By Pete Williams

The other day I spoke to a journalism class at the University of South Florida. It’s something I do about once a semester. A few years ago, I even taught a couple of classes at USF.

I’m sure I get more out of these guest appearances than the students since their questions force me to examine my ever-changing (dying) profession and my role in it.

In past years, I’d chronicle my college journalism experiences and how I leveraged them into a modestly successful career.

This year that shtick didn’t seem appropriate. Journalism is on life support. Why would anyone want to get into this business when nobody knows what it will consist of a year from now, let alone a decade from now?

On the other hand, I found myself a bit envious of the students. Since there are no jobs in journalism – or most other fields right now – they’re forced to become entrepreneurial to survive. Instead of embarking on entry-level indentured servitude in journalism or some other field, were that even possible, why not swing for the fences now with some sort of online creation?

I spoke about how the playing field has been leveled. In the past, if a young journalist wanted a platform, s/he had to go to work for a media outlet. Now it’s possible to start a blog. Or launch an online radio show. Or self-publish a book. Or create videos and post on YouTube and/or your own Web site. Heck, the price of technology has fallen to the point where it’s possible to create professional quality movies and TV programs and broadcast them online. Better yet, come up with the next breakthrough online technology.

Every major media outlet across all platforms is struggling to recreate itself and stay afloat, shedding as much overhead as possible. Yet the barriers to entry for a young journalist are virtually nothing, just the cost of a Web site and perhaps some video equipment.

Many veteran journalists have had to embrace this reality. So they’re reinventing themselves even as they fulfill their daily “old media” duties to earn a living. Younger journalists, especially those in college, have more time and less overhead. Plus, they’ve grown up with this technology.

I thought my talk to the USF students would be all gloom and doom and, indeed, I outlined in detail the industry crash and the perfect storm of a bad economy, changing technology, and different advertising models. But I also stressed that there was perhaps never a better time to be entering this ever-changing media world. Become your own content creator. There are no entry level jobs anyway. So embrace the technology and compete with Old Media from day one with a blog, podcast, Webcast or whatever technology is next.

When I was done ranting, a young woman in the back raised her hand.

“Um, how exactly do you make money from any of this?”

“That’s the burning question,” I said. “There are people with decades of experience working for CNN, The New York Times, movie studios, radio networks, and big-time Web sites trying to figure that one out.

“You’ve grown up in this world. You’ll probably be the first to figure it out. When you do, please let me know.”

By Pete Williams

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost yesterday to the Carolina Panthers in Tampa before a sellout crowd.

Well, sort of.

The Bucs announced a sellout of 62,422. In the past, they’ve announced legitimate sellouts of nearly 66,000 – and there were no empty seats anywhere. Yesterday, there were large sections of ghost fans. The Tampa Sports Authority, which oversees the stadium, said 42,847 people went through the turnstiles.

The economy has hammered many teams in the NFL but no team has fallen further than the Bucs. It wasn’t that long ago they boasted a season-ticket waiting list of more than 100,000. They plastered it on billboards, a deterrent to existing season ticket holders who might have considered canceling.

Even though the Tampa Bay market has the second-lowest per-capita income in the NFL (to Jacksonville), the Bucs kept raising ticket prices. Before the 2008 season, they raised them 23 percent across the board. Like most teams, the Bucs demanded pre-payment earlier and earlier.

The Bucs have the cushiest stadium deal in the NFL, which is saying a lot. As recently as September, Forbes magazine rated the Bucs as the third-most profitable team in the NFL (behind Dallas and Washington) with an operating income of $68.9 million off revenues of $240 million.

The Bucs, like most teams, pooh-pooh the Forbes numbers. But when the NFL’s official books from 1995-99 were made public several years ago as part of Al Davis’ lawsuit, it was revealed that the Bucs led the league in operating income in 1998 ($33.4 million) and were sixth the following year ($24.6 million). NFL revenues have skyrocketed since 1999, so it figures the current Forbes numbers are reasonably accurate.

Not only that, the Bucs pay far less proportionately in payroll. During their glory years (1999-2002), they were among the biggest spenders in the game. In recent years, the team has kept payroll many millions below the salary cap while continuing to have among the priciest tickets in the game.

The economy has hit the Tampa Bay area even harder than most parts of the country. This is not a town with a lot of corporate and government jobs. It’s a town of small-time entrepreneurs and hustlers, people who feel the downturn more than most.

That’s why though it’s easy to blame the economy or the Bucs retro 1976 performance on ticket sales, the Bucs brought this on themselves long ago. By sucking more money proportionately out of their market than any other team in the game, the Bucs alienated their fanbase long before the economy tanked.

It speaks volumes that fans remained loyal this long. Still, the Glazer family won’t take much of a hit. Even if they were 24,000 fans shy of a true sellout yesterday, that only equates to about $2 million in lost revenue, figuring a per cap of $85 a fan. (Most of the empty seats were in the upper level.) For a team pulling in $240 million a year, that $2 million represents less than 1 percent of revenue.

The Bucs will either sell out or come close in their remaining home games against Green Bay, New Orleans, and the Jets. The Falcons game on Jan.3 will be a huge challenge, though there might be the morbid attraction of seeing if the Bucs can finish 0-16.

For once, Bucs fans are speaking with their wallets. I’m guessing the Glazers aren’t worried. Netting $62 million instead of $69 million this season won’t impact them at all.

By Pete Williams

Thirty years ago last night, I was sitting in a frigid Three Rivers Stadium watching Game 5 of the World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.

I had turned 10 a week earlier and this was a belated birthday present, the best of my childhood. I was a huge baseball fan, though this was only the fourth of five MLB games I would see before becoming a baseball writer as an adult. Growing up mostly in Richmond, Virginia, I saw mostly Triple-A ball and got my MLB fix from NBC’s Game of the Week.

Since Dad had to work, Mom drove me to Pittsburgh, her hometown, and one of my uncles took me. It’s funny how memory works. I could have sworn we were seated in the lower bowl in right field, not far from the pole. According to the ticket stub, we actually were in the third row way up in the 600 level of right-center field.

The cost of the ticket was a whopping $10, which adjusted for inflation translates into $29 in present-day value. Good luck finding a World Series ticket these days for under $125 face value.

The World Series program cost only $2 but wasn’t nearly as thick and packed with articles as the modern versions, which I’ve been fortunate enough to contribute stories to for the last 10 or 12 years. The 1979 edition is loaded with ads for cigarettes and hard liquor. There also are ads for the 26-inch Sony Trinitron, the “biggest television screen in America,” and the 1980 Chevy Citation (“It’s a whole new kind of compact car!”)

Since the program had a longer print lead time back then, there are rosters and information on the California Angels and Cincinnati Reds, the LCS losers.

This was perhaps the most underrated baseball season of the 1970s, a break from the late-70s dominance of the Yankees/Royals in the A.L. and the Phillies/Dodgers/Reds in the N.L. Between them, the Orioles and Pirates had about four dozen uniform combinations. Just about everyone had a cheesy mustache and everyone had wild hair. The Pirates wore Willie Stargell-issued stars on their caps and constantly played Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.”

The Series featured four Hall of Famers: Stargell, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, and Earl Weaver, along with one should-be Hall of Famer (Bert Blyleven) and plenty of ‘70s stars like Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, Kent Tekulve, Lee May, Ken Singleton, and Mike Flanagan.

The Pirates have not been to the World Series since and just completed their 17th straight losing season. The Orioles have posted 12 straight losing seasons. Perhaps the most striking reminder of how the game has changed is the Pirates team photo. There were 11 African-Americans on the roster.

Thirty years later, my biggest memories are of a late Pirates rally. (They scored all 7 runs between the sixth and eighth innings and allowed just one.) I also remember the bitter cold and eating a lot of my grandmother’s apple pie afterward. This story has gotten better over the years. To hear my uncle tell it, I downed at least four pies.

Of course, Game 5 of the World Series was played on October 14. This year, Game 5, if necessary, will be on November 2 in the N.L. city. That shouldn’t matter if the game is in Los Angeles. But it could be even colder if the Series is back in Pennsylvania.

By Pete Williams

The New York Yankees seem well positioned to win their first World Series since 2000 this year, the first of Barack Obama’s presidency.

That’s perhaps no coincidence. The Yankees, for all of their dominance over the last 90 years, have fared much better with Democrats in the Oval Office.

The last time the Yankees won a World Series (2000), Bill Clinton was president. They went 0-for-8 during the George W. Bush presidency, just as they went 0-for-4 (with four losing seasons) with George H.W. Bush running the country.

The last time the Yankees won a World Series during a Republican administration (1958), Dwight Eisenhower was president.

In the interval, they won two World Series titles under John F. Kennedy (1961-62), two under Jimmy Carter (1977-78), and four under Clinton (1996, 1998-2000). Throw in the six won during the FDR regime and five under Harry Truman and the Yankees have captured 19 of their 26 championships with Democrats in the White House.

During the Yankees 50-year Republican drought, eight teams won the World Series under both parties, including Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. The other two – Florida and Toronto – did not exist in 1958.

No doubt George Steinbrenner, a large-business owner, has reaped the financial rewards of Republican presidencies, which he’s long supported. But as far as baseball is concerned, he might have been giving cash to the wrong party. In 1974, The Boss pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign and a felony charge of obstruction of justice. That inspired Billy Martin’s famous line about Reggie Jackson and Steinbrenner: “One’s a born liar, and the other’s convicted.” (The Yankees failed to reach the playoffs during the five full seasons of the Nixon administration.)

The Yankees reached the World Series in 1976 as Gerald Ford completed Nixon’s tenure, but it wasn’t until after Carter took over in January of 1977 that they won their first Fall Classic in 15 years.

Ronald Reagan, in one his last acts as president, pardoned Steinbrenner on January 19, 1989. It was the least Reagan could do. After all, his eight-year presidency included just one Yankee playoff appearance – the World Series loss to the Dodgers in strike-marred 1981.

The Los Angeles Dodgers won their last two Fall Classics (1988, 1981) under Reagan and have not won under a Democrat (LBJ) since 1965. The Angels won their only championship under George W. Bush (2002). The Phillies won last season under Bush, though their other title came in the waning days of the Carter administration in 1980.

Among this year’s playoff losers, the Boston Red Sox won both of their long-awaited, modern era titles (2004, 2007) under W. Bush. The Minnesota Twins won both of their Fall Classics (1987, 1991) under Reagan and H.W. Bush, respectively. The St. Louis Cardinals won their two most recent titles (2006, 1982) under Republican regimes. No title for any of them this year under Obama.

Of course, the figures are skewed for those teams by Republicans holding the Oval Office for 20 of the last 29 years. But when it comes to the New York Yankees – the richest, most Republican of all U.S. sports teams – they fare much better with a Democrat living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

By Pete Williams

It’s always interesting to see which movies HBO dusts off to place in heavy rotation. After all, there are only so many relatively new releases available to fill a dozen channels.

When in doubt, the usual HBO strategy seems to be to throw in one of the “Oceans” films with George Clooney and the gang. Lately, however, the network has done a good job bringing back films that were overlooked originally.

Last month, it was “The Last Castle” with Robert Redford and James Gandolfini. This month, it’s “Finding Forrester,” a film that looks even better nine years after its release.

The plot centers around an unlikely friendship between a reclusive J.D. Salinger type named William Forrester (Sean Connery) and a Bronx teenager named Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown). Wallace, well-read and a talented basketball player, must navigate an otherwise all-white prep school and prove that he’s an academic as well as a hoops standout.

Brown gives arguably the best performance of this decade. It’s not Oscar-worthy, by any means, but he spends most of the movie more than holding his own against three Academy Award winners: Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, and Anna Paquin. Technically, he matched up against four; Matt Damon has a brief cameo at the end.

Think about that. Brown went head-to-head with James Bond, Jason Bourne, Antonio Salieri, and Sookie Stackhouse and came across like a seasoned pro.

What makes the performance so amazing is that Brown had absolutely no acting experience when he tried out to be an extra in the movie. Instead, he was cast as the co-lead opposite Connery. How has this guy not become a huge star? Maybe it’s because he since has been typecast as an athlete in “Coach Carter” and “The Express.” Maybe his name is too generic. Perhaps if he went by Robert L. Brown?

Many a bad film has featured multiple Oscar winners – “Gone in Sixty Seconds” with Cage, Duvall, and Jolie comes to mind – but not Finding Forrester, which works on many levels. How many actors have made a smooth transition from sex symbol to lovable old grouch like Connery? Maybe Paul Newman and that’s it.

Abraham is at his nasty best as a professor who resents having a scholarship basketball player in his class. Then there’s Paquin. After winning an Oscar at 11 for “The Piano,” she’s now the star of HBO’s biggest hit. She’s so convincing as Sookie Stackhouse on “True Blood” that it’s startling to watch Finding Forrester and think, “Wait a minute. Anna Paquin isn’t really blonde with a southern accent?”

But the movie belongs to Brown. Somebody get this guy some more leading roles.

By Pete Williams

Imagine playing in a fantasy baseball league where one team was given a payroll twice that of one competitor and three to five times that of everyone else.

It’s a keeper league and each season that same well-heeled owner gets to draft any two players from other rosters. That owner does not have to part with anyone of significance.

For eight years, this owner has failed to win the championship. What would you call such an owner?

Clueless? A laughingstock?

How about the New York Yankees?

The Yankees have enjoyed such financial advantages for decades, of course. But only in the last eight years has such an advantage – and lack of playoff success – become so pronounced.

It’s compounded by the fact that the Yankees dynasty of 1996-2000 was built largely through shrewd scouting, the draft, and trades not fueled by another team’s need to cut payroll.

This year, however, it seems like the Yankees finally got it right. But it took a while to reach this point.

After winning the World Series in 2000, they went out and bought the most attractive pitcher on the market. Mike Mussina pitched well but retired eight years later without a World Series ring.

After losing the World Series in 2001, the Yankees went out and bought the most attractive free agent on the market. Jason Giambi left after seven seasons without a World Series ring.

After getting bounced in Division Series play in 2002, the Yankees went out and bought the most attractive Japanese player on the market. Hideki Matsui still doesn’t have a World Series ring.

After losing the World Series in 2003, they signed Gary Sheffield and traded for the most expensive player in the game. Alex Rodriguez has yet to play in a World Series.

After coughing up a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, the Yankees traded for the greatest left-hander of this generation. Randy Johnson won 34 games over two seasons but the Yankees never advanced beyond the ALDS.

After losing the ALDS in 2005, the Yankees signed Red Sox spark plug Johnny Damon, who has yet to play in the ALCS as a Yankee.

After losing the ALDS in 2006, the Yankees reacquired Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens and developed their first honest-to-goodness pitching star since Pettitte a decade earlier. Joba Chamberlain, unfortunately, had issues with bugs.

After losing the ALDS to Cleveland in 2007, the Yankees did virtually nothing other than part ways with Joe Torre. In 2008, they finished in third place, out of the playoffs, behind the mighty Tampa Bay Rays and their $60 million payroll.

After playing golf in October of 2008, the Yankees spent zillions on Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett and opened the nation’s most ostentatious sports arena ever built by someone other than Jerry Jones.

Total spending from the winter of 2001-02 to date, including the stadium, is somewhere north of $2.4 billion.

That ought to be enough to take down the Twins this week.

By Pete Williams

One of the odd things about being a triathlete is that you start to think of yourself as a year older than you are.

Under the rules of USA Triathlon, your race age is the age you will be as of December 31 of the current year. Before races, volunteers mark the “USAT age” on the right calf of each athlete with black marker.

So even though I didn’t turn 40 until today, I’ve thought of myself as 40 since competing in my first triathlon of the season in April. And since I was fortunate enough to do nine triathlons this year, one as recently as Sunday, I almost forgot I was still 39.

But I began to give turning 40 some more thought last week while interviewing Evan Longoria. In 19 seasons of covering Major League Baseball, he is the first player I’ve come across who shares my birthday. (He was born October 7, 1985, the day I got my driver’s license.)

Several years ago, I noticed that Brett Favre (DOB: 10/10/69) is three days younger than me. I like to think I’ve aged better than Brett, though admittedly I haven’t been sacked hundreds of times, dealt with a Vicodin addiction, or watched my hair go gray (yet). Then again, Brett’s performance Monday night against the Packers suggests that he’s aging better than all of us.

I did a search to see which celebrities are turning 40 within a few weeks of me.

Gwen Stefani turned 40 last Saturday. Nancy Kerrigan will be 40 next week. That’s a tough comparison since women age differently than men. Catherine Zeta-Jones turned 40 two weeks ago, though some believe she shaved a few years off her age at some point, much like a Dominican baseball player. She looks pretty good at any age, though.

As far as celebrity men, all I could come up with was Favre and True Blood’s Stephen Moyer, who turns 40 on Sunday. It’s tough to gauge how Moyer looks for his age since he plays Bill Compton, a forever-young, 140-year-old vampire. He appears in most scenes with Anna Paquin, 27, his real-life fiancée. I’m not sure if that makes him look older or younger.

I’m thinking of dressing this Halloween as Bill Compton, which means I’ll be the perfect age to pull it off. As for being 40, I’m sure the year will go quickly. After all, my first triathlon of 2010 is only six months away.

By Pete Williams

This handsome young man is Andy Smith. At least he was Andy Smith from October 6, 1969 until December 12, 1983.

Andy was a childhood friend of mine growing up in Richmond, Virginia. Our main connection was baseball cards. Andy had the foresight to acquire cards from the early 1960s, some of which I still have. He was a huge fan of Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, and Jim Kaat. I wish he had been a bigger fan of Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron.

We also were almost the exact same age; Andy was a day older.

Andy’s father, by all accounts, was a raging alcoholic and all-around jerk. Andy lived with his mother in an area and during a time when single parent arrangements were not yet commonplace.

Andy’s full name was Andrew Kent Smith. His mom, Linda, once told me the middle name was a tribute to the students killed at Kent State. I must have misinterpreted the story since the shootings did not occur until seven months after his birth.

Then again, Linda was a little out there, a former hippie still driving her VW Beetle and reminiscing about the ‘60s.

Against this backdrop, Andy had some emotional issues. Early in 1983, he attempted suicide. He went through several psychiatric hospitals, sent me weekly letters that were downright mesmerizing, tales of sex, crisis, and confinement. Of doctors and staff that seemed crazier than the patients. If you’ve read the book Girl Interrupted – or seen the movie with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie – you get the idea.

Andy was discharged when the insurance money ran out. He disappeared a few days later. They found the body the following day. For some reason, I never asked how. I seem to remember hearing about a knife. Perhaps it was a gun. It doesn’t matter.

Linda never got over it. We kept in touch as I went through high school and college and she drifted in and out of regular employment. She attended my high school graduation, kept track of my life. It could not have been easy watching a boy born a day after her son get a driver’s license, pick up a diploma, enter college. She’d often break down in my presence but still encouraged me to visit.

In 1990, she came down with cancer, no doubt exacerbated by stress, anxiety, and heartache.

Late that year, I was invited to a home in Richmond for “Linda’s holiday party.”
Linda was bundled up in a rocking chair. A frail woman when healthy, she could not have weighed more than 60 pounds. Yet she was smiling and cheerful, glad to see everyone one last time. She hummed “Let There be Peace on Earth,” a song played at Andy’s memorial service seven years earlier.

She died the following day. She had kept Andy’s ashes. A week after her death I was among a small group of friends who spread their ashes in the James River.

I carried Andy’s ashes to the riverbank. It was my first experience with cremains and I didn’t know what to expect. My enduring memory is seeing a few small pieces of metal orthodontics; Andy still was wearing braces when he died.

Before her death, Linda gave me three or four boxes of their belongings. I’ve pared them down over the years, keeping the baseball cards and letters, a few photos. It’s a sad process. At one point, I shredded birth certificates and her driver’s license.

What evidence is there that these two people ever existed? There were no cemetery plots, no close relatives, no video footage, certainly no Internet trail left behind.

I might be the only person who thinks of Andy regularly, if at all. Think about that. At some point, all of us will fade from memory. Everyone who remembers us will be gone, but hopefully some part of our lives will be preserved digitally.

So here he is: Andrew Kent Smith. He liked baseball cards.

He would have been 40 years old today.

By Pete Williams

Four years ago tomorrow, Stuart Sternberg took control of the Tampa Bay Rays. Speaking to fans via a news conference, he said, “We will not ask what you can do for the Devil Rays. We will ask what the Devil Rays can do for you.”

Four years later, perhaps it’s appropriate to invoke another thought from the world of politics. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

For Rays fans, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” No longer are the Rays a laughingstock. They reached the World Series last season, won 84 games this year, and still have a nucleus of young players and a pipeline of talent that should keep the team competitive for at least three more years.

For the Rays as a product, the answer is “yes.” The re-branding before the 2008 season was a huge hit. Dropping the “Devil” and replacing the green color scheme and tired marks with a blue palate and new logo gave the team a fresh start. Of course, it helped that the team then underwent one of the biggest one-season turnarounds in the history of the game. These days, Rays logos and shirts are more popular around Tampa Bay than those of the Buccaneers or Lightning. Even women wear Rays gear, thanks in no small part to Evan Longoria.

The Rays are more fan-friendly. They’ve done everything possible to make an antiquated dome stadium attractive. They have a sparkling new spring training home, a clever promotional schedule featuring post-game concerts, and rank as the most affordable outing in baseball according to ESPN the Magazine.

For the Rays as a baseball operation, the answer is “yes.” Andrew Friedman, the de facto general manager, has whiffed a few times. Leaving Josh Hamilton exposed to the Rule 5 draft was regrettable. Trading Edwin Jackson for Matt Joyce looks bad thus far. Giving $16 million over two seasons to the ghost of Pat Burrell and his toxic personality looks like the worst team signing since Wilson Alvarez and Greg Vaughn came on board. Trading Scott Kazmir might yet backfire.

There’s a tendency to say Friedman has gotten lucky. If Greg Norton had not gotten injured out of spring training in 2007, the Rays might have parted ways with Carlos Pena. Nobody figured Ben Zobrist, acquired from the Astros in the Aubrey Huff trade three years ago, would emerge as an All-Star. Nobody expected Jason Bartlett to be anything more than a good-glove, no-hit shortstop.

But good general managers discover such overlooked talent. The acquisition of Bartlett and Matt Garza for Delmon Young looks like one of the best trades of the last 20 years. The 2008 pennant was earned in large part because of subtle Friedman acquisitions such as Cliff Floyd, Grant Balfour, Gabe Gross, Eric Hinske, Trever Miller, and Dioner Navarro.

Friedman also nailed his first two No.1 draft picks – Longoria and David Price – and it appears he’ll score a hat trick with Tim Beckham.

For the Rays as a business, the answer is “yes.” The Rays, like every other sports franchise, dismiss the annual numbers produced by Forbes magazine, which before the season reported that the Rays produce revenues of $160 million and operating income of $29.4 million. Still, the Forbes numbers probably aren’t far off; the Rays are a profitable team by any measuring stick.

For the Rays as a long-term business endeavor, the answer is a qualified “yes.” Sternberg no doubt doesn’t like to hear it, but there’s no reason the Rays can’t be like the Minnesota Twins or Oakland A’s have been for most of the last decade, outsmarting higher revenue teams while playing in old ballparks.

Even in the best of economic times, Tampa Bay is a challenging market. It’s notoriously provincial, with nobody willing to drive more than 30 minutes in any direction. It has the lowest per capita income among Major League markets, with few major corporations, and many free entertainment options.

Given the current economic climate, it’s difficult to see the Rays getting a new ballpark built by Opening Day, 2016. The Twins and Marlins each fought for a decade to get theirs and both deals were largely in place before the economy changed. It’s been only two years since the Rays first began banging the drum for a new park.

In Tampa Bay, leaders can’t decide where in greater St. Petersburg a ballpark could be built or if it should be placed in Tampa. As for public financing, it’s tough to see that coming before Carl Crawford’s mid-30s, when he’s playing for the Yankees.

Even a new ballpark is no guarantee of long-term success on the field or at the box office, as the Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates have proven for years. Better to have smart people running a lean operation in an antiquated ballpark than clueless folks in a palace squandering money and alienating fans.

Outside Tropicana Field, there are storm clouds in the distant horizon. As for now, the fans’ verdict on Sternberg’s ownership is clear:

Four more years – and perhaps many more.

By Pete Williams

Three years ago, I attended a college reunion and sat in on a panel discussion of media types. Someone posed this question: Given a choice as a reporter, would you prefer that the Internet had never come along?

My knee-jerk reaction was ARE YOU NUTS? Where would we be without e-mail, Google, online newspaper archives, the ability to track people down online and research anything and everything? Forget how the Internet has permeated every aspect of daily life; I wonder how I ever did my job as a reporter/writer before the late ‘90s.

That was the consensus on the panel, though one writer disagreed. Her contention was that the Internet has made us lazy and diminished journalism. Prior to the Internet, we would tirelessly work the phones, calling sources and talking to as many people as possible for a story. We would sift through dusty library archives for information, troll courthouses for documents, ask our veteran colleagues for advice, and stop at nothing until we got the story right.

Three years later, I agree. Earlier this week, I wrote about using the now-primitive TRS 102 computer. Looking back, I did some terrific work on that machine in 1990-92. Back then, it was commonplace to spend much of the day on the phone, working sources for information. In this pre-cell phone, pre-Internet era, it ironically was much easier to reach people.

These days, I hate how it’s become expected that you e-mail someone to set up a time to talk on the phone. No longer is it possible just to reach someone quickly by phone unless they pick up their cell. As a reporter, I’m often told by someone’s assistant to send him/her an e-mail that they will relay to the person I actually hope to reach. Many people now prefer to answer questions only by e-mail.

It’s true that it’s easier to send an e-mail directly to the person and hope for a callback. But people tend to ignore e-mails. It’s still viewed as rude not to return phone calls whereas it’s acceptable to say, “I’m sorry, I’ve been struggling to get through my e-mail.”

The tradeoff, I suppose, is that it’s easier to reach famous people via e-mail, text, Twitter, or Facebook. There often are times, whether as a reporter or in daily life, where I need an answer to just one question. E-mail or text is perfect for that; there’s no need to spend time “catching up.” Online tools enable us to keep in touch with dozens of acquaintances and colleagues we’d never have the time to phone or meet in person.

As a journalist, however, I know that many of my story leads come from phone conversations unrelated to the matter I actually called about. Often times, those leads resulted in stories far more important than the one I was writing at the time. It’s tougher to have those conversations in the Internet era.

It’s easy to rely on Google and previously-written stories for information. It’s not like this wasn’t done pre-Internet. We’d use services like Lexis-Nexis to call up stories. But without the avalanche of online resources, we were more likely to “work the phones” for information. Now it seems reporters just work the phones for quotes – or just get a few via e-mail or text.

Back in 2002, the early Google era, I taught a reporting class at the University of South Florida. One student, ahead of his time in hindsight, refused to write stories unless he could research everything online and e-mail people for quotes. It’s not that he was lazy or shy; he just didn’t see the point. What could possibly come from getting out and seeing things and talking to people when it could all be done online?

We tend to think of the Internet destroying journalism by changing advertising models and making advertising in print obsolete. Instead, it’s more about how news is gathered – or not gathered.

I still wouldn’t want to go back to a pre-Internet era. As a reporter, though, I wonder sometimes if we weren’t better off without it.