“Meet the Press” panel wrap: Memphis media figures encourage next generation

If at any point in the last few years you have asked the question “What good is journalism anymore?’, you ought to know that you are not alone. In fact, it is a question that journalists themselves ponder a lot, and they have strong answers to support their ideas.

L-R: Jason Smith, Richard Thompson, Michelle Diament, Brooke
Thomas, Louis Goggans, Wendi C. Thomas.

On Tuesday afternoon, a number of prominent Memphis journalists convened in the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library for a “Meet the Press” session with high school and college journalism students. The event helped kick off the Scholastic Journalism Week initiative of the Journalism Education Association, a non-profit organization that supports journalism teachers and advisers nationwide.

“Scholastic Journalism Week is a time to recognize journalism at high school and college levels,” panel moderator Otis Sanford said. “I worked at daily newspapers [including The Commercial Appeal] for 35 and a half years, and I still believe that there is plenty of passion in journalism.”

The panel of six journalists represented a variety of ages and positions, from veteran Commercial Appeal columnist Wendi C. Thomas to youthful FOX13-TV news anchor Brooke Thomas (no relation). There was even a reporter who reports on the industry of journalism itself, Mediaverse’s Richard Thompson.  Each of the six panelists found their own way into their field.

Jason Smith, a Commercial Appeal reporter who covers the University of Memphis men’s basketball team, spoke candidly about how he once lost his college scholarship after one semester and spent five years figuring out what to do next.

“You talk about somebody whose life was going nowhere—I was a security guard, I tried construction with my brother… It was about 1999, and I just said, ‘You know what, I don’t like this.’ So I am here as evidence that at any time in your life, you can drop what you are doing. If you want to go in another direction, you can do it.”

Smith, whose father still works as a reporter for FOX13-TV, scratched his own television itch through classes at the U of M before having a professor,  convince him to try the print side of journalism.

“I never thought I was, but he said ‘You’re a decent writer. You know, with newspapers, you get a little bit more of an opportunity to dive into stories. You get a little more time,’” Smith recalled. “And…I believed him. You had inches and inches and inches of newsprint to tell a story, and I thought you could delve into it more.”

For Memphis Flyer reporter Louis Goggans, the journey started much earlier.

“When I was in elementary school, my father purchased for me a 12-month subscription to Vibe, a music and entertainment magazine,” Goggans explained. “I am a big rap music fan…I just read the articles—the way they were so vivid and detailed made me feel like I was right there when they were interviewing the artists. From there, I just developed an interest in print journalism, started reading other magazines, and started writing.”

 “I don’t have a particular beat [with the Flyer], so I write about a wide variety of things, which is kind of my goal,” Goggans said. “I like to branch out and reach a large age range and people of different races, and [my position] provides me the ability to do that.”

Brooke Thomas, the television anchor, said that in spite of her tough schedule, she appreciates the opportunity she has to do what she does.

“I have the most ridiculous hours in the history of working,” Thomas said, laughing. “I get up at 1:30 every morning and try to get to work between 3:15-3:30 a.m.”

In addition to anchoring the 4:30-6 a.m. daily newscasts, Thomas spends another four hours thereafter reporting from the field every day. She usually finishes by 10 a.m.

“Anyone can sit in front of a teleprompter and read…but I think you have to be a good reporter to be a good anchor.  I don’t know which job I like the best,” she said. “I am lucky that I can do both.”

“I feel like my experience shows how much the industry has evolved,” says Michelle Diament, one of three native Memphians on the panel (Smith and Wendi Thomas being the others). Diament is the co-founder of Disability Scoop, the nation’s largest news source covering autism and development disabilities.

“Ten years ago when I was an intern with The Commercial Appeal, I really was adamant that I wasn’t going to do anything with the [World Wide] Web,” she said. “That was not my interest. Today, that’s basically all I do. I think there are a lot of possibilities, and things are kind of settling down after a tumultuous period, but there’s a new door opening with every door that starts to close.”

One of those possibilities is being a watchdog for journalism in a way that simply wasn’t possible before the advent of the Internet. Thompson, who has been writing his Mediaverse posts since leaving The Commerical Appeal in 2006, seeks to provide useful insight into the local news cycle while providing a valuable forum for discussing how news everywhere is shaped.

“People in this town hate the media, but they love it as well—they devour everything [news-wise],” Thompson added. “And because of that, I think the purpose that I serve, and what makes me go forward, is that people need to have access to information about how their news is created and the people who bring them their news.

“Everyone in [this room] produces content. If you have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you’re a content producer. In many ways, to your friends and family, you are a journalist, even if you don’t view yourself as such. Part of my passion is to help people recognize that they too have a responsibility, as journalists, to the people who they inform, and to help them connect those dots.”

“I can’t really imagine doing anything else,” columnist Wendi Thomas said. “And I am definitely still interested [in what I do]. Things are changing—I am Tweeting as I’m sitting here, posting things online…but we are still storytellers, and that is what I enjoy doing, particularly for stories that are not often told in mainstream media. So I definitely think there is a future [for serious journalism].”

Goggans agreed. “Personally, I feel like, if it wasn’t for journalism, a lot of people out here would be ignorant. We go behind the scenes and disseminate a lot of information that otherwise, people wouldn’t know about. I think that’s cool, that everyday people are reading about things that they wouldn’t otherwise know about. That keeps me pumping.”

The “Meet The Press” panel was organized by The Teen Appeal, a city-wide newspaper produced and written by Memphis high school students eight times a year under the direction of Sanford and others in the Journalism department at the U of M.  For more information on Scholastic Journalism Week, visit http://jea.org/home/news-events/scholastic-journalism-week/. For more information on The Teen Appeal, visit http://goo.gl/wTcv9.  
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UPDATE: Louis Goggans actually gave me a shout-out in a post about the event for his "Calling the Bluff" blog over at the Flyer.  I am in his debt for that--it was very kind of him.

New Bears coach Trestman has to prove staying power

The new coach of the Chicago Bears will have a lot to answer for in 2014. And no, that isn’t a misprint—I said 2014, and I meant it.

As ballyhooed a hire as Marc Trestman has been in the immediate reactions by a variety of outlets (save for the comments from ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, who was evenly feast-or-famine), there are reasons for Bears fans to have concerns about the beyond-immediate future of their offense. Consider Trestman’s tenures with the teams he has coached. Here’s a chart from a post at SB Nation’s Windy City Gridiron by Kay Paradiso that shows his years and offensive ranks as a coordinator in the NFL:

Year	Team	Rushing Yds	Rushing TDs	Passing Yds	Passing TDs	INTs	Sacks
1989	Cleveland	21st	12th	11th	16th	5th	8th
1995	San Francisco	23rd	3rd	1st	4th	13th	16th
1996	San Francisco	10th	4th	7th	8th	10th	22nd
1998	Arizona	21st	6th	8th	20th	25th	22nd
1999	Arizona	29th	10th	27th	31st	30th	21st
2000	Arizona	27th	29th	17th	23rd	29th	14th
2002	Oakland	18th	5th	1st	8th	22nd	17th
2003	Oakland	16th	12th	27th	32nd	8th	25th

What do you notice about that chart?

1) No team is listed for more than three years.

As Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times notes: “Trestman went to the playoffs in his first season with the Browns (1988), 49ers (1995), Lions (1997), Cardinals (1998) and Raiders (2001). He also won a national championship in his first year as quarterbacks coach with the University of Miami (1983) and went to a bowl game in his first season at North Carolina State (2005) and to the Grey Cup in his first season with the Alouettes (2008).” That’s a lot of early successes and quick departures for a guy who’s seen postseason football with eight different teams.  Assistant coaches are often at the mercy of their head coach’s performance and the opportunities offered to them elsewhere, but it’s not unreasonable to ask why he moved around so much before finding what seemed like a long-term fit in the CFL.  Trestman had signed an extension to remain in Montreal through 2016 before being offered the Bears job.

2) The rushing attack for those teams, as measured in yards, only ranked better than 16^th-best in one season, and it averaged around 20^th.

After signing a four-year, $32 million contract prior to the 2012 season, Matt Forte played much like he has before, rushing for over 1,000 yards and catching 44 passes to rank among the Bears’ top two receivers.  Forte’s reception total was the lowest of his career, but that figure should improve under Trestman. I won’t pretend to be a scholar of the West Coast/Walshian/horizontal attack philosophy, but if yards-after-the-catch is as prominent a goal as it has been for players under Andy Reid, Mike McCarthy, or Mike Holmgren, I agree with Paradiso that Forte and Brandon Marshall ought to have a field day every week.

That being said, it is hard to know how many touches Forte will get on the ground. Potash notes that in 2005, Trestman switched offenses in the middle of the season at N.C. State, a change that turned the 2-4 Wolfpack into a bowl-winning team 7-5 team.   Toney Baker and Andre Brown were the beneficiaries of Trestman’s mov to a run-heavy attack, racking up 1400 yards on 253 carries combined.  However, Trestman’s lead running backs in Montreal have been inconsistent. Although Brandon Whitaker lead the CFL in 2011 with 1,381 yards on 226 carries and former West Virginia stud Avon Cobourne racked up similar totals in 2009, the in-between years didn’t see any Alouettes crack the 1,000-yard mark. Ryan Karhut, a former Alouettes lineman, noted an emphasis on pass protection under Trestman, and it is possible that such focus on passing could come at the expense of brilliant rushing exploits by Forte, who is a talented runner in his own right despite his middle-of-the-road stats.  Forte still has a few more youthful seasons in him before he turns 30, but whether or not the Bears maximize the full complement of his talents will be up to Trestman.      

3) The passing attack, in yards and touchdowns, regressed from season 1 to season 2 in Trestman’s time with Arizona and with Oakland.

Granted, the ’03 season in Oakland was probably doomed once Rich Gannon went down in Week 7 with an injury (though the Raiders had been 2-5 up to that point), and it’s very hard to replicate MVP-and-AFC-championship-caliber numbers with Rick Mirer at the helm (no offense to Rick). Similarly, Jake Plummer missed four games with an injury in the middle of the ’99 season, and Football Outsiders will tell you that the ‘98 Cardinals were a huge statistical anomaly that set far too high a bar for the following year anyway. Still, it’s a tad disconcerting that Jake Plummer’s TD:INT ratio regressed from 17:20 to 9:24 in an encore performance when he threw about 2-3 fewer passes per game than the year before.

In Trestman’s defense, he does sound like a “coachable coach,” someone who tries to adapt to their surroundings to have success. He guided two old quarterbacks, Gannon and the Alouettes’ Anthony Calvillo, to MVP seasons, though the latter was great even before Trestman coached him. Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, Alouettes wideout S.J. Green, and Karhut have all spoken to Trestman’s ability in calling plays and shaping his offensive philosophy around the tools available to him – indeed, his success going from the NFL to the CFL should be evidence enough of that. But for former Oakland Raiders receiver Tim Brown and others skeptical of Trestman’s capacity for managing a locker room, years two and three in Chicago will be the real litmus test for knowing whether Trestman can provide more than flash-in-the-pan success for the Bears. 

Under Siege: For the Orioles, The Time Is Now

Judging by the pun made in The Sun's
 opening Day headline, it would've been hard
for many fans to foresee the Birds having
this much success up to this point in 2012.

Friday marks an important day for the Orioles, maybe more for the fans than the players, but significant nonetheless.  The O's, picked to finish last in the American League East, baseball's toughest division, are in a dogfight for their playoff lives that many would have thought inconceivable on Opening Day. Here's the short version of where they stand:

8/24/2012

67-57 (.540)

3rd place, AL East (5 games behind NYY)

T-2nd in Wild Card race (2.5 games behind TB)

Run differential: -54

Last 10 games: 6-4

 Among the mortar shells that have been leveled against the Birds' postseason chances:

• They have lost four of their five original starting pitchers to injuries or minor league demotions at various times during the season. 
• Not a single everyday player is hitting over .300. 
• Their run differential is historically bad, 70 runs lower than any of the other four teams (Tampa Bay, Oakland, Detroit, Los Angeles) near them in the AL wild card race; theirs is the also only one in negative numbers. 
• Their best third baseman has 13 games of Major League experience.
• The team leader in RBI ranks 25th in the AL, behind hitters from 11 of the other 13 teams, including lame-duck squads like Kansas City, Toronto, Minnesota & Seattle
• Their record at Camden Yards is only 3 games over .500, the worst for any team within 5 games of the division lead in the majors.
• Their primary left-handed DH ranks in the top 5 in the AL in strikeouts, his K/BB ratio is over 5-to-1, and he just reached the 20 HR/60 RBI plateau in the last 10 days; conversely, Adam Dunn (another professional hitter) leads the AL in strikeouts but has 36 HR/80 RBI and a 2-to-1 K/BB ratio.
• They have one starting pitcher who has thrown as many innings as the O's have played games; no other AL team in playoff contention has fewer than three.
• They have the worst team fielding percentage in the American League (and the most errors).
• Their sterling bullpen (ERA: 3.04) has hit twice as many batters as the bullpens of the Yankees, Tigers, Rangers and Angels; if you believe there is an innings pitched discrepancy, you'd be right, but know that the O's ratio is about 17 innings pitched for every beaned hitter, whereas the other bullpens all go (on average) more than 30 innings between hit batsmen.

Judging by that sample of stats, the glass appears deservedly half-empty for Baltimore's longevity in the top half of the standings.  That being said, this is not a team that gives up easily: a 23-6 record (.793) in one run games and a streak of 12 extra-inning wins in a row are hard-earned marks, not some random glitch in the algorithms of luck.  Add those razor-thin margins to 22 losses by 5 or more runs, and you've got the two primary ingredients for their atrocious run differential. 

It seems like the O's tend to 'punt' fairly often when they smell a maleficent situation — intent is mighty hard to determine, but the number of occasions on which Buck Showalter & Co. have ended up the victims of a lopsided loss would seem to suggest that the Orioles manager may just have a feel for knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.  That being said, centerfielder Adam Jones and shortstop JJ Hardy have played in nearly every single inning this season, and if Showalter really intended to wave a white flag in certain games, it would've made sense for those two guys to rest a bit more often than they have, even if only for half a game. But that's neither here nor there. This is about the team, not one or two individual players. And, despite the best attempts of other teams to unseat them, Baltimore has hung tough to this point.

Cal Ripken Jr. turns 52 today, 11 years removed from a Hall of Fame career for his hometown team, one that included three postseason appearances in a 14-year span. It's been 14 years since the Birds last had a winning season, back when The Iron Man still had a post on the left side of the infield, and in recent years there's been some talk of him coming back to help rescue his old club.  It's a happy occasion for Cal, no doubt, that Charm City is awash in orange and black every night these days (for a change) in the hope that kids born in the 1990s and early 2000s will actually get a reprieve from the unseemly baseball years that have plagued their childhoods.

If anyone deserves to see the
O's make the playoffs, it's Mike
Flanagan, wherever he is.

In the same way, however, it is a bittersweet occasion for the family of Mike Flanagan, a man who would've been living through his 60th summer had he not taken his own life last year on this day.  He had a Cy Young award, a World Series ring, and a knack for comic timing and nuance beyond compare. He'd been involved in baseball all his life and in various on-field, front office and broadcasting positions with the Orioles organizations in the years following his career.  And yet, in a world that turns on what you've done for it lately, the speculation that Flanagan's despondency was related to his role (or perceived role) in the team's slump during the 2000s is hard to dismiss.  Here was a man who gave everything he had to a game and a team he truly loved, and what was his reward?  

Any one of us with a lifetime of experience in a certain field would feel utterly befuddled in moments where our know-how was unable to make a difference (or , especially, where that perception was inaccurately employed); to players and fans, it is hard to imagine the chronic pain felt in that situation and the things it might make us do.  Certainly, if there were ever a man and his family deserving of immediate retribution—as immediate as the game would allow— Mike Flanagan would be that man, and the time would be this year.

The O's are coming off one of their worst series this season, and under the circumstances, it might as well be rock bottom in terms of remaining relevant.  In the last few days, Baltimore has been outscored 20-9 in painful fashion by the Texas Rangers, taking only one game of three while watching Los Angeles sweep the Red Sox, Chicago sweep the Yankees, Detroit sweep Toronto and the Rays take three games of their own. The Blue Jays will have slugger Jose Bautista back in the lineup tonight when they arrive in Baltimore, and the O's are set to face playoff contenders (Oakland, Chicago, New York, Tampa Bay) in the 17 of the next 23 games that won't be against the Jays.  This is a crucial stretch that will almost assuredly make or break the Birds' season, one that may end with a sub-.500 record, just as unremarkable as the fourteen October-less years before it.  

Thus far, the O's have spoken softly of their chances, maintaining that they still intend to catch the Yankees for the AL East lead. Now is the time for Showalter, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis, Jim Johnson and their brethren to show whether or not Birdland's Best have the big sticks to back those aspirations. 

Mike Flanagan, wherever he is, would sure love to call these games down the stretch—preferably, they'd be wins.

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(stats courtesy of ESPN.com)

Lew Ford in Left: Day 1 in the Books, Day 2 Comin' Up!

When one door closes for the O's, another opens. Through the former goes Brian Roberts with yet another injury; Through the latter enters Lew Ford, stage left field. Quite frankly, though I'm bummed for Roberts, I’m thrilled to have another capable outfielder on the roster at a critical moment in the schedule.

Since Chris Davis started playing left field back on July 13, I’ve have been closing my eyes every time a ball is hit to left field in Oriole Park (and surely I’m not alone), knowing that I’d rather listen to a radio call, even a bad one, than watch a 6’3” 230-pound converted corner infielder with limited speed play any ball batted into the largest expanse of Camden Yards.

To say nothing of Baltimore’s limited offensive prowess, Davis was clearly a square peg in a round hole, one that spurred me to think more extensively at potential solutions. For me as an observer, someone who does not have to worry about financial considerations or the long-term viability of the team, there seemed to be a ready-made answer that hadn’t yet been tried, one not named Xavier Avery, Endy Chavez, Steve Pearce, or Davis. His name was Lew Ford, a journeyman outfielder.

Who?

I had asked that question in late June when my brother and good friend were bantering back and forth about the O’s per usual. Lew Ford, they said. He’s killing at Triple-A. We gotta give him a shot, damn the age!

Ford’s age happens to be almost 36 years young, though he’s nearing the end of a largely unremarkable career spent between the majors, minors, independent leagues and abroad. Defensively, he once provided capable replacement-level play behind Torii Hunter when the nine-time Gold Glove winner was a center-field mainstay in Minnesota. Between 2004 and 2005, Ford made 209 starts in the outfield while committing only 10 errors in almost 500 chances. 500 is a nice, round number, a bit more substantial than say, zero, so right away, Ford is miles ahead of Davis. That said, fielding isn’t the only reason, or even the primary reason, that Ford deserved a call-up.

After being snagged from the Long Island Ducks of the professional Atlantic League, Ford has hit very proficiently for Triple-A Norfolk. In 62 games since his arrival, he batted .331 for the Tides and got on base at a .390 rate. Admittedly, stats at Triple-A are probably a good 30-50 points inflated from realistic MLB figures (that’s a personal guess, not a SABR-metric figure), but it’s not like the O’s have a proven hitter on their active roster who’s a natural left-fielder, so the risk in trying Ford out was (is) relatively low. If you had to pick out flaws, the biggest “holes” in his standard batting splits at Triple-A were as follows:

Bases empty (151 AB): .291 AVG/.340 OBP;
Runners on (91 AB): .396/.467

Vs. LHP (55 AB): .291/.350
Vs. RHP (187 AB): .342/.401

Ahead in count (68 AB): .279/.462
Behind in count (94 AB): .287/.291

That’s the worst of it. For all the other usual splits you examine, including performance since the All-Star Break (63 AB, .302/.348), Ford has batted over .310 and got on base at a .340 rate or higher. So why did it take this long?

My guess: the explanation involves Mark Reynolds and Steve Pearce.

Reynolds, currently hitting .203, is the only player with at least 150 at-bats who is hitting under .220. He’s struck out 94 times, the second highest total on the team behind Davis (102), but his team-high 40 walks have allowed his on-base percentage to remain among the highest on in the everyday lineup despite his hitting woes. (Davis, in defense of his strikeouts, is hitting .264 with a .311 OBP and has twice as many homeruns as Reynolds in only 10 more games played.) Erratic defensive play aside (though his time at first base has been mostly acceptable), Reynolds somehow provides the one thing the O’s lineup really lacks — a man consistently on base — but he does so at the steepest of prices.

After a 3-year stretch where he hit at least 30 homeruns and racked up at least 80 RBI each season, Reynolds holds a slugging percentage that bests only Robert Andino among everyday O’s players. He’s struggling through a season in which he’s not in a stable or comfortable fielding situation and is no longer doing the things that the O’s hoped he would continue when they traded for him before 2011. The only way Reynolds becomes valuable, aside from miraculously regaining form, is as a trade chip, but he can’t be a worthwhile investment to other teams if he’s riding the bench for us — he has to prove he can play his way out of a slump in order for other teams to want him and possibly agree to pay part or all of his $7.5 million salary. Forced to play Reynolds, Orioles manager Showalter has little choice in where he plays Davis if Showalter is committed to keep a power left-handed bat in his line to supplement Matt Wieters, an aging Jim Thome playing DH and the occasional blast from right-fielder Nick Markakis.

Which brings us back to Steve Pearce, who’s played a good deal more left field in his career than Davis, but still not enough to be called a legitimate outfielder. Pearce had 8 hits and scored had 3 runs in his first 25 at-bats, but he swung a fairly quiet bat after that, posting a 10-for-51 mark in spot duty between June 14 and July 20, when the O’s designated him for assignment on July 20.

As long as Pearce was seen as a viable option, Ford’s chance to return to the big leagues remained on hold. Now, with Pearce gone and Ford still playing well at Norfolk, the O’s finally had justifiable circumstances to call Ford up: he’s a natural outfielder hitting well enough in Triple-A that the O’s could call him up & insert him right away. If Ford keeps playing well, he and Davis would each continue hitting well enough to bump Davis his usual position at first base, sending Reynolds, who now appears to be a trade package afterthought, back to the bench as a righty pinch hitter or DH; at worst, if Ford manages to stick in Baltimore, Reynolds and Davis would platoon at first against lefty and righty pitchers, respectively, with Ford platooning in turn with Chavez in left field with similar matchups (though every replacement outfielder the O’s have tried, including the non-natural outfielders, seemed to have swung a better bat than Chavez).

Ford, to his credit, began his tenuous tenure in left field on Sunday with a bang, throwing out Yoenis Cespedes on his bid for a double in the top of the second inning. He batted fifth, walked in his first plate appearance and advanced to third on a single by Davis in the bottom of the second before Wilson Betemit grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning. Ford batted three more times in the game without reaching base: according to MLB.com, he saw 16 pitches overall and made contact each time he made an out, twice putting the ball in play on the ground. He also didn’t strand anyone in scoring position, and though he grounded into a fielder’s choice in the bottom of the fifth, he managed to beat the relay from second base to prevent an inning-ending double play.

It’s still early in the second career of Jon Lewis Ford, but if he provides a spark for an offense looking for more people to get on base and continues to play adeptly in left field, he may hang around long enough to play in Boston, against the team that drafted him way back in 1999, and against the Rangers in his native Texas. For five years away from The Show, that’d be a pretty decent reward. With Jim Thome still out dealing with neck spasms, Ford has a spot in the lineup again tonight, playing in New York for the first time as a big leaguer since leaving the L.I. Ducks barely ten weeks ago. It’s only about 50 miles from Bethpage Ballpark in Central Islip, the Ducks’ home park, to the new Yankee Stadium, but for Ford, it might as well be 50,000.

“The tougher the battle the sweeter the victory. This is crazy I’m back!” Ford said yesterday on Twitter. “Thank you everyone who supported and believed.”