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Fall 2007 Bulletin
News Organizations Fight Limits on Access to Sports Events
News organizations are battling for the ability to report independently and objectively as major sporting events have sought tighter control over coverage and placed limits on news gathering.
On July 18, 2007, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) reported that the National Football League (NFL) passed a new rule requiring sideline photographers to wear red vests emblazoned with logos for league sponsor Canon and apparel licensee Reebok. The story quoted a number of photographers who called the rule “alarming” and expressed fears of becoming “walking billboards.”
The story also noted that wearing corporate logos might violate parts of the NPPA Code of Ethics, which requires that photo journalists “avoid political, civic, and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one’s own journalistic independence.”
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) sent letters to the NFL and its 32 franchises as well as Canon and Reebok demanding the rule be abandoned. “For the sake of the almighty dollar, the NFL is clearly willing to compromise press freedom and independence. The League should be ashamed,” wrote SPJ National President Christine Tatum.
NFL Vice President for Public Relations Greg Aiello responded to the SPJ and NPPA, stating that issuing similar vests had been common practice at the Super Bowl and among more than half of NFL franchises as a means of identification for security purposes prior to the creation of a league-wide rule. Moreover, Aiello wrote, the logos are very small and “not intended to be visible to the television audience.”
Aiello also said that the “size, placement and positioning of the logos on NFL vests is less intrusive than what is considered accepted practice in much of the sports world.”
Photographers and editors quoted in the NPPA report said that other sporting events like the Olympics require that media personnel wear colored vests for safety reasons. Some suggested turning the vests inside out or covering the logos with tape as a solution.
Other critics suggested that the vest rule was another step towards the professional sports leagues exercising tighter control over images and reporting on their events.
In February 2006, photographers boycotted the first round of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Fields Open in Hawaii tournament over a copyright dispute. According to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, new restrictions required that the newspaper ask the LPGA for permission to use their own photos, even if it was in a news context and not for commercial purposes.
Dave Tomlin, assistant general counsel for The Associated Press (AP), told the Star Bulletin at the time, “If a golfer is photographed at the Fields Open, for example, and two months later is involved in a boating accident or is otherwise in the news, use of the Fields image to illustrate that subsequent story would require LPGA permission.”
The boycott led the LPGA to back off its restrictions.
The NFL has sought greater overall control over “what fans see, read and hear,” according to USA Today on Sept. 6, 2007.
USA Today reported that new NFL rules this season require that news organization Web sites not affiliated with the league or its teams are limited to 45 seconds of video and or audio clips per day of team personnel at team facilities. This includes material from interviews, news conferences, and practice footage. The video clips may not remain online for more than 24 hours and links to NFL.com and team Web sites must also be posted. The Web sites of TV partners Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN, which collectively pay the NFL an average of $3.75 billion per year, do not have to comply with the 45-second rule, said USA Today.
The new rule is part of an attempt by the league to drive more fans and advertising money to the league’s NFL Network cable channel and Web site, NFL.com, USA Today reported.
According to Eric Grubman, the NFL’s executive vice president of finance and strategic transactions, the new rule is meant to impose the league’s definition of when a media outlet is delivering news and when it is creating entertainment content for its own moneymaking purposes. Before this season, Web sites not affiliated with the NFL were free to post a “reasonable,” amount of video highlights from stadiums, locker rooms, practice fields, and team offices, said USA Today.
The Washington Redskins organization has been among the most successful at limiting media access to create new revenue, Houston Chronicle columnist John McClain told USA Today.
The team produces its own television news content in its own production studio, which it then sells to local media. The team has also purchased six radio stations in the Washington D.C. area, which broadcast the Redskins games and can carry team-produced programming, according to USA Today.
The team also does not allow local newspapers to carry video clips on their Web sites.
Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, assistant managing editor/sports for The Washington Post, acknowledged that they post no Redskins video clips on their Web site.
“I think it hurts the fans,” Garcia-Ruiz told USA Today. “I think the fans should be able to get as much objective reporting as possible.”
Meanwhile, an 11th hour agreement on September 7 averted a near-total media boycott of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, as news organizations protested similar limits on coverage of the event.
The International Rugby Board (IRB), the sport’s governing body, initially required journalists to sign a 10-page list of restrictions in order to be accredited to cover the event, according to the International Herald Tribune on September 5. Some journalists refused, objecting specifically to a number of the restrictions, especially a limit of 40 photographs posted online per match, and a limit of three minutes of press conference or locker room interview footage posted on Web sites during matches, according to The Guardian of London. The limits were designed to protect the rights of the tournament’s licensed television carriers.
The AP, Reuters, and Agence-France Presse (AFP) announced a suspension of coverage on September 6 because they found the rules unacceptable, according to the AP. On September 7, they were joined by a number of other major news organizations, including the U.K.’s Guardian, Times, and Sun newspapers as well as the French sports daily L’Equipe, The Guardian reported.
One hour before kickoff of the first match of the tournament, on Friday, September 7, news organizations and the IRB struck a deal which raised the limit on photographs to 200, and the boycott was called off. In a meeting that concluded the following Monday, September 10, the three-minute per day video limit was also scrapped, according to The Guardian on September 11.
The Guardian reported that the compromise allowed reporters to file an unlimited number of news stories each day with audio-visual footage, but with a limit of five minutes of footage of any single event. The deal covered only “non-matchday” press conferences, training sessions, and events, and did not extend to official press conferences or matches.
A joint statement released after the meeting said the compromise would “enable full news coverage of Rugby World Cup 2007 according to normal editorial judgment,” The Guardian reported.
The statement said the agreement was a temporary solution meant to avert the boycott, and it was not meant to apply to future Rugby World Cups or other major sporting events, according to The Guardian.
“Both sides will enter into talks after Rugby World Cup 2007 to discuss ways to ensure that the needs of the tournament, rights holders and the news media can be met,” the statement said.
- Patrick File, Silha Fellow and Bulletin Editor
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