‘It’s the Wild Wild West out there’

By GREG PRICE
IU Diversity Sports Media Institute

When the Internet took off in the early 1990’s, David Benner, Cliff Brunt and Jim Lefko could not imagine that it would have the ramifications and influence on sports media today.

Benner, the Director of Media Relations for the Indiana Pacers, spent 16 years working as a sports reporter for the Indianapolis Star, covering beats for the Indiana Pacers, the Notre Dame football team and the Indiana University basketball program through the 1980’s before moving to his current position for the Pacers in 1994.

With his current position Benner still finds himself involved with the sports media, but now the shoe is on the other foot. He is a self-professed observer of the media. "It’s (the state of sports media) the Wild Wild West out there."

Benner also said that accountability is everything in the world of sports journalism. He went on to talk about how blogs can be inaccurate and discussed how any average Joe can have a blog from a basement and not have any credibility.

The Pacers’ exec was also upset with the shift in the fact that the premium for journalists used to be about fact checking, but now it’s more about getting the story up quickly. Cliff Brunt, a sports writer for the Associated Press, agreed with Benner that the sports media was turning into the Wild West and there’s a premium for reporters to write quickly.

Brunt offered assurance that even though there are a lot more writers than there used to be, credible information will be provided to the readers. The sports editor for the Indianapolis Star, Jim Lefko, agreed there is an increase in providers of online information, but that credible facts will come from the professionals. He added that even though there are some questionable Internet sources,  when readers want credible information, they will go to the traditional media. Lefko went on to say that online has provided the paper with an expanded audience and a larger market. "(The Indianapolis Star) breaks all of our news online and we update for print."

Even with all of the technological changes in journalism, all three men agreed that for the profession to move forward, it must remember the basics.

"The strength of the Associated Press has always been its diligence in being factual," Brunt said. "Even though we want to be fast, we’re still going to stick to the fundamentals of journalism."