Welcome to the New Generation’s silent, empty media conference of sports journalism
Photo by Justin Buisson on Unsplash
First, they closed the locker rooms to interviews.
Then, they limited player interaction with media to Zoom conferencing—and could continue this mass-production journalism post-pandemic.
Now, athletes such as tennis Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka won’t talk at all.
Osaka announced she would not participate in media-conference interviews at the French Open because she believes they can be damaging to the mental health of the players. Or, should we say performers? Or, maybe more accurately, entertainers?
Once, athletes recognized, but did not necessarily appreciate, the connection that media provided to form a relationship with the public, while keeping them at arm’s length while taking their money. The fact is, the public buys the tickets and products that underwrite purses and salaries that end up in the pockets of Osaka and other players.
Osaka sounds as if she doth protest too much regarding the media threat to her mental health, but she has the right to choose silence and let her performance speak for itself. Teams and leagues or organizations often fine those who consider their silence worth more than the paltry fines that affect only those on the bottom rungs of the player ladder. Richer athletes care about as much as they might if an insect bit them.
Senior media writer Tom Jones, a former sportswriter and columnist whom I’ve mentioned previously, led “The Poynter Report” on May 28 with a post fueled, in large part, by Howard Bryant, a senior writer for ESPN.com for which he produces columns and also contributes to ESPN, ESPN Radio, and ESPN The Magazine. In this case, Bryant, who previously worked for a number of newspapers, including the Washington Post, took to Twitter like a mother bird dropping nourishing nuggets into hungry maws. Numbering his “Full Dissident” observations 1 through 11, he was sanguine from A to Z.
Osaka’s stance did not surprise Bryant, and it does not surprise me. In my own lesser way I have been attempting, as quietly as Osaka wishes to be, to sound the alarm. The train is on the track to prevent sports journalists from doing their jobs as they should and there may be no stopping it. “My overall feeling,” Bryant wrote, “is that since athletes have been positioning themselves as ‘entertainers’ no different from musicians or movie stars, refusing press was inevitable. They perform. Once it’s over, they’ve fulfilled their public obligation.”
Jones, longer in the tooth than Bryant but not as long than me, has seen the relationship between athletes and media change. “For generations,” he wrote, “media coverage promoted the sport—building interest in the athletes and the games they played. Athletes wanted media attention. And the press was the conduit between athletes and the fans. But athletes no longer feel they need the media.”
Eddie Elias, the late founder of the Professional Bowlers Association, would be appalled. An Akron guy who wasn’t really a bowler—the ultimate oxymoron—Elias founded the PBA in 1958 in the Rubber City where he also built Eddie Elias Enterprises, a sports marketing firm. The PBA, from Eddie to the last bowler in the standings, treated the media better than any professional athletes with which I was ever associated. They did not have to be dragged to media conferences. They would come looking for you.
Because some among the sports media scoffed at the idea that these guys were “athletes”—a pro bowler might just take a drag on a smoke or knock back an alcoholic beverage or three—even the best of the pro bowlers went out of their way to accommodate those of us who appreciated the skills they brought to their game. Invariably, if a writer were covering their pinnacle event—the Tournament of Champions, which used to be held at Riviera Lanes in the Akron suburb of Fairlawn—they would thank the writer or broadcaster for wanting to talk with them. And mean it.
Guess Naomi Osaka never met a pro bowler. She could benefit from the experience. If Howard Bryant is right—and I suspect he is—she probably would turn up her nose.
“Osaka’s statement,” Bryant observed, “was unsurprising, because she is part of a generation raised on two principles . . . : 1) they owe the public nothing outside of performance, and 2) the idea of public responsibility/accountability is being destroyed in a time of privatization. They’re taught there’s no value to public wealth, public good, public journalism. The assault on each over the past 50 years has defined this country. This gen[eration] ever more tightly controls their appearances, their statements. They will replace public information with propaganda.
“They will be the executive producers of their documentaries, bankrolled by their corporate partners, and anything independent, dissenting to their narrative will be considered an attack, an intrusion. Outside of press conferences, LeBron only appears on platforms he controls.”
LeBron, of course, is Akron’s own LeBron James—star of court, screen, and all platforms but also a person tempered by the good things he and his LeBron James Family Foundation have done and do for his hometown, including creation of the I Promise program and then I Promise School, in partnership with Akron Public Schools.
I have wondered what might have been had James met Eddie Elias and become one of his clients, a number of whom—including golfer Chi Chi Rodriquez, activist Ralph Nader and talk show host Phil Donahue and his wife, actress Marlo Thomas—gained international reputations as humanitarians, as well as greats in their fields. I think LeBron and Eddie might have hit it off, that maybe LeBron has a bit of bowler in him.
Unlike Osaka, bowlers don’t close doors, they open them. I’d rather talk with a bowler any day than watch Osaka smash tennis balls at people and bat away connections to them that the media tries to facilitate.
