Stafan Fatsis on how access is playing out in the NFL’s troubles

This Slate piece by Stefan Fatsis is about how the NFL’s recent actions have caused the league to lose “its most loyal reporters,” but it also has some insights into the meaning of access, a subject we’ve discussed a lot in this space.

“Roger Goodell and the NFL thought they had the press under control,” the story’s display text reads. “Not anymore.”

Fatsis writes about the league’s strategy, similar to that of other big sports leagues, of hiring top writers like Judy Battista and Michael Silver away from prestigious media outfits for its branded media outlets, in this case NFL.com or the NFL Network. That serves “to reduce the amount of critical daily reporting and commentary.” But, Fatsis writes, even those reporters who don’t work for the NFL can get paid, in a way, in access:

In his book The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism, Dean Starkman describes two conflicting strains of American journalism: access reporting and accountability reporting. The former involves getting inside information from powerful institutions, the latter telling inside stories about them …

Meanwhile, it looks like some NFL beat reporters were used and abused by the hands that typically feed them news about free agent signings and coaches on the hot seat. The problem with access journalism comes when reporters serve as mere pass-throughs for information, especially when that information is a lot weightier than the Chargers planning to sign Doug Legursky. In July, [Peter] King reported that “the NFL and some Ravens officials have seen” the video of [Ray] Rice punching out his then-fiancée Janay Palmer inside a New Jersey casino hotel elevator. But then the NFL denied having seen the video, and King explained that he hadn’t done due diligence, posting a statement saying his source had told him that he had only “assumed” the NFL had seen the video.

Fatsis points out that the NFL’s strategy could turn out to be a double-edged sword. By not giving these “insiders” the straight dope, the NFL has left them embarrassed by revelations from outsiders, such as TMZ, which obtained and released the Ray Rice elevator video.

“Now, the writers who once bowed before the commissioner’s throne are mad as hell,” Fatsis writes, “and they’re not going to take it anymore. Well, maybe.”

But for our purposes, it’s always good to be reminded that access can be a double-edged sword for reporters too. It always pays to remember why access is being granted. The most important quote in Fatsis’ piece comes from Pulitzer Prize–winning financial reporter Jesse Eisinger, who told the New York Times that he always reminds himself why sources are talking to him: “It’s not because I’m good looking or a nice person,” he said. “They’re all talking to push an agenda.”