An excerpt from my latest column for Poynter:

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On the surface, this lede hardly is memorable:

“North Carolina grabbed the lead in the top of the 10th inning as a wild pitch by Clark Labitan allowed Colin Moran to score the go-ahead run. The Tar Heels held on to defeat Virginia Tech 9-8.”

Jim Murray, it is not, but dig a bit deeper and the significance of this lede comes into clear focus. It wasn’t written by a reporter who covered a game. Instead, it was composed by a computer.

Later this month, the Associated Press will be churning out similar computer-generated ledes and stories on college baseball in a new deal with the NCAA. The pact calls for AP to employ “automation technology” to cover college sports beyond big-time football and basketball, including those at the Division II and III level, that traditionally don’t receive coverage.

Hold your breath sports journalists, because it’s just a start, says Lou Ferrara, vice-president of sports, business and entertainment news for the Associated Press. He says computer-generated game stories eventually will make their way to the bigger sports like Major League Baseball and NFL games.

“That’s our next wave,” Ferrara said.

Later Ferrara added, “I look at sports as a pivot point of change [for automation technology].”

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana.

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I have been blessed with many wonderful assignments during my career, but I can’t say I ever had a “dream job.”

I never had anyone tab me to write 5,000-word columns and be the featured voice for the website of the world’s most influential sports network. I never had a podcast that gave me the opportunity to talk sports with Larry David, not to mention numerous other big-name stars and athletes.

I never had the chance to create an award-winning documentary series and a website, both of which produce excellent and different perspectives on sports. I never was selected to be part of a network’s studio show for my favorite sport, the NBA. I never had that network then give me my own NBA-based show.

And I most definitely never had a network willing to pay me $5 million per year.

Sounds like a pretty good gig, right?

So perhaps that is why I am having a hard time understanding why Bill Simmons was willing to squander his “dream job.”

It appeared as if ESPN president John Skipper had enough when he suddenly dropped the bomb last Friday saying the network would not renew his contract. The tipping point, writes Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, likely was an interview Simmons did on the “Dan Patrick Show” in which he ripped Roger Goodell last week. This was after Simmons was suspended for three weeks last fall for comments related to the NFL commissioner.

The length of that suspension had the feel of a lifetime achievement award for Simmons. He previously had other flare-ups that warranted calls from the ESPN disciplinary police. ESPN finally put the hammer down after the “Goodell is a liar” comments.

It certainly seemed as if Simmons was playing fast-and-loose with his “dream job.” At the very least, he had a serious case of big-head syndrome, acting as if ESPN’s rules didn’t apply to him.

Simmons made a serious miscalculation if he truly wanted to stay at ESPN.James Andrew Miller did a terrific examination of the break-up for Vanity Fair. He writes:

“In the end, one could say with minimal originality, but considerable accuracy, that Bill Simmons simply flew too close to the sun. He miscalculated how much value ESPN put on him and on his unique abilities and talents. He might also have forgotten a cardinal company rule that remains sacred whether it’s ESPN’s Old Guard talking or its new one: nobody, but nobody, can be bigger than those four initials.”

Miller writes ESPN also loses with the departure of Simmons. He has a unique brand that can’t be duplicated. Who becomes the next Bill Simmons at ESPN?

The network, though, will somehow continue to remain on the air without Simmons. It will get along just fine.

As for Simmons, clearly there will be no shortage of suitors. There is much speculation about his future. In a column by Paul Fahri of the Washington Post, John Ourand of Sports Business Journal had an interesting thought:

“Ourand expects Simmons to stretch beyond sports. Noting Simmons’s friendship with talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel, he said: “I suspect his next move will have a real entertainment beat to it. I’d be surprised if it’s pure sports.” (Simmons briefly worked as a writer on Kimmel’s late-night show in 2003-2004 before returning to ESPN full-time.)”

If Simmons remains in sports, Dan Levy of Awful Announcing believes his likely landing spot will be with Turner Sports and Bleacher Report. The set-up re-connects him with the NBA via TNT and offers him a powerful website and other bells and whistles.

Yet regardless of where Simmons lands, he never will have a platform that rivals ESPN. There’s something to be said for working for the most powerful brand in sports media. Those “four initials,” as Miller writes, carry considerable weight.

Saying you’re Bill Simmons of ESPN is much different than saying you’re Bill Simmons of anything else. The reach and impact isn’t the same.

Now Simmons was with ESPN for 15 years. That’s a long time. Maybe he feels as if it is time to do something else. Time to take on a different challenge.

However, Simmons should know a “dream job” comes around once in a lifetime for a select few in this world. If it was me, I find a way to make it work at ESPN.

An excerpt from my Poynter column on Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski, named the top columnist in APSE contest in papers with circulation of 175,000 and over.

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Sielski’s victory speaks to the importance of access. He seeks to take readers to places they never get to see. Sielski tries to base his perspective by observing his subject, such as a column on Pete Rose speaking at a Philadelphia church.

Sielski wrote of Rose:

This initially would seem an ill-suited venue for Pete Rose: among evangelicals. But to sit in on the services was to see how fitting the setting actually was. He and Jones sat across from each other on stage in an auditorium, and more than 2,000 people whooped and cheered and chuckled at his stories and one-liners. A teenage boy who distributed bread and wine at communion wore a red Phillies jersey. A man in his early 50s – bald and goateed and built like a small mountain – yelled, “Love you, man!”

“I’m a big believer that the greatest advantage we have is our access,” Sielski said. “We have to use it. Only so many of us have access to these people. In your columns, you have to ground what you do in your reporting, the freshness of your take. You need to give people something they won’t find in a boxscore, Twitter or ESPN.”

Sielski knows his approach runs a bit counter to a new generation of columnists and bloggers who rip and critique in all directions, often from the comforts of home. That style isn’t for him.

“It would be easy to succumb to the temptation of, ‘Let me give this opinion and I’ll get some eyeballs,’” Sielski said. “You have to pick your spots. You can’t write the Eagles should fire Chip Kelly in week 1. The advantage to this approach is that when you do take a stand, it has more impact. People go, ‘He doesn’t usually write like that.’ It has more meaning.”

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Also, Sielski discusses a Father’s Day column he did on his son, Evan. Here is the link to the column. Exceptional.

An excerpt from my latest column for Poynter:

Update: After saying he planned not to be on Twitter during Thursday’s first round, Schefter actually did do a few tweets. However, he didn’t tip any picks.

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Schefter admits being told not to tweet during the draft “feels very odd.” Yet when he shut it down prior to last year’s opening round, he also found it liberating.

“If someone else tweets out news, my bosses don’t care,” Schefter said. “I’m almost granted immunity. It was refreshing. I was able to concentrate on reporting stories (for the telecast) without having to worry about putting up tweets. It almost felt like what it was like to be a sportswriter 20 years ago.”

Schefter was that reporter 20 years ago when he covered the Denver Broncos for the Denver Post. He had plenty of scoops on the beat. He would file his story; it would get edited; and people would read it when the paper hit the doorstep the next morning. Meanwhile, his newspaper competitors couldn’t follow up on his scoop until the following day.

“Back then, the shelf life of a story was 24 hours,” Schefter said. “Now it’s 24 seconds. Twitter has completely redefined how we operate. The job is different.”

Twitter now has Schefter on call 24/7. A few weeks ago he was at a New York restaurant with his wife and friends on a Friday night when his phone started buzzing. He thought, “What’s going on here?”

Somebody told him Miami Dolphins center Mike Pouncey was receiving a contract extension. “I got the contract terms while we were having appetizers,” Schefter laughed.

Schefter excused himself to do additional reporting and then post his tweets.

“My family has become very understanding about it,” Schefter said. “They know what my job is about. News can break at any moment.”

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Schefter isn’t alone in Twitter shutdown. Big Lead reports NFL has asked all its broadcast partners to not tweet out picks tonight.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana:

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Adam Silver gets it. Bryan Price does not.

There was much written last week about the Cincinnati manager’s profanity-laced rant at Reds beat reporter C. Trent Rosencrans. Price’s liberal use of F-bombs assured him a place in the Tirade Hall of Fame. However, the bad words wouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve ever spent any time in a baseball locker room. Literally every other word heard wouldn’t be suitable for the Disney Channel.

Still, managers usually clean it up when there are microphones in their faces. Otherwise, you wind up going viral when the language gets overly colorful, a lesson manager Price learned last week.

Price was thoroughly ripped for contending that beat writers should withhold information if it hurts the team they are covering. Let’s all agree it was a ludicrous statement. Even Price’s fellow managers wouldn’t back him.

It is 2015, the age of social media with a seemingly unlimited demand for constant content. As ESPN’s Buster Olney said in a tweet: “For Bryan Price’s peace of mind, he should look at it this way: Everything gets out. And when it doesn’t, he can view that as a bonus.”

Yet it was a quote from Silver that stood out last week. The NBA commissioner didn’t address the Price situation. Rather, during a meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors association, he was asked for his thoughts on in-house media:

“My philosophy had been that we’re better off not being in the news business because we’re not going to be the most reliable source. We recognize that. The fans are sophisticated, the market is sophisticated. The fan knows that the content they will find on NBA.com is not the same content they will find on a third-party media site.”

Well, give Mr. Silver a silver star. Clearly, the commissioner has a solid understanding of the media.

The NBA, like the other sports entities, is in the content business. It is a smart move considering the insatiable appetite for information on the game. Why shouldn’t the league also cash in with its own website? Sports teams are pouring millions of dollars into their online entities. They have become yet another revenue stream.

If you want information and updates on your favorite team, by all means goes to Steelers.com. Fans can find much worthy content on these home-team sites.

Silver, though, knows there is a difference between a website controlled by a league or a team and a site that is independent. If anything controversial arises, the coverage will be much different on ChicagoTribune.com than Bulls.com. Or let’s say,  ESPN.com compared to NFL.com in the case of the Ray Rice situation. NFL.com didn’t write that Roger Goodell should be fired.

Again, it goes without saying that independent sites will cover these stories with much more of an edge, and if they are doing their jobs right, will be willing to hold the subjects more accountable for their actions. Silver understands fans are “sophisticated” enough to know where to go to get the unvarnished coverage.

The difference also could be as simple as this: If Price asked the reporters who work for Reds.com to withhold information about a player not being available, they wouldn’t write it. Rosencrans doesn’t work for Reds.com; he works for the Cincinnati Enquirer. He wrote it.

One more thing: Rosencrans is to be commended for not exploiting Price’s tirade. He wrote about the immediate aftermath on his blog:

“It was supposed to be a typical day — and Monday was anything but. As a reporter, you want to report the news and stay out of it. Trust me when I say that, because I woke up Tuesday morning to a call from CNN wanting me to go on TV and I told them no. I’ve told ESPN no. I’ve told some radio station in Toledo no. I’ve told everyone who has contacted me no. (And let me make it clear, nobody from WLW has contacted me — nobody, no matter what they say.) That would be me making myself the story. I am not.”

Exactly. Rosencrans was just doing his job. Fortunately for the Enquirer readers, he does it well.

An excerpt from my latest Chicago Tribune column:

Plus some video from the 1981 draft in which Sam Rosen questions why the Giants would use the second pick on Lawrence Taylor. How did that work out?

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Chris Berman has told the story so many times it now feels like he was there for the meeting.

Back in 1979, Chet Simmons, president of a new network called ESPN, made a proposal to Pete Rozelle to air live coverage of the NFL draft. While Rozelle might have been the most media-savvy commissioner in sports history, even he couldn’t comprehend why ESPN would bother covering an event where basically nothing happened from a visual standpoint.

“To Pete, it sounded like reading names from the phone book,” Berman said. “Everyone said, ‘Who’s going to watch?'”

Simmons, though, persisted and ESPN covered its first draft in 1980. It proved to be a pivotal moment not only for ESPN but also for the NFL.

ESPN’s primitive coverage laid the roots for what will be a three-day, high-tech extravaganza in Chicago this week. ESPN’s early association with the draft enabled the struggling network to gain an important foothold in the market. It also transformed the NFL from a six-month, game-driven league to a year-round obsession about who’s going to be taken No. 1.

“The draft helped put ESPN on the map,” said John Wildhack, who joined the network in 1980 and now is its executive vice president for production and programming. “It helped the NFL become more than just a fall sport.”

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To underscore the low-tech nature of the event, while Rozelle was announcing George Rogers as the No. 1 pick in 1981, an assistant literally reached over and turned on his microphone. ESPN’s set consisted of a table in the ballroom with George Grande as the anchor and football writers Paul Zimmerman and Howard Balzer serving as the expert analysts. Mel Kiper Jr. had yet to be invented.

Early on, Berman was assigned to a popular New York restaurant to get fan reaction and talk to former players like Kyle Rote. He remembered the place going dark for 10 minutes because ESPN’s power supply was essentially an extension cord from the truck.

“It felt like we were doing it with two tin cans and a string,” Berman said.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana.

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This is a guarantee: Every personality in TV sports, big or small, now will be the nicest people in the world in the wake of what happened to Britt McHenry.

Chris Berman will bring flowers to the IRS auditor who will be dissecting his taxes. After making a trip to renew his driver’s license only to hear he is missing a form, Bob Costas will flash a big smile and tell the DMV clerk, “Oh, you’re so kind.”

And you can sure if a big TV sports star gets a car towed, he or she will merrily pay the fee and depart by telling the person in the booth, “Have a lovely day.”

Nobody will dare make the same mistake McHenry did in verbally abusing a towing attendant last week. An apparent edited videotape went viral, and ESPN responded by suspending her for a week.

The reaction on social media was even more extreme. I saw a tweet that read, “She needs to be smacked.” And there was much worse.

In an instant, McHenry, who barely registered on most sports viewers’ radar prior to last week, became a cause célèbre. Her story even was the subject of debate on the Sunday morning talk shows. I mean, Cokie Roberts vilified McHenry.

The whole saga was depressing from a journalistic perspective. It was yet another example of how peeping-Tom journalism has us all sliding down a messy slippery slope to a truly terrible abyss.

Now to be clear, McHenry’s behavior was deplorable, straight out of “Mean Girls.” She had no business ridiculing the clerk’s appearance or educational background. Not everyone is fortunate to be born blonde and have the chance to go to graduate school at Northwestern like McHenry.

Yet McHenry didn’t have her tirade over the air. It was a private moment. She lost it in what clearly was a frustrating situation. If you can’t relate on some level, then you’re not being honest.

One tweeter came to McHenry’s defense: “Haven’t we all cussed out a towing company? Tow companies are one step from Satan, aren’t they?”

Again, people things in the heat of the moment that they wish they could take back. Much also was made of the fact McHenry pulled out the “I’m-on-TV” card. Well, if you think she’s the first broadcast personality to use that line, you need to get a clue. Virtually everyone has invoked his or her media status at some point.

McHenry, though, had the misfortune of having her bad behavior captured on what likely is an edited video. Then it went viral. If only she had taken public transportation that night.

My initial reaction was to ask, “Does this story qualify as news?” Barely anyone had heard of her before this happened. Why should anyone care?

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News had a bit more pointed way of posing the question:

“Who, again, is Britt McHenry, and why should we care that she’s acting like a snot wad to a tow-truck company employee? Sorry, the excuse that ‘this is the world of video in which we live in’ doesn’t even apply here.”

Intellectually, I know what happened is news, especially after ESPN suspended her for a week because of the social media uproar. As it was explained to me, ESPN tells its talent they represent the company at all times, not just when they are on the air. Apparently, that includes dealing with a towing company.

Jason McIntyre of Big Lead responded to my question with a couple of Tweets: “Pretty person on TV says mean, vile things to minimum wage worker. If it bleeds, it leads?”

And: “I’d guess 80% of largest papers in the country picked it up. Top 10 traffic day of ’15 for us.”

Indeed, as one reader wrote to me, “We love seeing people behave badly.”

It really makes no sense to rail about peeping-Tom journalism. It’s a reality in today’s new media age. Just ask Ray Rice and Donald Sterling. Fair or not, unflattering video and audio will continue to get leaked to sites who will quickly post at just a tad under the speed of sound.

The McHenry flap shows in dramatic fashion how everyone is fair game in the age of cell phones and other forms of sophisticated video. They all need to be on their best behavior, because one bad moment could shatter a career.

Simply put, if Joe Buck is into his second hour waiting for his entree, he will pull over the waiter and say, “I just want you to know how much I appreciate your fine service.”

Last Friday, I posed these questions about the uproar on social media for somebody most people had no clue about prior to her ill-fated trip to retrieve her towed car.

Why does a bad moment in someone’s personal life suddenly become news?

Did Britt McHenry’s behavior merit a suspension from ESPN?

What does the entire saga say about our priorities in news coverage?

I received many responses via comments, tweets and emails. Here are a few.

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Amy Trask, the former CEO of the Oakland Raiders and now a NFL analyst with CBS, sent me a thoughtful email.

Trask: The fact that it is a story – irrespective of whether it should be – is a reflection of the age in which we live;

Whether it should be a story is another subject altogether – I would posit that many stories should not be stories.

That said, there is, in my view, an important issue rolled up in all of this:  If and to the extent a male broadcaster would have been subject to opprobrium and discipline for the sort of cruel, ad hominem attack on a woman (about her appearance, in particular) as leveled by Britt McHenry, then a female broadcaster should be subject to the same opprobrium. Stated simply: If public opinion, business guidelines and emerging societal ethos is such that it’s not OK for a male to do this – if he would have been publicly excoriated and suspended from his job – then that should be the case for a female too.   After all – gender blind means gender blind.

Exploring and grappling with the philosophical issues of evaluating conduct, applying standards, etc. are what make this – and perhaps make this worthy – of a story.

An additional thought: If an athlete engaged in the behavior we saw on that video, the sports media would cover that story. Whether we believe it should be a story or not, it would be. In the words of the playground:  what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

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Tonga: Traffic, Ed. The same reason you posted this and will tweet the link four or five times today. Page views pay the bills.

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Rich: To some extent, we see people on television and always wonder about their personality. I think we either believe or want to believe they are good people, work hard and perform on their job. They’re made up, they are smiling, they are putting their best foot forward. This video contradicts all of that. When we see a video such as this one, it may or may not give us some insight to their true personality or at least another side of it.

Without the video, the story barely rates at all and is just another example of a person behaving badly in a momentary encounter and is poor reflection of that person. However, while I think it got much more attention that it deserved, all of the factors above combined to make it a story. On-air reporter for biggest sports network behaving badly on video. Maybe it’s not worthy of the nightly network news programs but it’s a dream scenario for Harvey Levin and others.

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KT: People who make a living in the public eye and whose stock-in-trade is being genial and convivial are fair game to be exposed when they are being disingenuous.

Plus, we love tearing down people we only marginal knowledge of, as long as they have attractive head shots.

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Philip Hersh: Schadenfreude involved, with some people reveling in her takedown, but she is public figure & behavior was despicable.

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Young ideas: Old media adage: The mic is always hot. The camera never blinks twice (Got that from Dan Rather’s book).

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John Walters: I believe she answered that question herself, Ed: “I’m on TV!”

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Roger Domal: I have no idea who she is and if she disappeared from TV tomorrow it wouldn’t make a difference.

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Amanda Haseley: She is a female sports reporter, a role model to girls. You can’t take on that task and berate a woman for her looks/weight.

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Ethan Ostrow: “E” in ESPN stands for Entertainment. She should have known better. It’s more than isolated bad moment in her personal life.

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Oliver Willis: There is video; She is an attractive person; The media doesn’t need a third reason

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William Clements: I would suggest the deeply derogatory, insulting, and sickening superiority she displays catches a cultural nerve. Instead of having any humanity, humility or gratefulness for her good fortune, she concisely demonstrates the worst aspects of even minor celebrity. A termination would be more appropriate than a short suspension: so that the network could demonstrate to viewers and employees alike this is never to be tolerated.

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Mike Douchant: Seriously, I’m interested in knowing why someone in the entitled media can’t figure this out on their own since yesterday.

My latest Poynter column is on Bill Pennington’s new book, “Billy Martin: Flawed Genius.”

Here is an excerpt:

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Pennington’s detailed biography is filled with countless stories of the combustible Martin settling his many differences during his eventful 61-year life. He had a wild ride with stunning ups and downs as one of baseball’s most compelling characters.

“For the last 30 years, I felt like I had some insights about him that were valuable,” Pennington said. “Whenever his name came up, people always were asking me questions, wanting to know more about him. I knew there was a fascination about him. He was so accomplished and yet so self-destructive at the same time.”

Pennington thinks the biography provides a vivid snapshot of baseball in the ‘80s, and that includes how the game was covered. Back then, the beat writers had far more access, which led to deeper relationships with the players, manager and coaches. They even flew on the team charters, a practice that has been long since eliminated.

“From a reporter standpoint, you really got to know the team so well,” Pennington said. “You knew all the cliques. There would be conversations with players on the team buses that were completely informal, but many times they would lead to a story down the line. I understand the ethical questions of being on the charters [newspapers still paid their own way], but I think we’ve lost something.”

Pennington revisited those now long-time relationships with Martin’s former players in researching the book. He noted a common refrain even among people who didn’t like Martin, of which there were many.

“When I told them what I was doing, they’d all laugh and say, ‘There never was a dull moment with Billy,’” Pennington said.

Been tied up on several fronts, but wanted to pay tribute to Stan Hochman, the long-time columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. He passed away last week. Hochman, a workhorse, grinded it out almost to the end, filing his last column in February.

From the Daily News:

Hochman, according to Pat McLoone, managing editor of the Daily News, could be summed up in one word: “Great.”

“When you think that Stan Hochman came on the Philadelphia sports scene in the late ’50s, made a mark right away and has been great, truly great, for more than 50 years, it really is overwhelming,” said McLoone, who was sports editor from 1989 to 2008. “I mean, Stan was great as a Phillies beat writer covering Gene Mauch in the collapse of 1964, great covering Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Doctor J, Bobby Clarke, Reggie White and great to his final piece [in February].

“His coverage of Dick Allen’s shot at the Hall of Fame, how he helped champion the cause, showed how great he still really was. I have been in awe of Stan since the first time I read the Daily News as a young kid and remain in awe of him today. For his insistence on accuracy, his incredible speed as a writer and his courage and truth-seeking as a columnist. Most importantly, I have been witness to him as a great husband, father and grandfather. It is a sad day in the history of Philadelphia sports, and he will be missed by so many.”

Rich Hoffman at Philly.com:

The integrity of the man and his work were unmatched. He had a strong belief in the homework because it best informed your questions. He had a strong belief in the interview, because the best columns were when you could display a connection with your subject in the subject’s words. He had a strong belief in fundamental fairness – that you give a guy his say, that you agree or disagree with it in your commentary, and that you show up the next time and let the guy tell you what he liked or didn’t like about what you wrote.

That was the Stan Hochman transaction, a three-way relationship among the columnist, the athlete and the reader, a transaction based on honesty at its core. The athlete was rarely surprised at what Stan wrote, even if he didn’t agree with it – and a lot of them did not agree. If he had remained a schoolteacher for more than a brief period at the beginning of his working life, Stan would have been known as a tough grader. But he was fair. He always said that was his goal, tough but fair, and he succeeded for a half-century.