Real Sports Report: Woe is the Newspaper

I'm going to bury the lede of Frank Deford's report on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about the death of newspapers for a moment and start this reactionary piece at the end. Gumbel, in his question and answer session with Deford, asked the most telling question:

"Is it possible you and I are just dinosaurs who resent change?"

Deford chuckled, answered in the affirmative, and Gumbel moved on to his next story. But that's where the Deford's story should begin, really. The times have changed. Yes, the internet has given many more people – myself included – a voice in the world. But that's not a bad thing, as Deford's report seemed to indicate. His report was not an investigation into the changing paradigm of news, away from the printed word and toward the uploaded. It was a veiled slam piece on those young whipper-snapping bloggers, masquerading behind a look at the 'death of newspapers' featuring interviews with long-standing, respected newsmen.

Deford spoke with Jay Mariotti, who recycled his initial Fanhouse column for Deford talking about how the internet is great and his paper made him write two stories about Michael Phelps before a race even started and he couldn't take it anymore because, "you are cheating the reader. You are cheating me."

Yes, that was the blog's eye view of things.

Joe Posnanski, one of the best sports writers in this country, was next on the list of interview subjects, explaining that without the printed newspaper, many of our top internet news sites wouldn't exist.

"I think a lot of people would say, 'I don't care about the Kansas City Star that I get in my driveway, but I just go to KansasCityStar.com. What's the problem? I go to kcstar.com and get my news.' And they don't realize that if what's in the driveway goes away, that goes away too.

"I don't know that even newspaper people understand the symbiosis of what's being reported in newspapers and how that's driven the internet. It's a huge, huge part of it. And who is going to do that?"

Clearly not Posnanski, who after many years at the Kansas City Star, left the paper recently to work full time at Sports Illustrated. Again, Posnanski is a great writer, and as he wrote on his blog, the SI gig was a dream job of his, but does it make sense that the reporter Deford interviewed about the problems with local newspapers is a guy who just left his in the dust?

Deford also spoke with Phil Bronstein, who ran the San Francisco Chronicle during the BALCO investigations. Bronstein explained that the investigation cost millions of dollars, if you include the court costs to keep Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams out of jail. They lament the fact that newspapers couldn't afford to do this anymore. But didn't they write a book of this story? Aren't there other ways, besides an A-1 story in the newspaper, for publishing companies to capitalize and monetize investigative journalism? That question was never discussed, but the point was made that neither writer is working for newspapers anymore.

Deford then talked with ESPN's John Walsh about the Worldwide Leader heading into local markets, lessening the importance and impact of the local newspaper's sports section. Deford used a tired analogy to defend the little guy from the likes of ESPN:

"Some people have said, though, it's like the big huge chain stores – the GAP and so forth, Banana Republic – coming in and putting out the little mom and pop stores on main street."

Walsh, to his credit, replied that a lot of big chain stores are in trouble right now as well, adding, "you better watch out, if you're a big chain store, that you don't make a big mistake."

Like, say, the McClatchy newspaper group, who spent $200 million dollars on a printing and distribution plant in 2006 for -- you guessed it -- the Kansas City Star. (Editor's note: A reader points out that Knight Ridder actually made the decision on the plant, but McClatchy is footing the bill.) If ESPN is the 'GAP, Inc.' of sports news, then to Deford, publishing giants like McClatchy and Gannett and the Tribune Company must be his 'little mom and pop stores.'

What does that make the blogs then? A couple of kids selling lemonade for a nickel on the corner?

"A blog is just bloviating. It's just somebody's opinion," Deford told Gumbel. "Where as investigative reporting is, the operative word, reporting – going out and discovering things. And we all know that the bulk of that, through the years, has come from newspapers."

I began my bloviation with the end of Deford's piece, so let's end mine with the beginning of his. Deford, who was filmed next to an old-style street newspaper vending machine, revealed his reasoning behind the segment:

"No one knows the difficulties newspapers face better than I. When I was the editor of the National Sports Daily, we had a fine product, but we lost $150 million in only eight months. It costs money to find and follow news. It costs money to print and deliver newspapers. And it's even more difficult now."

Deford has made a name for himself on many platforms, including newspapers, but more famously books, magazines, radio and television. And yes, the internet, as his columns are widely read on this here interweb, as well. He, like many other newspaper writers, left the black and white world of print journalism for more acclaim in other mediums. The death of the newspaper ... as told by yet another person who left it behind because it wasn't profitable. If only Poor Richard had such outlets as HBO's Real Sports in his day. The death of the Almanac must have been just as sad.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.