It has now been over a year since the world was initially impacted by COVID-19 and although normalcy has resumed to a certain extent, journalists continue to experience significant difficulty within their field.
From travel restrictions to denied clubhouse access, sports reporters in particular have been struggling to return back to the work routine they used to know.
Zach Buchanan, a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Arizona Diamondbacks, said when the shutdown began in March 2020, one of the hardest parts for his company was asking its subscribers to subscribe when there were no sports to read about, and as a result, it saw a decline in that area.
“Our mission statement is to give readers something they can’t get anywhere else because we’re asking them to pay a subscription fee,” Buchanan said. “And when literally what you’re getting in terms of access is the same as everybody else, it’s hard to distinguish yourself like that.”
Buchanan said when it came to coming up with story ideas during this time, he and his colleagues turned to sports in the past since they could not look at sports in the present.
For example, he wrote articles where he ranked every professional sports uniform in Arizona history and the top 100 player nicknames.
“That was the kind of thing that was available,” he said. “You looked back, you got in touch with old players, you did stuff that you might have considered a little too fluffy before, but there was space to fill.”
He added that this gave him a bigger sense of confidence, that if needed, he can use the tools of looking back and figure something out; work the phones and get in touch with old players.
Although they are now able to write normally since Major League Baseball has fully returned, another challenge that sports writers continue to face is the lack of access they have to the players, specifically in the clubhouse.
Nick Piecoro, a Diamondbacks beat writer for The Arizona Republic, said that he has not been able to travel since last year and with that restricted access, it has given him a narrow range of players he is able to talk to.
“It makes for far less nuanced stories being reported,” Piecoro said. “I don’t think you’re getting the level of detail, the level of insight that you would have gotten in the past of baseball writing.”
Piecoro added that he worries that reporters will never have access to the clubhouse again because the players have gotten used to them not being around.
“You just kind of realize there are certain questions or pieces of information you’re not gonna get like you might have in the past,” Piecoro said. “We just hope the league goes to bat for us and allows us that access again soon.”
Similar to Piecoro, Buchanan said he hopes the players realize it is better for them if the people who are covering them are held accountable in a certain way by having access to the clubhouse.
“If there’s something they don’t like about our coverage, then they’ve built hopefully a good enough relationship with us from us being there and interacting with them a lot, that they can come and approach us and we can work that out,” he said. “And that’s just not something we have right now.”
Buchanan added that things are looking up for them since the league has allowed them to be on the field during batting practice. This has allowed reporters to have more casual conversations with players, even though it’s not as much as they once could.
“It’s getting closer to normal,” he said. “But there’s still nothing that replicates that hour a day you’d spend in the clubhouse, where a lot of the best ideas come from.”
Piecoro said that the league is in the process of negotiating a Collective Bargaining Agreement with the players that are set to be announced in December.
He and Buchanan said they hope that reporters and media access to the clubhouse is included in that agreement.
Contact the reporter at nblumel@asu.edu.
