News & Updates

The sports world has been massively affected by COVID-19.

First the NBA suspended operations, then the NHL, Major League Baseball, NCAA and high school athletics followed suit. And now the 2020 Olympics may be doing the same.

Dick Pound, a member of the Veteran International Olympic Committee (IOC) said he expects the summer games to be postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic.

For more on the Olympics and what to expect, check out the “Need to Know” video above from “NESN After Hours,” presented by People’s United Bank.

While racism and threats to the physical safety of black students are the most important issues amid the unrest at the University of Missouri, a controversy around the rights and responsibilities of the media has lingered all week.

As you know, the chancellor of the University of Missouri and the president of the state system resigned amid growing protests over the administration’s slow and tone-deaf response to a series of racist incidents and what black students say is an unsafe and hostile atmosphere for them on campus.

Here’s a timeline of the growing tensions on campus at the Maneater, the student news outlet, and here’s a New York Times story about the two resignations. This Mic.com piece about hunger striker Jonathan Butler lays out the grievances against system president Tim Wolfe, who resigned Monday.

The media controversy arose from an incident Monday, when protesters, led by the group Concerned Student 1950—whose name references the year blacks were finally admitted to Mizzou—were celebrating the resignations on the Mel Carnahan Quadrangle on campus and vowing to continue to fight. “This is just a beginning in dismantling systems of oppression in higher education, specifically the UM system,” Marshall Allen of Concerned Student 1950 told CNN.

Tim Tai, a Mizzou student photojournalist who was on assignment for ESPN, got into a confrontation with protesters near the tent city they’d set up as a “no media safe space,” on the quad. The incident was captured on video by Mark Schierbecker, and that video went viral.

A few of the people in the video who tried to keep Tai and Schierbecker away from protesters were Mizzou staff or faculty. Some of them later apologized and may face discipline. But to me the most interesting aspect of the incident was the argument between Tai and the protesters, which in the days since has been taken up across the internet.

The protesters argue that Tai, and all media, should respect their desire to keep the media out of their “safe space.” Tai’s argument can be summed up by his comment at 1:45 of the video: “The First Amendment protects your right to be here, and mine.” He mentions at one point that there’s a state law specifically declaring the Carnahan quad a public space.

Tai, whose photos were published by ESPN.com, was lauded by many journalists around the country for keeping his cool while defending his rights as a journalist. On the other hand, the arguments made by Tai and those who supported him were widely denounced by others, who argued that whatever the rights of journalists, they have an obligation to treat subjects, particularly subjects who are in danger or pain or both, more respectfully. “I think we underestimate how deeply broken our (media) relationship is w/minority communities,” tweeted Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery.

Tai, I should note, said on several occasions that he was uncomfortable having become part of the story, and that his squabble with protesters was not nearly as important as the larger issues.

I’m a little perturbed at being part of the story, so maybe let’s focus some more reporting on systemic racism in higher ed institutions.

— Tim Tai (@nonorganical) November 10, 2015

It’s also worth noting that the protesters changed their approach to the media on Tuesday.

#ConcernedStudent1950 Protestors have taken down the anti-media signs and are handing out a PSA welcoming media. pic.twitter.com/jAqgDAzqGk

— Mark Kim (@MarkJKim_) November 10, 2015

 

Kyle Stokes, a public radio reporter in Seattle who went to Mizzou, wrote a blog post headlined Why We Were There that laid out the media argument—that the media is tasked with being on site to get the true story and tell it to the public, which demands to know it.

Honestly, we saw you gathered in a public place. Although people typically do want to speak to the media when they’re gathered in this way, we know you are under no obligation to do so. But in a public place, journalists are going to do what they are paid to do: ask the question and take the picture. And we cannot ever apologize for that.

My first reaction to this confrontation Monday was to side squarely with Tai. I found the actions of the protesters disturbing. I thought their argument that they had a right to exclude anyone from the quad because they’d declared it their space was absurd.

I also thought they were being undemocratic, that having won a victory, they were using their newfound power in a bullying way. In the closing seconds of the video, a mass of protesters walking in a close group push Tai out of the scene completely. “It’s our right to walk forward, isn’t it?” one woman says. “I believe it’s my right to walk forward.” I’ve known fourth-grade bullies who were more subtle than that.

I tweeted in support of a piece that argued much the same thing.

Good piece on the disturbing behavior of some protesters today. Simply put: This is violence. https://t.co/fv1Iw6Wq1F

— King Kaufman (@king_kaufman) November 10, 2015

 

And then something even more disturbing to me happened. That tweet got a few dozen likes and retweets, and everyone who liked it or retweeted it whose race was apparent to me was white. And it’s not like all my followers are white.

Meanwhile, I found myself arguing on Twitter with black journalists I respect. One, who doesn’t like it when other writers embed her tweets in their stories, wrote, “Look at it from their perspective. If subjected to obscene harassment for months bc of protesting, would I want 2 b bothered?” and argued that a good reporter should respect being told no, consider the motivations, and find other ways to get the story.

A good summation of the argument against those of Tai and Stokes is made by Melissa McEwen at the Shakesville blog in a post headlined Stop. Just. Stop.

But in this country, with our reflexive reverence for a policy of “free expression,” as if speech exists in a void, we’re more worried about the supposed “intolerance” expressed by marginalized people who draw boundaries in defense of their own safety, because a minor restriction on a privileged person’s unfettered right to engage in hate speech, or assert their “right” to access to marginalized people’s spaces and lives, is considered a more burdensome encroachment on freedom than the right of people at whom hate speech is directed to live a life free of rhetorical terror.

I’m not sure where I stand at this point. One thing I’m sure of is that I’ve had to rethink some of my assumptions. The writer whose tweets I didn’t embed above has argued that tweets by people who aren’t public figures should not be considered fair game for journalists to reproduce. This is not a new or unique idea. Here’s a story by Amanda Hess of Slate from last year about a controversy around the privacy of public, which is to say unprotected, tweets.

The idea that journalists should respect the “privacy” of tweets, which are published online and have been ruled public, is similar to the idea that journalists should respect the privacy of a space carved out by a group of people, even if that space is on public ground.

I have problems with both of those ideas. But I have a better understanding of them than I had a week ago, and, as you can see in these last few paragraphs, I’m more likely to respect the requests of those who subscribe to them than I used to be.

Social media is changing notions and definitions of what is public and what is private. Those definitions are also subject to change in what people my age tend to call the real world—as if social media weren’t part of the real world. We don’t all have to agree on the definitions. But a smart, ethical reporter has to understand that those disagreements are real, and worth considering.

Here’s a lot more good reading on some of the angles around this subject:

DEAR READER: On a historic day for MU, protest against media wasn’t most important, by Tom Warhover, Columbia Missourian

There’s a good reason protesters at the University of Missouri didn’t want the media around: Students wanted to create a safe space from not only the racism they encounter on campus, but the insensitivity they encounter in the news media, by Terrell Jermaine Starr, Washington Post

Race and the Free-Speech Diversion, by Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

The Mizzou Football Team May Be Just the Beginning: Don’t be surprised if more black athletes exert their political power for civil rights, by Jamelle Bouie, Slate

At Missouri, the invisible claim a victory, by Howard Bryant, ESPN

Mizzou Players Turned a Social Movement into a Business Decision—and Won, by Greg Couch, Bleacher Report

How a Journalist Covering the Mizzou Protests Became a Political Pawn: Conservatives have latched onto Tim Tai as a means of discrediting the protesters, by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

What those press-blocking Missouri protesters have in common with GOP candidates, by Philip Bump, Washington Post

What the Missouri Protests Say About Where the Media is Now, by Mathew Ingram, Fortune

Mizzou, Yale and Free Speech, by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

Photo of the Columns at University of Missouri by Adam Procter/GNU Free Documentation License. 

Almost every sportsperson who has reached the top of their field was inspired by an athlete that came before them. Often it’s one from their own sport, but sometimes that inspiration can come from an entirely different discipline. In this series, BBC Sport Scotland speaks to Scottish sporting stars about some of those heroes.

This week, Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Callum Skinner talks about Michael Phelps, the American widely considered to be the greatest swimmer of all time.

Michael Phelps might be seen as an unimaginative pick. But ever since I became interested in the Olympic Games he has been a towering figure to me, I guess in the same way many football fans would look upon Lionel Messi.

He is the greatest swimmer of all time and, with 23 gold medals, the most successful Olympian in history. But the medals and success are only part of his story. It’s his work away from the pool that really sparked my admiration for him.

Many athletes’ accomplishments give them a platform, an opportunity to be a force for good. Michael’s feats have afforded him a fantastic stage and the way he has used that to drive change has been mightily impressive. He is passionate about issues very close to my heart.

At the London Olympics in 2012, he won four gold medals, taking his tally of those across three Games to 18. He was on top of the world in a sporting sense, but after that he quit and said he wanted nothing more to do with swimming.

He later revealed he had suffered from depression after London. Many athletes have spoken in recent years about their mental health issues and he was one of the first really high-profile athletes to do so publicly.

He’s been pretty open about saying he considered suicide, that he had fallen off the rails after multiple Olympics.

I find a lot of resonance in that. I found myself in a very dark place after Rio 2016. Thankfully, and partly due to the work Michael had done in breaking down barriers, I felt as if it was OK to ask for help and I got better.

When I stepped away from cycling last year, I felt safer speaking out about my own mental health issues knowing Michael had walked that road ahead of me. It feels like he’s taken a bit of a burden for everyone else.

What he’s done is help defuse the situation by saying the world’s most successful athlete has struggled and is not immune to mental ill-health. It gives a lot of breathing space to everyone else because you’re then not being viewed in a prism of being weak or of not trying or of being lazy.

It validates mental health among athletes as being a legitimate concern which merits attention.

Given the circumstances he had been faced with, to go back into that situation of competing at Olympic Games, knowing you are likely to find yourself in that dark place again, it just shows the magnitude of the man.

He was prepared to push on through and go through that whole cycle again and delivered a further five golds at Rio 2016 having come back out of retirement.

It wasn’t something I was prepared to do – I’m not necessarily sure it’s something that’s wise to do – but he endured it and managed to push through. Probably one of his strongest athletic qualities is that mental endurance but it’s quite mind-boggling to think someone would continue to push on through given those circumstances.

He’s provided such a great case study and such a personable life message to so many people that success doesn’t always bring happiness. More than just being the most successful Olympian of all time, to me what he’s been most valuable for in terms of a societal shift is showing that even the world’s best can have issues.

‘He made me realise you can have worth away from sport’

I also really admire how strong and vocal Michael has been on the subject of anti-doping in sport, something I’m also really passionate about. He’s been ahead of the curve on a lot of this stuff. He famously said that he doesn’t think he’s raced in an event where there hasn’t been at least one person cheating.

I think he understands the responsibility that he has to sport. It’s given him a lot, it’s given me a lot and we have quite similar motives as to why and how we want to see it improved in the future.

We don’t want to see the anti-doping system called into question, but unless the governing bodies get a grip of it and put the athletes first – which is what we’re all calling for – then little is likely to change.

One of the great things Michael did for me was made me realise that you can have worth as an athlete not just for the results you get in sport but for the work you do after retirement. You can become more well known as someone who can change the face of mental health or help make sport a fairer place, which is what I’m striving for now.

That’s the kind of thing that Michael started to do. He realised he’d gained that platform and started to carve out a career that was worthwhile in pursuing these really tough societal issues.

He’s there sharing a story from a place of vulnerability and that’s something sport and society needs to get a lot better at, especially when it comes to men.

Callum Skinner was talking to BBC Scotland’s Andy Burke.