As At the beginning of the past two football seasons (here and here), I noted the trend of the blogosphere replacing the mainstream media as the more reliable and insightful source of information on the Houston Texans.
Now, as the Chronicle’s Texans beat reporter writes about odd people who call into radio talk shows, Stephanie Stradley and Outlaw (see also here) size up the Texans’ main personnel and coaching needs as the team enters the off-season.
As these posts reflect, the blogosphere is definitely rapping the knuckles of the Chronicle right now in the competition of providing meaningful information to the public about the Texans.
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As these posts reflect, the blogosphere is definitely rapping the knuckles of the Chronicle right now in the competition of providing meaningful information to the public about the Texans.
As hard as bloggers throw themselves into any enterprise, the fact is the MSM guys have better access and, in theory, ought to do much better work. It’s a shame the Chronicle sports section does such a poor job covering the Texans. And the Astros. And the Rockets. They’ve left a real opening for quality analysis, if not reporting.
Tom thanks for the good review. I hardly ever mention the Chronicle simply because I hardly ever read it. Well the columnists anyway. We do what we do because we are fans and I wish we had a bare fraction of the Chronicles resources.
I am flattered to be in the same sentence with Stephanie. She is one of the most articulate pundits around.
I may as well use this opportunity to put on my “reporting hat”. Tom, I have question about the arrest of Fred Weary. He was charged with resisting arrest.
It seems to me, in a logical paradigm, one would have to be doing something else illegal to warrant an arrest.
Barney Fife to Andy ” Look at that guy over there on the corner. He is resisting arrest !”
Going to change my handle to the ScareCrow. If I only had a brain.
I meant Chester Pitts.
Kev, my sense is that access is over-rated generally. The management and players of most teams don’t reveal much of substance to the reporters who have access. That’s one of the reasons that the Chronicle reports tend to drop into one of four categories: vacuous cheerleading, mendacity and dubious hagiography.
TexOut, I have commented regularly on the Weary case (see here). There are a number of different reasons that such unfortunate incidents occur. However, one of the main ones is that HPD officers are rarely disciplined for using poor judgment in their apprehension and arrest decisions. The same dynamic probably has much to do with the recent arrest of Texan lineman Chester Pitts.
Tom and TxOutlaw-
Thanks for the kind words. A couple things I would like to add to your conversation on this. The best thing that the Texans have ever done is increase the amount of information on their websites.
The NFL in general is encouraging teams to put more information on their websites as a revenue generating thing to get more page hits and to make their websites a greater source of information.
So, basically, all the questions and answers for the press conferences are located on their website. Since most of the Chronicle pieces are just cut and pastes of the the press conferences, we in the sphere o’ blog, can see more than what is provided in the newspapers. We can see the entire quote and all the quotes that are too long to make the written copy of the newspaper. It puts things in context.
And those of us who pay attention to all things Texans can opine about what is being said. They also include videos that often have additional information about what is happening with the team.
Ultimately, I agree that the access is over-rated generally. The Texans in particular are a team that tries to keep things in house and aren’t much for gossiping. They are very niiiice to the press, but nice doesn’t translate a lot of the times to info.
I’ve found that the Chronicle coverage generally vacilates between big highs and big lows. It’s either all TERRIFIC!!!! or all PITIFUL!!!!, and the reality for most teams is that over the course of the season there will be some nice looking things and things that look awful.
Hey, Tom, you said there were four categories, but I only see three. If I were to add a category, it would be “overly elementary.” With the rise of the internets, NFL Network and Radio, and the popularity of fantasy football, the football IQ of the average fan has increased. (Or at least what they think they know has gone up). How many times have you read something about the Texans in the Chronicle that you didn’t already know?
At least this year, they have given the Texans more reporters to work on game day and once in a while you get a column with an interesting point of view. For example, this article during the season by Dale Robertson talking about the 80 man roster and decisions the Texans were going to have to make actually stood out as one that provided readers information that they might not have known:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/fb/texansfront/5382225.html
He was also the first to report when Andre Johnson was likely going to come back. He also does a nice job writing character pieces.
Lance Zierlein in his Chronicle blog usually has thoughtful analysis of all things Texans. I don’t always agree with him, (which isn’t unusual with sports opining) but at least he has a point of view and tends to have reasons for that point of view.
Technically speaking, John McClain is not the Texans beat reporter. He is the NFL reporter. Megan Manfull has the Texans beat.
As an addition of things to read if you want more in depth look all things Texans in the offseason, I recommend this essay:
http://www.atexansblog.com/2008/01/21/2500-words-on-roster-depth/
The last two paragraphs are spot on as it relates to the Texans draft/free agency.
As for Chester Pitts, I would suggest reading this:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/01/18/no-charges-for-texans-chester-pitts/
Basically, Pitts was pulled over for a traffic ticket. The officer went to do something else, and Pitts didn’t realize he was supposed to stay put so he drove off. Then the police chased him down and busted him for felony evading arrest.
It’s evading if a police officer has detained you and you leave knowing you were detained. It’s a felony if you use a car to leave.
Steph, I agree that Zierlein does a good job, but — as you know — he is not a Chron reporter. Robertson writes so rarely for the Chron these days that I didn’t even think of him as a Chron reporter anymore!