Underrating (?!) the Trojans
I'm looking forward to reading Scott Wolf's column in today's paper. Scott writes about why he put USC only No. 3 in the ranking he submitted to the Associated Press pollsters after the Trojans' blowout victory over Ohio State on Saturday. Scott is one of three AP voters -- on a 64-member panel -- who don't have the Trojans No. 1 in the nation.
Scott is our USC beat writer, paying more attention to the Trojans football scene than anyone this side of Pete Carroll, so you wonder if he has some insight that everybody else is missing.
Readers might see Scott's vote as an example of a "negative" sportswriter trying to run down the team he covers. As if sportswriters often run down the teams they cover. Here's some evidence to the contrary.
Every year, in Pro Football Weekly's "kickoff" edition, newspaper beat writers from all of the 32 NFL teams predict the standings in their respective divisions. And every year, beat writers appear to be more optimistic than average about their own teams' chances.
In 2008, seven writers (those from Miami, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Detroit, San Francisco, Jacksonville and Carolina) picked their teams to finish higher in the standings than any other writer did, and two of those (Jacksonville and Cincinnati) picked their teams to win their divisions when no other writer did.
No writers picked their teams to finish lower than any other writer.
Seventeen writers picked their teams to finish as high as any other writer picked them.
Only seven writers picked their teams to finish as low as any other writer.
To put it in simpler terms: 11 writers picked their teams to win their divisions, while only three picked their teams to finish last.
Conclusion: NFL beat writers tend to be more positive about their own teams than other people are.
A possible explanation: Writers file these division predictions to Pro Football Weekly at the end of training camps during which they're subjected to weeks of optimistic chatter from coaches and players, and they can't help being influenced by the rosy talk.
Another, more intriguing, possible explanation: Writers making predictions in all sports for all publications would rather err on the side of optimism because it's in their interest to keep expectations as high as possible.
Obviously, fans who expect big things from their teams are more likely to want to read about them.
But also, writers like to set the bar high so there's room to be critical of the team when it fails to measure up. If a writer picks his team to finish last, and then the team finishes last, and the writer asks the coach what went wrong, the coach can get off the hook by replying, "Who says anything went wrong? You picked us to finish last and that's exactly what happened!"
If I'm correct on this last explanation for beat writers' optimism -- and I think I'm at least a little correct, because I was a beat writer -- then maybe when they're being positive they're actually just setting themselves up to be negative.
Or maybe it all evens out.
What do you think?
And what do you think of Scott Wolf ranking USC third? Is Scott being a "negative" sportswriter? Or giving the Trojans room to impress?
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About this blog
Kevin Modesti watches sports from a new angle since his promotion from sports columnist to sports editor for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. In his new blog, Modesti not only comments on the big sports stories of the moment-- he talks about what makes them big. Think of it as a conversation with readers about how these stories should be covered.
My opinion is, Scott is a moron. He does a poor job (very poor) of covering the USC beat, football and everything else. I read his story on why he did not vote USC as No. 1 in the country. He puts up a horribly weak argument. This is a continuing case of a beat writer who has burned out and needs to be reassigned, maybe to the preps beat. His writing lacks any style. What he considers to be humor is high school sarcasm. If, as you claim, he knows more about USC than anybody else as your beat writer, then why does he pretend to know more about Georgia and Oklahoma and Virginia and UConn and ... It's time to make a change, and get somebody more professional and respectful (toward readers) like Brian Dohn on the USC beat. Dohn is fair and obviously spends more time reporting and uses a tremendously better perspective than Wolf. Scott is a goof and goes out of his way to disrespect coaches, atheltes, parents, readers and blog contributors. He is one reason I no longer respect any coverage in your Daily News Sports section. Your decision to have Wolf continue on the USC beat shows a tremendous lack of professionalism as well - maybe it's time for the Daily News to make some wholesale changes in the sports section personnel roster?
I'm happy for readers to judge your argument for themselves, and to share their own opinions about Scott Wolf and any of our reporters. Scott has worked the USC beat for a long time for a reason: He approaches his topics with a critical eye, he's a thorough reporter, and he has responded as well as any newspaperman I know to the growing audience for Internet coverage -- the heavy readership of his Trojans blog is evidence of that. Yes, I said Scott has a "critical eye." Knocks on Scott's work usually have come from Trojans fans who wish he were more "positive" and stirred up less trouble. We're proud that despite his USC background and years around the athletic program, he never has lost his edge and become a mouthpiece for the teams he covers. As for Scott voting the Trojans No. 3 this week: The beauty of sports is that we'll probably see in the games ahead if he's right or wrong. Two games into the season is too soon to be dogmatic one way or the other. Which is the main point of Scott's column today, and a good one.
Well, as you can see by reading the posts from your readers in Scott Wolf's blog, the percentage of your readers who agree with you (and Scott Wolf) is miniscule. And if 90-plus percent of the college football coaches who vote in their poll (and obviously know quite a bit more than you or Scott about college football) disagree with Scott's rankings, I would say that's pretty damning evidence for what still seems like a flimsy argument by the Daily News sports staff. Scott Wolf likes to draw attention to himself, and a newsman's No. 1 duty is to NOT become part of the story. This is journalism at its worst.
I wonder what percentage of readers would agree with you that "a newsman's No. 1 duty is to not become part of the story." The only way for a newsman to never become part of the story would be to never pursue controversial stories or express unpopular opinions. A newsman's first duty is to state the truth as much as he can know it and to take the heat if he must from people -- like you -- who disagree.
Look it up in the American Journalism Review (www.ajr.org):
"... the first rule of journalism--never become part of the story."
As a professional journalist, I am surprised you did not already know this. Wolf is a reporter, but he does not always report the facts.
Never becoming part of the story must be the first rule of journalism (according to AJR) the same way doing no harm is the first rule of medicine. Those aren't not the first skills I think of when I think of good reporters and doctors. Anyway, you got me on that one. A question for you and anybody else: Should writers quit the AP college polls? Should only Scott Wolf quit the AP poll? Would Scott become part of the story if he voted USC No. 1 this week? Seems that if journalists vote in a poll, the only way to keep at least some of them from becoming part of the story is for everybody to submit the same ballot. As you probably know, a number of news organizations have pulled their reporters out of polls on the theory we should report the news and not make the news.