Arizona Wildcats: 2019 Athletics New Year’s resolutions
Resolution: Media granted access should ask more meaningful and thoughtful questions of student-athletes, and not try to hurt athletes reputations.
Being in the Press isn’t an easy job, but it is a coveted job, and access to teams isn’t something to take lightly. The media selected by the SID at Arizona Athletics in Tucson are privileged in that they have access to ask questions and observe and write about NCAA college players and coaches. They work for companies that need views to sustain advertisements and paid subscriptions to make money. It’s a business, make no mistake about it.
FanSided is a business too, but their model is a bit different. We are not tasked to break news, we aren’t supposed to be a news outlet. Rather we bring our opinions to the table as fans, we commune with other fans to learn what they want to know about, and we do like to celebrate the positives in a program. Each site has their own personality, and a lot are very critical, but when we border on trying to be press, we are reminded we are an opinion site by our management.
Arizona Wildcats
That doesn’t mean we get fewer eyes on our work, our posts are frequently picked up by Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, and Fox Sports. Our main purpose to bring interesting stories to Wildcats fans about the Arizona Athletic program as well as be a voice for fans. We try to be positive, and if we see something we think needs fixing (and usually our readers are telling us as well), we call it out and make suggestions for improvement. We would love to be able to take you behind the scenes and get to know the athletes in a way that is more personable.
We can see how difficult it is for the press to do their job, always on the road, having to come up with questions that they feel makes them a credible journalist, eating that crummy food offered at each game. We get it. It’s their job to get to the heart of the story, to bring their readers interesting and informative information but also to dig into very uncomfortable subjects.
When the rumors or projections come at the cost the student-athlete or when the answer is obvious and the question is asked anyway. That’s what is infuriating sometimes. Then they get mad when they don’t get the answer they want and blame and embarrass the players.
Case in point: It was strongly suggested by multiple outlets, including VIP pay only blog rooms, that Khalil Tate was transferring.
Before the kid had a chance to get over the infuriating and disappointing loss to rival ASU by one point, fresh on his mind, he was asked if he would take back the interception. He was also asked what his plans were moving forward. Really? Come on now!
We understand that you all feel you had to ask the question, but surely, you can come up with a different question or one you don’t have the answer to already (of course he wanted to take back the interception). Ask some questions later, when appropriate. Using Athletes, who should be paid more for this type of crap, to get more views or journalistic credibility, is just plain wrong. Stop with the rumors that might hurt student-athletes chances of going pro, just stop. And we are available to help you if you need some alternative questions.
