is far from alone in the sports world in vaccine hesitancy. In a Yahoo Sports article touting the WNBA’s 99% vaccination rate, it was noted that only a reported 65% of NFL players had received at least one shot, while more than 70% of NBA players had. The MLB commissioner's office and players' association claims 23 teams have reached the 85% vaccination rate. In addition to MLB, the NBA and NHL have seen positive tests in the past few weeks.

By a stroke of luck, the Phillies announcement came on the weekend before the all star break, when the game takes a week off, mitigating some of the damage. Nola only missed one start and the others would only be lost for a few games. Plus, few believe these Phillies sustain this run. They don’t hit consistently, they don’t run the bases well, they make poor decisions in the field, the starting pitching lacks depth and the bullpen can’t hold on to a lead.

But, stranger things have happened, and this is a competitive disadvantage the team will likely face for the rest of the season, according to The Athletic’s Matt Gelb.

“The clubhouse’s contentious relationship with the vaccine is driven by a handful of influential players who have voiced opposition to it. Some of them have already contracted COVID-19 and consider the antibodies as enough protection, although the CDC recommends people who’ve had the virus still be vaccinated. Other Phillies players have questioned whether injuries they’ve suffered were a result of vaccine side effects.”

There’s no satisfying answer here, but what this puts into focus is while our decisions may be personal, they do have an effect on those around us. The risk of exposure was something Nola, Brogdon and Falter (and likely others) each took into account prior to Bohm’s diagnosis, yet, the fact that three members of the pitching staff were lost for nearly two weeks has to be something that rubs management and ownership the wrong way, not to mention more than a few fans who spend their hard earned cash to see them play.

Considering all that sports asks of fans, from the cost of the game day experience to the taxes many are forced to shell out for facilities, should a personal choice result in losing out on a chance at the playoffs or a championship? Even in a town as accustomed to “For who? For what?” as Philadelphia, one might be forgiven for feeling a bit cheated. It often seems that in the give and take relationship between fans and professional sports, it’s the fan that gets the short end of the stick.

On the other hand, there is the common knee-jerk belief that a celebrity or sports star “owes” us something. We pay good money so they can make movies or “play a game.” But our jealousy of their success does not override their right — the rights we all share — to say yes or no to the vaccine (or decide to stop speaking to the media, or to make a political gesture, for that matter).

Folks can say “shut up and dribble” until they are blue in the face, but athletes are under no obligation to do so. No satisfying answer, to be sure, but it is an American one.

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Your local news source is dying. What are we going to do about it?

7/14/2021

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Photo by Keith Syvinski from FreeImages

Do I have your attention?

Once upon a time, when people browsed through a newspaper page by page, headlines were designed to catch the eye. To convey a taste of what the article was about and draw you in and read the full story.

In today’s world of feeds and apps, headlines may be the only blurb a reader takes away. So I didn’t bury the lede. I gave you the whole thing at the top.

Your local news source is not in good shape. It is dying.

What makes me say this?

I read a fascinating article the other day by Kevin Frazier, editor of The Oregon Way, a nonpartisan online publication. The article appeared in The American Conservative magazine under the title “Local news is collapsing” and made the case that one of the political parties should take on the cause.

He makes the same points many of us who are local news advocates make — local news is a cornerstone of democracy, bolsters small business and champions the community — all hills both dominant political parties say they would make a stand on.

Indeed, Congress has shown interest, typically spurred on whenever a hedge fund gobbles up another newspaper group. The Local Journalism Sustainability Act, initially introduced in the House in July 2020 with bipartisan support died, in the Ways and Means Committee. That bill has been reintroduced in the wake of the purchase of Tribune Publishing by hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

That’s great. But I, for one, don’t put much faith in Congress swooping in on its white steed to save the day. Congress doesn’t move that quickly. And too often, partisans seem more interested in exploiting the appetite for local news to advance their own agendas.

In the real world, community journalism faces an immediate problem. That was highlighted in the Frazier article, citing numbers that appear to have come from a Pew Research Center study released in 2019.

71% of those surveyed believed their local news outlets were doing a good job.
66% felt they were doing a good job keeping an eye on political leaders
62% thought they dealt fairly with all sides

That’s encouraging. In an increasingly polarized climate, most surveyed felt their local news sources were doing a pretty good job of avoiding the biases of those on the national level.

However, here are a couple of sobering numbers:

71% of those surveyed believed local media was in good shape financially
Only 14% said they had paid for local news in the past year.

Even for someone who has been harping for as long as I have about the state of the business, these numbers are striking.

Just to reiterate what I have cited in the past, according to research by The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, an initiative of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, nearly one-quarter of the local newspapers in existence in 2004 are gone. Many places have no source for local news are are referred to as “news deserts.”

Often, newspapers that do remain are “ghosts” — filled with submitted and syndicated copy — due to aggressive cost cutting, including dramatically slashing staff and selling off real estate. Many such properties are owned and/or operated by hedge funds and private equity funds. And, as the Tribune sale proves, that number is still growing. The New York Times did a fine piece a year ago on a colleague of mine who finds himself in that very situation.

Additionally, the pandemic has caused further newsroom layoffs, furloughs and closures nationwide. The Poynter Institute has been tracking those numbers, an exhaustive list most recently updated July 13.

Those reporters and editors who remain have been sounding the alarm on their Op-Ed pages for years. Even simply picking up a newspaper, if one is still available in your area, would likely prove it to be a shadow of its former self. Quite possibly even identical to the one next to it from a neighboring community, save the different nameplate, due to joint ownership.

But if only 14% have actually paid for news in the last year, those reporters and editors are preaching to the choir. How else to account for that 71% who believe local media is in good shape? They likely based that judgment on an assumption.

A personal example. When a particularly robust, family-owned newspaper where I grew up was bought out by a hedge fund, I had a number of friends ask me, “what happened to my newspaper?” I could only reply that I had been warning them for years, no one was listening.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and certainly don’t know what you got till it’s gone. It wasn’t on their radar until they picked up the paper and saw what had happened. Too many other things were screaming for their attention.

For the first time, I feel safe in the prediction that small community local newspapers — the legacy titles — are finished.

For one thing, most of these companies have slashed human resources and infrastructure, two of the three “big ticket” items. The third are the print costs. That means going to a completely online model (website or app) is next.

At first glance, that makes sense. One of the things that strikes me about the 14% number is that it confirms an unsurprising behavioral change. People don’t have time to read the paper. They no longer need to rely on it for calendars, classifieds and pictures of their kids in the community. Papers stack up until they are tossed, until eventually the consumer figures out a subscription isn’t cost effective.

The news-consuming audience has fundamentally changed. Lives are too busy and complicated to take time to peruse a newspaper. It is far easier to get a notification on technology, see something in a social media feed based on an algorithm or read something shared by a friend. No matter how flawed that method may be, it has become the simplest way to consume local news.

Unfortunately, most local newspapers have not created an online business model that supports that kind of behavior. Local sites either have to support themselves through advertising or charging readers.

Web advertising is a different beast to print advertising, and too few newspapers have adjusted their rates to compensate for that shift. Paywalls make sense for The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal because of the demand for their exclusive kind of content. In my experience, on the local level, readers seem resigned to find ways around a paywall or simply give up when they hit it.

So, what’s next? Some organizations have turned to nonprofit models. Others have pressed for subsidizing news. The jury is still out on the sustainability of such courses.

Subsidies, in particular, give me pause. While I agree wholeheartedly in the importance of local news, I have never viewed it as a public service. Rather, I see it as a product to be sold to a consumer. If you can’t sell it, in my mind you need to figure out why and repackage it into something sellable. After all, if you are subsidizing an unsellable product, you are simply passing along the cost to the same public that doesn’t want what you are selling in the first place.

I admit those are personal hang ups, I’m a capitalist at heart, but I think local news is a sellable product. Those numbers cited that said a healthy majority believed their local news outlets were doing a good job, kept an eye on their political leaders and dealt fairly with all sides should be seen as signs of encouragement.

As I have often said in this space, local news will survive in some fashion, if not in the way we know it now. There is a demand for it and nature abhors a vacuum. Ben Smith, media columnist for The New York Times, highlighted a few ventures in his most recent column. Some were issues-oriented organizations, but some straight out benefit local news and local news gathering operations.

I recently was fortunate to work in a consulting role with a news site tied to a local radio station. It combines the resources and reach of the station to benefit its online “newspaper,” helping fill the gap in one of these “news deserts.” A 24/7 news operation as opposed to a weekly print product. I think that model holds promise.

The future of local news is going to take such innovation. Most legacy news outlets on the local level are too tied to old ways and technologies or lack the motivation or know-how to make this transition. Indeed, in many communities, it is too late. Those newspapers have ceased to be.

As I see it, it’s going to take three ingredients to seek each other out for community journalism to reinvent itself:

People in the community who demand coverage and accountability
Professionals trained in credible newsgathering and how to produce it
Those who have the resources to make it happen

So, the question is, how badly do we want it? I’m game. How about you?

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O’Brien’s departure feels like the end of an era for late night TV

6/28/2021

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Photo by Bob Smith from FreeImages

Conan O’Brien bid farewell to late-night television this week (at least for the moment) and in many ways, it feels like the end of an era.

He debuted late in the world Johnny built — 1993 — as the replacement for David Letterman. The “Late Night” host, long considered Carson’s natural successor for the “Tonight Show” gig, had just been been “Leno-ed” and was taking his talents to CBS.

Lorne Michaels contacted O’Brien, who had worked on “Saturday Night Live” as a writer prior to writing for “The Simpsons” with an idea to produce the new Late Night. His agent stressed he’d rather perform, and long story short, he wound up as the host.

To say it was a rocky start would be generous. I had been a huge fan of the Carson/Letterman block and was bound to follow Dave to CBS, but it was impossible to miss O’Brien’s less-than-warm reception. Critics were not kind.

I remember watching the nervous, fidgety host over the aerial on my college apartment‘s color 19-inch (high tech in those days) one evening and thinking “he won’t last.” I had only tuned in myself because a friend said I bore a striking resemblance to him, a fact further supported by a couple of golfers I had been paired with who persisted to call me “Conan” for 18 holes (though they pronounced it like the Barbarian, probably due to my hacking on the course).

But something happened over the first couple of years. The show found its footing. A blessing from Letterman was a big boost. O’Brien’s self-deprecating persona and offbeat humor gelled. He began to win over those critics and win awards. On top of that, television is a cutthroat business, but he seemed genuine. Importantly, like Letterman’s “Late Night,” he delivered a younger demographic than the “Tonight Show,” which made him seem a natural to someday take over the big desk.

By 2009, the opportunity to achieve that life-long dream arrived, but while he got a little further than Letterman, in the end, he too got “Leno-ed.” Books have been written about O’Brien’s short stint on the “Tonight Show,” but suffice to say, not many blamed Conan for the chaos. Stories at the time had him seeing his staff was compensated for moving cross country to do the “Tonight Show” when negotiating his departure from NBC, even paying those who didn’t receive severance packages out of his own pocket.

After a short time off the air, he emerged at TBS, where he stayed until his final show last week in a somewhat understated farewell. The pandemic, with its remote broadcasts and empty theaters, probably took some of the sting out of his final few weeks, but then, with the exception of Craig Ferguson, has anyone ever topped Larry Sanders in the final episode department? Fictional or not.

For me, the best of late-night TV combines both smart humor and strong long-form interviewing — and there have only been a few good ones — Carson, Letterman, Ferguson and O’Brien. That’s not to take away from the modern hosts, I just don’t think the late-night format supports that style anymore.

Today’s shows are more like “short attention span” theater. Back in the day, late-night TV was “must-watch” viewing. Today’s content seems to be broken up into digestible segments that can be caught at your leisure the following day on YouTube. Watching a Carson rerun the other night, I marveled that the show clip and actor brought went on for several minutes. Today, you barely see 15 seconds. Conversation? Forget it.

Not to mention political commentary. Sure, politics were always something to joke about — O’Brien used to do hilarious skits with a Bill Clinton character — but it wasn’t “political.” If you wanted news and politics, then you watched Ted Koppel. The success of “The Daily Show” and its ilk changed all that.

In 1993, Conan seemed the first of a new, young generation of hosts. Somehow, 28 years later, he seems like late night’s last holdover. His next act will include a variety show on HBO Max and the continuation of his podcast, both with schedules surely far less demanding and formats arguably better suited to his strengths than modern late-night television.

And that’s too bad for late night. The genre will never be the same.

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Phillies vax issues put focus on what athletes owe fans

Your local news source is dying. What are we going to do about it?

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