Gange: Press Box as Sacred Space

[Mike Gange]

 

Welcome to the Jungle

By Mike Gange

 

As a member of the media covering hockey games, I am regularly in press boxes for coverage of games. Usually, these media boxes are separate from the crowd, which may alternatively be called the house, the audience, the fans, spectators or the mob, depending on the tone, atmosphere and intensity of the game.

These press boxes are often small and cramped. A press box that might be ten meters (30 feet) in length might have as many as 20 people working side-by-side, sometimes even working two deep in those small quarters. Despite being sheltered from the crowd, every reporter who works there has access to everyone else’s work. Print reporters who go out between periods often leave their computers on, and their document – which is a work in progress – is visible on their screen. Radio and TV broadcasters can certainly hear each other.  Take off the headset of microphone and headphones and the voices of the other stations are clearly audible. This is especially so during an intense game, when the crowd is loud and home-town proud. Then broadcasters have to speak over the intensity and volume of the crowd. Print or radio reporters would frequently come over to the TV crews to see a replay on the monitor. This sharing is an occupational hazard; there is a respect and tolerance for others who are doing the same job, and reporters are not self-conscious within their communal work space. Still, reporters give each other as much space and privacy as possible.

Reporters are asked to mediate the event, but are typically sheltered from the masses attending the game. The press box is for working media only. While sports reporters might spend six nights a week in the press boxes, many news reporters who do not cover sports stories at all, would not know what the inside of a press box looks like.

Recently I was asked to fill in for a reporter in another community, and I was to call play-by-play on a team in a different league, in a rink I had only visited once before. What I did not know was that this rink had no press box. I was doing play-by-play on a game where the audience members were in front of me, beside me, and behind me. The fans were so close behind me that I could feel their elbows in my ribs or their hands on my shoulders as they leaned in for a view of the action on the ice.  

A hundred years ago, it would have been unusual to have a press box in any sporting venue. At the beginning of the 20^th century, newspapers had few, if any, reporters who specifically covered sports events. In the early 1900’s, newspapers were still evolving and few had sections of the newspaper dedicated to sports stories. Newspaper publishers had not yet learned that sports sections of newspapers would have a dedicated audience who would loyally read the sporting news before every other story, and thus were economically viable, often supporting the sections that did not generate revenue. At that time, sports venues did not have a “sacred space” for reporters. Early radio reporters usually did their reporting from the midst of the crowd. At this game, I thought I had gone back in time. The crowd was completely around me.

One of the obstacles I faced was that as the home town fans cheered and yelled for their favorites, they were frequently on their feet applauding their team’s heroics and denigrating their opposition. I couldn’t see over the heads of those directly in front of me when they jumped to their feet, which seemed to me to be quite often. Instead I had to rely on the monitor in front of me to show me the action. I am sure I missed a few good body checks. Beside me, the camera guy could not see either, and had to rely on the same monitor to see his shots. I felt as if my access to the game was being filtered, mediated if you will, and I felt it compromised my objectivity.

As on-air commentators share ideas or a conversational flow, they frequently make eye contact which is the cue for back and forth dialogue. At one point I turned to my colour commentator, to find a patron of the game had squeezed between us, and was listening intently to my description, a plastic cup filled with beer up to his lips. He was certainly getting a view of the game that most fans never see. ABC-TV, in the early days of Monday Night Football, would sometimes show Howard Cosell and his co-broadcasters, but that was a foreign sight to many in the audience. Lately, CBS has taken to showing the play-by-play and colour commentators on those broadcasts, with the CBS backdrop behind them, but fans don’t really get a sense of the working press box those announcers are in.

This local fan, beer cup at the ready, was getting a view many would pay money to see. He could hear me, he could see the monitors we used, and he could even hear the cameraman’s headset when the instructions would come from the director in the truck.  There were several things about this that made me nervous. First was the close proximity, which was closer than those cramped press box quarters I described earlier. Second was the danger to the equipment. These monitors and cameras are not water tolerant. Camera crews forced to work in the rain take great care to wrap up the equipment. Third, I was afraid that he might utter some obscenity that would come through my microphone. There is an unwritten rule, that there is no cheering in the press box. Of course reporters are doing their best to be objective and tell the story. But there is another sacred rule: swearing is not tolerated. Reporters who regularly pepper their language with salty talk, or words that may cause even a mild discomfort, censor themselves when they enter the “sacred space.” Fortunately, this beer soaked fan was more interested in the spectacle of the media than he was about getting his comments on the air. Just the same, I kept my fingers close to the cough switch, in case I had to cut my microphone off.

In some places, the term press box is not used. That space for working media is called the sports tribune.  It’s a word with Latin roots, and means a place for those in command. Maybe that is why Mr. Beerman enjoyed the advantage of being so close to the media. The word can also mean, a place for judges, where one sits in judgment, and it is easy to see how the media covering a sports event can be seen to sit in judgment.    

The word tribune is closely related to ‘tribunal,’ which has come to mean, “a court or forum of justice: a person or body of persons having to hear and decide disputes so as to bind the parties.”  

This game turned out to be rougher than some I have done. There were lots of body checks, lots of roughing incidents, lots of face-washing on both sides. There were even a couple of fights. The disputes got settled, but I did not feel like I was in a tribunal. It was eerie. It was more like being part of the mob.  

 

Mike Gange is a teacher, writer and broadcaster. He has written more than 150 reviews of books on media, many of which can be found on Frank Baker's web-site:  http://www.frankwbaker.com/gange.htm