A Brief Word on Bloggers and Credentials

They have been very generous to us, and we’ve been responsible and gracious back. I feel like the Stars are way ahead of the curve in the NHL regarding how they treat “new media.” But as some people pointed out today, it is because they are in a non-traditional market that they must act in such a way. Maybe “must” isn’t the right word, they don’t have to treat bloggers this way. But as a team with only one newspaper, ESPNDallas, and DallasStars.com covering them on a regular basis, it’s in their best interests to cater to bloggers.

And it’s the opposite of that happening in places like New York. They’re inundated with media every day, and a good portion of that media coverage is harsh. So naturally they would be wary of non-traditional coverage, from so-called “amateurs”.

But the thing is, like Brad pointed out, all it takes is some diligent work from a team’s PR department to go out and actually find the right blog, the responsible blog, to cover their site. Not all of us are lazy and irresponsible. Yeah, I’m a teenager. Yeah, I’m a college student. But personally, I try my hardest with every post to be as fair and analytical as possible. I actually spend a ton of time with my articles, as do most of my fellow bloggers on SBNation. So when a team wants to not grant us access because of stereotypes and lazy blanket policies, it’s insulting and deflating.

Which is why I (and I think I speak for Brad, BW, Art and B-Bibb here too) am continually appreciative with how the Stars treat us bloggers, and hopefully that relationship will continue to grow for a long time.

And for the record, I’m a teenager, I have a laptop, but I am NOT moody.

A few bad people ruin things for a lot of GREAT bloggers and GREAT people. I know guys who work for the Associated * who don’t deserve to go to Stars games at all. A guy named **** * (let me get this straight, I am NOT NOT NOT referring to Mike Heika) didn’t keep his cell phone on silent during two press conferences I attended and both times his phone went off during a post-game chat with Marc Crawford.

Why don’t NHL teams take a look at some of the “top dogs” and see exactly what they are doing and saying?

As I said yesterday on Twitter, I think the teams that aren’t traditional hockey markets, like Dallas, where they have to work hard to get whatever coverage they can get, the teams see the value of quality blogs. Teams like EDM, NYR and TML, they get great coverage. They don’t have to work with reporters to build relationships to generate coverage.

I used to work in PR for the Cincinnati Cyclones of the IHL. We had to fight to get space/time against the Reds, Bengals, UC bball, Xavier bball, OSU anything, HS prep sports, UK bball, you get the idea. We didn’t have bloggers at the time, but we had a fan club with a newsletter. We always tried to be as accommodating to them as much as possible because we knew two things:
1. These people gave us great coverage to our fan base that we couldn’t get out of the MSM and
2. like any relationship with a reporter, the more rapport you build, the better chance you have of being able to explain your side of the story.

These teams like NY and TML and such might not ever change their opinions of bloggers, unless their fans’ opinion of MSM change. But in general, many people are going to blogs first because they WANT to voice their opinions and become part of the conversation.

It will definitely be interesting to see how this pans out.

I’m not very nice to Niskers or Daley. I give the players strange nicknames. Sometimes, being a girl, I talk about their hair or eyes or how handsome they look in a suit. I’m human; I notice when a player is good-looking.

Moving from a traditional hockey market that had wall-to-wall coverage of hockey to Dallas was a bit of an adjustment. On the ice, I have no complaints because the Stars have given their fans a lot to cheer about while my hometown team is living in the glory of 1967 with a few bright spots in 1977 and 1993.

I like to read about hockey every day. The internet has sure helped make that available, but with a selfish look at my own surroundings it becomes more difficult to catch hockey on the radio or tv with the Cowboys, Mavericks (and now Rangers) and NCAA making news. But you can’t survive on Heika, Sturm and 5 minutes on a Friday morning alone. I have given up trying to catch unscheduled hockey talk on MSM unless it’s a pre, post-game show, or a weekly player feature.

DBD is great because it’s not just about the news of the day (wait for it – I’m not finished, yet), but it is a place where you will find informed opinion and discussion. I used to joke about how when I moved here there were pages of Cowboys coverage and you probably find out what Emmit had for breakfast that day. Thanks to this site, you can see who had their wheaties this morning without having to downgrade your hockey brain’s expectations to the level of ihazhockeee.com or something similar.

Keep up the good work, and continue to earn your spot at the table.

I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the general ease with which decent bloggers can get access in the AHL. Coverage is likely harder to come by for the minor league teams, but it’s a great atmosphere for everyone. “Amateur” reporters getting to hone their craft on minor league players, who won’t cause too much of a scandal if they saw a bad thing or what not. It’s a good give and take. Thanks always go out to the Texas Stars PR guys from me for being so open.

It’s like those certain teams are telling the other teams “We don’t trust your PR staff to properly vet you credentialed media.” If I were other teams in the Eastern Conference, I think I might tell the Rangers “Hey, don’t you trust us?”

When the number of eyeballs being reached outweighs the quality of the content, and then it doesn’t matter any more. I guess that’s the real trick. Get your audience to an unavoidable size.

This isn’t so with the Stars. Everyone who covers the Stars in this town does a great job, IMO.