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Let the frenzy begin on the blogosphere. On Sunday Brian Bennett, a reporter for Louisville’s Courier-Journal, was ejected from an NCAA baseball tournament game for live-blogging (which seems to be a crime in the eyes of the NCAA).
Bennett was sending live reports about the University of Louisville’s 20-2 victory over Oklahoma State when NCAA officials approached him, revoked his credentials and tossed him out of the stadium.
This has started a whole new media firestorm around the rights of reporters to blog live from a sporting event.
Pretty much, the argument from the side of the NCAA is that they’ve sold its exclusive rights to “broadcast” the game to entities such as ESPN, and that live-blogging from a game infringes on those rights.
Right, kick a guy out because he’s doing his job because the evil empire tells you to.
Let’s just say that that’s a bunch of (insert expletive here). Dan Shanoff agrees with us. If you go to his blog today, he has a nice little rant about how backwards and ignorant the NCAA has been about this whole situation.
bq. To not realize that live-blogging has become THE most effective and most efficient form of reporting and analysis of sports events exposes the NCAA’s ignorance.
Even the “official blog” of the NCAA, Double-A Zone, disagrees with the action taken by NCAA officials Sunday.
bq. I find all of this quite unnecessary. The world of media has changed and I think this policy makes my organization look arcane because journalists now publish their thoughts in real time on the Internet. I don’t know anybody in their right mind who would choose in-game commentary on a blog over a television broadcast, so I don’t see how there’s competition between our partners and independent bloggers who have received credentials.
So we have two different commentators saying that the NCAA is old, antiquated and needs to get out of the 19th century. We’ll jump on that bandwagon also.
The NCAA better backtrack on this. An apology is definitely needed, and maybe an epiphany.
In an era where information can be brought to you at the click of a button, where there are more media outlets available than seats in a ballpark, the NCAA can only benefit from allowing reporters to blog live from the press box during a game. It adds exposure. It adds insight—especially to a sport as bland, as boring and as “arcane” as NCAA baseball.
Ejected and dejected [Courier-Journal]
NCAA criticized for ejecting reporter who blogged at game [Courier-Journal]
Tuesday 06/12 A.M. Quickie: Bonds’ 747, Plus a Rant Against the NCAA [Dan Shanoff]
Blogger Booted From Championship [Double-A Zone]
Reporter tossed for blogging NCAA baseball tourney game in Louisville [ESPN]
