The Best Surrogates
Writes Vic Zast, in praise of the noble turf scribe:
These writers have access and research capabilities that bloggers and fans don’t…. The NTWA member has been conscientious in serving the sport. It’s the turf writer that takes the lead position on most crucial issues and expresses the opinions of fans in his writing…. They are the best surrogates of the fans, if the fans themselves are not represented …
Funny Zast should post those words today. This morning, turf writer Steve Haskin’s inaugural 2009 Derby Trail column, on the subject of Sheikh Mohammed purchasing promising Kentucky Derby prospects Midshipman and Vineyard Haven, disappeared for several hours after it was initially posted on Blood-Horse, with the only trace of the original text this snippet on Google:
Briefly, the missing column looked like a repeat of a 2006 incident in which a Haskin article on Bernardini’s retirement was pulled, raising questions about whether Blood-Horse had acted in response to advertiser pressure, but according to regular commenter EJXD2, “a well-placed BH insider told me that it had been posted w/out being edited” (via tweet). And Indeed, the column reappeared online, with edits throughout, starting in the first line (the text preserved on Google above):
Everyone knows by now that Sheikh Mohammed wants to win the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), as evidenced by the amounts of money he’s spending for ready-made Derby horses.
Notice the missing word? It’s one you often hear in reference to the marvelous sums the noted sportsman deploys to procure elite equine talent; it’s one you might expect a conscientious surrogate to use in a column full of observations and insights — not a piece of straight reportage — on the Sheikh’s renewed pursuit of his Dubai-to-Derby dream. And the questions suggested by that adjective — well, you might expect such a respected turf writer to take a lead position on the issues raised by the actions and plans of such a prominent owner and breeder, and you might expect that his editor and publisher would allow him to express that position.
What’s Lost
… when newspaper reporters on the racing beat are laid off or retired, then replaced by general sports writers, who might be fine journalists but have little understanding of the sport or the industry and its ongoing stories, is exemplified in this dull bit of LA Times reporting on SoCal synthetic surface tracks, which rehashes every point every racing fan or even vaguely interested reader has already come across elsewhere, padded out by press release quality quotes.
An Expansion
So often, when the subject of mainstream media and racing comes up, it’s because coverage is being cut at yet another newspaper. The Wall Street Journal is going in a different direction, at least for the Breeders’ Cup, reports AdAge:
The Wall Street Journal is developing a special ad section for the Breeders’ Cup this October, the paper’s first ad section about a sports property and the Cup’s first ad buy in the paper.
(The Breeders’ Cup has been advertising in the WSJ online.) It is an ad section; the focus is advertising the Breeders’ Cup and interested marketers, but expanded sports editorial gets a mention, so I think we can expect some actual Breeders’ Cup coverage alongside the display ads …
Upcoming
Along with Teresa Genaro of Brooklyn Backstretch, I’ve been invited to appear on Call to the Post with Seth Merrow of Equidaily on the Capital OTB channel at 9:45 a.m. Monday (the show is streamed live online; Albany-Saratoga region viewers can watch on cable channel 12) to talk about how the web has changed the relationship between racing and its fans. Should be a fun discussion …
And on Thursday, sometime during the 4:30-5:30 p.m. hour, Dana Byerly of Green but Game and I will be on the Sirius radio show At the Races with Steve Byk (archived for listening online) to talk about Self Appointed Fan Committee, which should also be an interesting conversation, as the committee’s first reports will be issued the same day.
LAT Turf Writers Out
Tell Zell’s list of Los Angeles Times journalists cut loose by the paper’s most recent round of buyouts and layoffs on Monday includes veteran turf writers Bob Mieszerski and Larry Stewart, and it looks as though the Times didn’t bother to have another sports writer in place to pick up the Del Mar beat — there’s nary an article about the meet’s opening in the paper today, a lack that does not bode well for future Southern California racing or Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita print coverage this fall …
Which reminds me of a point made by Maryjean Wall, retired from her turf writing gig at the Lexington Herald-Leader this spring, in a recent Blood-Horse chat:
[I]t’s no secret that the numbers among print media are declining. I would look around in any press box and wonder, who will be here to join us or take our places some day? … Blogging appears to be the wave of the future; when the future arrives, blogging might be horse racing’s only remaining media outlet.
I don’t know that blogs will end up the only remaining media outlet for racing, but online publishing is clearly the future, and it can be a very good future for turf journalism, which is just the sort of niche that can thrive on the web. It’s a shame that reporters such as Mieszerski and Stewart are being cut from newsrooms, but such unfortunate losses don’t have to mean the sport or its coverage is disappearing.
7/17 Addition: Bob Ike gets a call from Bob Mieszerski,
telling me that he had been laid off as part of the L A Times cost-cutting measures. The Times cut 150 jobs, and Mieszerski and racing writer Larry Stewart were two of the victims. Mieszerski is an extremely talented handicapper and writer who has been in the newspaper business since he was 21 years old. Blessed with an incredible memory and great feel for the game, I consider him one of my main handicapping mentors…. Mieszerski deserved better — being notified two days before the start of Del Mar showed a complete lack of class by the Times, which will now have no horse racing coverage in the country’s second-largest market. With the Breeders’ Cup coming to Santa Anita this fall, could the timing have been any worse?
No, not really, and the LAT sports editor’s claim that the paper will provide “robust coverage of the Breeders’ Cup this fall at Santa Anita,” doesn’t provide much solace.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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