The evolution of sports journalism, as seen by one man who’s covered the Southeastern Conference for 33 years. Turns out it isn’t that much different than the news side of things, though some of those changes took place a generation ago. Take it away Ron Higgins:

Thus, you have bad feature stories. And soon you have little or no feature stories, because of a head coach who then publicly wonders why the media doesn’t write more “great” feature stories about his players.

With no feature stories to write, the news cycle gets amped up even more. Because beat writers are required to blog and tweet every hour, and write something for their paper almost every day, an item that was a throwaway note suddenly gets developed into a news story.

The next day after the coach reads the story or has someone read it for him, he angrily asks the reporter, “How is that a news story?”

If the reporter is honest, he’ll say, “It wasn’t. You left me no choice. I wanted to write a feature story on your wide receiver, but you limited access to him and those around him so much, it was a weak story. So a note became the news.”

THAT is what Dan Mullen and a lot of other coaches don’t get. In their quest to control the messenger, they sequester their program into a witness protection atmosphere of “you can’t.”

[…]

The average reader, looking at this blog, will say, “Wah, wah, wah, poor media. Who cares?”

So, untrained journalists, inflexible coaches and SIDs have ruined it for everyone. And, now, the fans. Higgins was absolutely taken to task in the comments of his own piece.

Here’s his reply:

I don’t ever expect coaches to have a friendly, buddy-buddy relationship with the media that was prevalent through the mid 1970s.

What I would like to see is coaches care enough to have honest communication with the media to discuss problems between the two sides, to develop a level of professional respect.

From the sports perspective, where the “bloggers are untrained as journalists and thus, ill-equipped for the job” has also taken unfortunate root, the problems are that athletic programs are intent on protecting their large investment, their athlete-students and their powerful coaches. The programs know their fans are going to be their fans no matter the media coverage and, just as importantly, they have their own tools — the same tools — to reach out to their public. That’s enough to make any sportswriter nervous.

Or, if politics is your thing here you have the logical conclusion to a Jerry Springer culture:

A Ron Paul supporter in Texas has taken out a full-page ad in a local alternative weekly newspaper seeking women who have slept with the presidential candidate.

“Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” asks the ad, which runs in this week’s Austin Chronicle. The ad was placed by Robert Morrow, who describes himself as a “self-employed investor and political activist” and a three-time delegate to the Texas state Republican convention.

Morrow is also the president and single member of the Committee Against Sexual Hypocrisy, which, he says, can help women publicize their “direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, ‘family values’ hypocrite and fraud.”

“I think it’s only a matter of time until somebody credible comes forward,” Morrow told Salon.

The Washington Post asked if we should be OK with this:

It’s not even a personal attack. It’s an ad hoping it can make a personal attack later. Is this really where we are?

“Gee,” this ad says. “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a scandal in Rick Perry’s personal life? Get on that, facts.”

“Rick Perry Is A Family Values Hypocrite*” the ad says. *We still have no facts to support this claim.

Are we okay with this? We shouldn’t be.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle went immediately to the Let’s find out all about Morrow angle.

The coarsening of the political discourse (This isn’t new, and indeed goes back to the days of Jefferson-Adams. I published a book chapter on it last year.) is really a sign that the perpetual campaign lasts for too long.

The Birmingham News’ Sunday circulation is up, mirroring a recent trend taking place elsewhere. The reason:

The sour economy and a popular television show have combined to boost demand for the Sunday edition of The Birmingham News — among both frugal consumers and thieves.

Theft of the coupon-packed Sunday newspaper has increased about 15 percent since the April debut of the TLC show “Extreme Couponing,” said Troy Niday, News vice president for operations. Single copy sales of the Sunday paper have increased about 16 percent over the same period.

“It’s almost as if the market woke up and realized we’ve got coupons,” Niday said.