Published Friday, April 6, 2001
Online journalists have major-league issues over sports credentials
BY CICELY K. DYSON
ASNE Reporter
ASNE editors and representatives of Major League Baseball Thursday tackled a new entry in the complex field of intellectual property rights: who owns the rights if online journalists obtain the same sports credentials as traditional print and broadcast journalists?
“This is a vital issue important to most editors,” said Earl R. Maucker of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
Credentials have long been denied to online sports journalists while their “traditional media” counterparts have been given virtually unlimited access. Netbuffs.com, a small Web site, lost a court battle to officially report on University of Colorado athletic events almost two years ago, and the situation for online journalists hasn’t improved.
“From a journalistic standpoint, it’s hard for journalists to allow people being covered to dictate coverage,” said Rich Jaroslovsky, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online.
Robert A. Bowman, president and chief executive officer of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which operates the official sites of 30 teams, said the credentials issue boils down to: “What is the best way to present a sports game?”
Stadium owners who sell the broadcast rights aren’t willing to cede control of game highlights to online operations – some of them operated by journalists.
Mary Ann Werner, vice president and counsel to The Washington Post, said the problem with credentialing is of growing importance.
“Sports credentials were not big five years ago,” she said. “The Internet made leeway with credentials. Now the credentialing process is squelching creativity.”
At Thursday’s session, panelists Mr. Bowman, Bill Dwyre, sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Jaroslovsky and Ms. Werner fielded questions from moderator Dale Cohen, operations editor/senior counsel of the Chicago Tribune.
Events at a professional athletic game raise the question of who owns the content of the performance – the intellectual property, said Mr. Cohen.
The issue was thrashed out in such recent cases as reprinting newspaper pages on t-shirts when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run and when the Yankees won their latest World Series.
Ms. Werner said the images of elated fans or players from those events can’t be considered the property of the teams and stadium owners.
“When the front page is on a t-shirt, it’s marketing for the paper, not the league. Consumers won’t be confused,” she said.
Richard A. Oppel, editor of the Austin American-Statesman, asked if games held at stadiums were public or private events.
Mr. Bowman said the content of a game is more like news than a private performance, such as a play. However, he said, “No coin is so thin it doesn’t have two sides;” meaning there could always be news content in a play.
Ms. Werner said the ability of a journalist to use the information learned from the game is limited to “news use,” a condition that is printed on a credential. But “what in the world does that mean and what does it allow us to do?”
Another intellectual property question came down to: Who owns the photos taken at a game?
On some credentials, Ms. Werner said, stadium officials have the right to ask for your camera if you’ve taken a picture they want.
“Just say no!” said David Yarnold executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News. “Refuse to accept a credential on that basis.”
