Press Pressure
 I mentioned in my latest column the economy taking its toll on the motorsports media. Several of my colleagues - and friends - won't be covering the sport on a regular basis next year, caught in the financial crisis that is also effecting the media business.

Newspapers are laying off writers and reporters by the thousands from coast-to-coast as circulation and advertising revenue plummets.

More and more people are getting their news and information via the online and digital world, so in a way I feel guilty having spent the better part of eight years now working full-time as a web journalist here at RacingOne and also as CBS Sports.com.

But even the digital folks are feeling the pinch including the giant Yahoo! sports department, where Jerry Bonkowski and Bob Margolis have been taken off the NASCAR beat.

They are not alone and other bylines race fans have come to recognize will be missing from NASCAR 2009. That means less coverage for the sport, which is never a good thing.

And it means the sport loses real journalists, people not afraid to ask tough questions or uncover stories within NASCAR. Anyone can sit behind a keyboard or a microphone and make comments or wisecracks about NASCAR officials, drivers or anyone else associated with the sport.

But it's a whole different thing when you're face to face with these people on a weekly basis. That's what real reporters and writers and broadcasters do. They talk to and build relationships with the newsmakers they are covering.

We had a pretty prominent newspaper columnist here in Chicago that for years would make a living ripping anything and everything in Chicago sports but would never venture into a locker room to face the athletes and personnel he so easily ridiculed.

Thankfully he's no longer employed by the Chicago paper he spent so many years writing for.

The NASCAR world is also full of these types, hurling bombastic slurs at anyone and everyone and whining about how bad the sport is and why should anyone bother watching it  - in fact one guy used to have his stuff posted here. And the Internet will again have a wide range of these kinds of opinions and views of the sport again next year which is fine.

But solid journalists like Jerry and Bob and Mike Mulhern of the Winston-Salem Journal and Bruce Martin of the Sports Ticker and others won't be able to do what they do best in 2009.

And we're all losers because of it.
Posted: 12/16/2008 9:07:36 AM
Comments:
Pete you are starting to remind me of the political people when they started their campaigns, none of them knew the economy had turned to crap either. You are by your own admission in a position where some communication would have exposed hard times coming, unless there is so much money in the garages that they never noticed, much like politicions. Maybe the depletion of the fan base in the stands could have given a clue. You best hang on, the economy isn't done going to crap yet, it's gonna get worse, so you better be one of the BEST, they will be the only ones employed. And yes, we will all be losing more than we have already.
Posted On: 12/19/2008 12:36:28 AM

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