The passing of Hall of Fame writer Larry Brooks, one of the pillars of hockey journalism in the United States, points to how much the field that he loved has been evolving in the past few years, some for the good and some for the bad.
Certainly, the days of rushing out to read the New York Post, Boston Globe, or Philadelphia Inquirer’s hockey columns on weekends are gone, as sports journalism has become one of the targets for cost-cutting incentives in newspapers nationwide.
It wasn’t that long ago that a traveling beat writer was considered essential, as writers and players routinely traded rides around town and meals for information, and created a real bond between the two as the writer was kept in the loop and players made sure the stories going out were straight.
While it wasn’t cheap to send someone across North America to chronicle an NHL team, newspapers knew it was money well spent to tell the story accurately. Sometimes what you didn’t write was as important as what you did because you knew why something was the way it was.
Of course, that was ages ago in terms of the business of news, and now, with more than just space on a broadsheet to fill, many are doing more with less than they had before. The money changed for the players, too, so they didn’t need to pocket their per diems and instead saved their information from reporters with whom they don’t quite have the same relationship. The NHL became more of a business as money grew, and it changed —some for the better, some for the worse.
With newspaper budgets being slashed, traveling to road games has become a casualty of many papers, and while teams are better covered at home thanks to more independent media, along with those who get paid to cover the teams, there is an information gap growing when the team hits the road.
Last year, during Washington’s playoff series in Montreal, there were just two traveling journalists covering the Capitals in Quebec. In the second round in Raleigh, Washington’s first second-round series since 2018, there were three, thanks to the addition of myself and HockeyHotStove.com being added to the mainstream mix.
The most critical juncture of a season was left up to a select few, and while there was coverage for the home teams, certainly being viewed in the prism of a visitor isn’t going to satisfy what fans of a growing expectation of access want.
Some papers have cut out most road trips altogether, and others are likely to go that route sooner or later to save on sending someone on the road to glean information that fans love to consume.
While someone like Brooks was tightly connected with the Rangers and other teams in the New York region, it was because of a far-reaching connection that isn’t there anymore in a lot of markets. Beat writers come in and go in certain markets, with less of a premium put on knowledge and more on fitting a salary scale.
Certainly, sites like HockeyHotStove.com look to fill that gap with a growing lack of coverage from mainstream media, as looking at Washington’s coverage, the amount of stories from independent media dwarfs what traditional media is producing at this point. It’s certainly creating a feast of information when the team is at home, although not quite the same when they are away from home. For most of us, covering practices and games isn’t a financial boon, but the sharing of information is.
The hockey community certainly is poorer for the loss of Larry Brooks this week, and he embodied the face of hockey journalism that created a wave that we see today of both mainstream and independent writers covering the sport today.
Home › Forums › Brooks Changed Face Of Hockey Journalism
Tagged: New York Rangers, nhl