The crowds remain robust for Friday night high school football games. We see the interest at Oregonian/OregonLive in high school football, in terms of growing page views and interaction.
There is no question that when it comes to high school sports, football is king. From recruiting to games to all-state teams, nothing in prep athletics regarding readership interest compares to high school football.
And yet, with news of football-related head injuries becoming more prominent, a growing question becomes, are we doing the right thing?
Should we continue to publicize, and perhaps, glorify a sport that some believe contributes to significant long-term physical problems for today’s youth football players? That was a question recently posed by journalism media watchdog Columbia Journalism Review.
“Time for a new game plan for covering high school football” was the title of a CJR post last week. There wasn’t a question mark following the headline, either. This opinion piece all but suggests it’s time to swing a sledge hammer in the direction of high school football coverage due to growing evidence of head injuries and their long-term impact.
Here is the full story.
A few excerpts from the piece:
“With everything we know about the dangers of football, it’s past time for local news editors and program directors to rethink their high school coverage. It’s not that local news outlets don’t do important reporting about the dangers of high school football. They do. It’s that game coverage is typically divorced from this type of smart analysis. The games are also presented as major news, which is out of all proportion to the fact that the players are children who put their brains at risk every time they step on the field.
“Traditional game coverage—the kind that dominates Friday night websites and Saturday morning sports sections and helps make a local hero of the local quarterback—might not do any harm to these kids’ long-term mental health prospects, but it certainly doesn’t do any good.
“…Editors have a few options. They could, of course, stop covering high school football altogether, or run only box scores. This would be a strong stand, but probably not a wise one. Players, coaches, parents, and quite a few readers would be furious, and that heat would overwhelm any light shed on the risks of football.
“There are a few smaller steps that any news organization could and should take immediately. They can train their prep sports reporters and editors so they’re as well-versed as NFL reporters are on the topic of CTE; they can make player safety a priority in day-to-day coverage by, say, monitoring how much time a player misses after a blow to the head; and they can tone down their coverage, by reporting on fewer games and taking game stories out of the above-the-fold, top-of-the-website positions.”
This is a little naïve, having spent plenty of time in NFL, college and high school press boxes and sidelines. High school reporters generally have their hands full covering a football game, from shooting photos to keep stats to rounding up post-game interviews. Most of those covering college and NFL spend little time keeping routine statistics or shooting photos, and have organized post-game interview sessions. It makes sense that they have time to do more of a nuanced job of analysis in college and NFL game stories.
Not to mention that most college and NFL game stories, like high school, focus on the game and what it means to the team and their fan base, and rarely, the long-term impact of CTE.
That’s not to say we can’t do a better job of reporting on health-related issues in high school football. Of course we can. But we’re hardly ignoring it. We’ve written plenty on the subject, and will continue to develop this story line, particularly if participation numbers show a dramatic decline or more evidence about head injuries in youth football presents itself.
“Newspapers, despite their decline in profitability and prestige, are still uniquely positioned to provide moral leadership on an issue like this. There are three reasons they’re unlikely to do so. The first is inertia. The second is the aforementioned wave of angry phone calls. The third, and most important, is the state of the news business. Everyone in a newsroom has pressing concerns beyond whether high school football players are being maimed for entertainment purposes. High school football might be a slowly dying institution, but local newspapers are a quickly dying one.
“A better long-term outlook than local newspapers” isn’t a high bar, though. If high school football isn’t in crisis today, it’s at least moving in that direction.”
Do you think we should be your moral compass when it comes to high school football? Or will you tell us enough is enough when you stop reading?
We’re interested in what you think about our high school football coverage. (And no, this isn’t a question regarding platforms; slideshows will continue to be part of the high school football package, because they’ve proven to be popular with most of our readers.)
Is the level of our high school football coverage about right, or would you like more or less? What would you change? The subject of head injuries in football isn’t cut and dried. A head injury to a teenage football player might not show problematic signs until decades later, if at all. And who’s to say it was the result of football?
Do you think media ought to lead the way in moving high school football in a different direction by curtailing coverage? Or do you think it’s much ado about nothing?
We’re interested in hearing your opinions in the comments section below.
--Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel