Long after the Florida basketball team’s lifeblood had trickled from its veins on Friday in St. Louis, the Arkansas Razorbacks continued to pound a beaten UF team that just wouldn’t stop trying. That was much to the frustration of one broadcaster on press row, who slammed a table with his open palm and mouthed something under his breath.
The man appeared to be involved with the Arkansas radio broadcast, although his exact role was unclear. Regardless, his outburst violated one of the cardinal rules of covering sports: No — absolutely no — cheering in the press box. Especially when your team has an insurmountable lead.
Casual fans might wonder why this is such an all-important rule. When I started working at The Alligator in 2015, I too wondered why fandom is such a sin in sports journalism, or more specifically why I couldn’t wear my Florida hats and T-Shirts anymore. But while The Alligator and other traditional media outlets draw a hard line between journalism and fandom, that line is constantly blurred in the ever-evolving sports media landscape, which has its pros and cons.
The pro side of merging the two is that it allows reporters — and I think fans, to some extent — to have more fun. The most exciting part of sports is fandom, and asking someone who likes sports enough to write about them for a living to give that up seems akin to forcing priests to be celibate. It’s arguable that it’s necessary, but it’s certainly not ideal.
A growing number of voices argue that bias doesn’t matter because everyone is biased, so what really matters is transparency. If you’re a Florida fan writing about the Gators, the theory goes, then just say so. People will trust you just as much for being honest.
Plus, if the era of “fake news” has revealed one principle above all, it’s that people are drawn to writing that promotes their viewpoints and biases. It might not be ideal ethically, but fandom-fueled writing can be lucrative, hence the rise of SBNation sites like Alligator Army or Tomahawk Nation.
But embracing fandom as a sports writer obviously has its pitfalls. If you’re open about supporting the Gators as a Florida beat writer, you won’t be trusted to provide fair coverage of, for example, the credit card scandal that infected UF’s football program in 2017. Or about sexual assault allegations against players, arrests, etc.
That isn’t to say it’s impossible to be an objective fan, but let’s be honest — it’s a practical requirement of fandom to abandon nuance and objectivity and root for whatever outcome is best for your team.
The debate over objectivity in sports reporting has reached some of the industry’s more prominent figures.
“I’m an old man. An old, old, old man,” sports writer Jeff Pearlman wrote on Twitter back in February. “But when I was coming up in journalism, there was no “my coach” or “my team” or “my guy.” You were handed a laptop, a credential, a pad and a pen and you covered sans bias, leanings, favorites. You just wrote and reported.”
He was responding to a tweet from Master Tesfatsion, a Bleacher Report writer who used to cover the Redskins for the Washington Post, calling Arizona State football coach Herm Edwards “my coach.” Tesfatsion is, as you may have guessed, an Arizona State alumnus.
A tame debate between the two ensued, and neither gave any ground. That result pretty much illustrates the point I’m getting at.
The answer isn’t really yes, it’s OK to be a sports reporter and a fan, or no, you can’t combine the two. Depending on your goals as a reporter or sports media personality, you can go either way.
Ethan Bauer is a sports writer at The Alligator. Follow him on Twitter @ebaueri and contact him at ebauer@alligator.org.
Craig Sager threw out the first pitch of a Cubs game in June 2016. He was a longtime NBA sideline reporter before his death in December 2016.
