Texas, five other Big XII schools will join  Pac-10. DeWayne Wade set to sign with Chicago Bulls.  Lebron James to stay with Cavs. Missouri set to accept invitiation to join the Big Ten. Breaking sports stories, reported by breathless sportscasters on major news outlets in the past month.

  The only trouble with thiese exclusives is they were all wrong, dead wrong.

  The expected seismic conference shakeup that was to be the demise of the Big XII never happened. Just a minor quake that saw a trio of schools pick up and leave for greener pastures. The NBA free agent circus led to many red faces and unexplained backtracking by everyone from ESPN on down thr line.

  These examples in the past month on a national scale mirror what is happening in local markets as well. In an era of blogs, internet posts, chat rooms, Facebook and Twitter revelations, journalism as taken a left turn off the path of accountability into making rumors into facts.

   Reporters who make these incorrect pronouncements keep posting, announcing and blogging. No corrections, no apologies. Better to be first with something than last and accurate.

   We used to have a saying when I hosted a sports radio talk show on WGN that those who call in to the radio station with these tips were on the fringe. It was good for some laughs, even some debate, but we didn't offer much credibility to weak sources. That was before all sports radio and way before the Internet.

  Now, anyone with an opinion whether it is based on reliable sources or not can be an expert. That would be okay if the mainstream media -- outlets like ESPN, Fox, major daily newspapers and websites like SI.Com and Fanhouse weren't picking up this junk and commenting on it. Suddenly it gains credibility and the average fan doesn't know -- and some say doesn't care -- where it came from.

  Our media training of NFL, MLB and particularly college football and basketball programs has shown a frustration on the part of the administrators, coaches and players who are on the other end of the microphone and notepad. They ask what difference does it make what I say if the new media is going to report what they want anyway.

   We offer these suggestions:

--Don't react to every rumor. Offering a strict denial or even worse a "no comment" makes it appear as if you believe the comment and feel the need to deny it.

--If you have something to say, say it your own way. Resist the temptation to criticize false reports and mistakes by the media. Your fans and sponsors don't want to see you get into a spat with reporters. Stay with your message without addressing false rumors and reports.

--Understand the new media. Instead of lumping all reporters into one big tent, look into the credibility of the reporter or blogger; some have great credentials and want to get it correct all the time. They can be very useful to you and your program.

--Conduct communications training. Use a professional from outside of your school or organization. Your staff and athletes will pay more attention to experts from outside of your sphere of influence who re-enforce your own recommendations and instructions on dealing with new media.

--Remember your audience. Even when reporters or bloggers make mistakes and try to justify their stories, your audience isn't the reporter. It is the public. Develop stories and responses that speak directly to your fan base rather than one reporter who may or may not have the correct information.

        

Amidst all of the talk about potential seismic changes on college sports' landscapes, a key factor is being ignored.

 It is true another major reshuffling of major college conference membership is financially-driven and will impact athletic department budgets and TV contracts. But for the two main sports -- football and men's basketball -- it will mean little to nothing to the student-athletes themselves.

  Our 15-years plus of teaching communications and leadership skills to these players has told us they want to win national national, rather than league, championships. That is not to say winning a conference championship isn't a nice byproduct of a season; but ask them whether they would rather win a bowl game or a couple of NCAA tournament games and their answers are usually uniform: get and win in the post-season. Many we bring up in mock interviews as part of our pre-season sessions don't know and don't care about the details of a schedule. Their focus is on the next game and reaching and ultimate goal at the END of the season.

  Should -- it is probably more accurate to say when -- the next conference realignment takes place this year, some players will notice their travel itineraries changed with different airports, hotels, stadiums and arenas to deal with each year. But whether they play at Pitt instead of Purdue or Florida State instead of Florida is of little consequence. A win is a win and a stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of a higher national ranking, a higher seed or a better bowl game.

  Rivalries just don't mean as much to today's athlete as they did a generation ago. While fans want to see a Missouri-Kansas, Michigan-Michigan State or Auburn-Alabama game each year, to many football and basketball players it is of importance, not necessarily imperative. 

  The periodic reshuffling of conference memberships has changed scheduling anyway; Oklahoma-Nebraska used to be every year, now they are in different divisions. The Big Ten round-robin means not every team players each other twice in basketball;expanding to 12 or 16 teams will make two meetings a year between rivals a rarity. When we covered college sports in the old days, Marquette-Notre Dame was a big deal for players and fans alike. Today, it is generally just another game after Marquette-West Virginia and before Marquette-South Florida.

  Now this isn 't to say altering conference membership won't have an impact on Olympic sports. OUr vast experience in training athletes has shown winning a league title means much more to a volleyball, soccer or softball player than it does to their basketball/football brethren. The Olympic sport athletes aren't in the same televised fishbowl existence and they tend to be throwbacks to that golden era when winning a conference championship and displaying the league trophy actually meant something.

  The league alterations are tailored toward money, specifically television revenues and in particular post-season conference games. There will be considerable media hype about the expansion and contraction (and possible elimination) of conferences in the next several months.

        

The coverage of the 2010 NFL draft is finally (gasp!) over after a marathon barrage of promotions and hype. What is scary is on ESPN's Monday headline chart one of the items read,"It's time to start talking 2011 draft."

 What?

  There is ample evidence and data to support the NFL's premiere status among sports on television and the internet. The target audience for ESPN, the NFL network and others is ideal -- men 25-54. It is hard to argue with the dollars and cents value perceived by advertising salesmen pushing for more and more coverage each year of the event which used to be held in relative anonymity on a weekend afternoon.

 But the excesses in coverage have caused a trickle down effect we find when we train many of these college athletes who are about to enter the pros.

  The breathless coverage of so-called "experts" who know everything from a prospect's time in the 40-yard dash to the amount of calories they consume for breakfast in mid-December has put many of these athletes in a fishbowl existence that would make aquariums jealous. The degree in which these "experts" say a hangnail may move them down from the 186th to 199th spot in the draft has caused both college players and coaches alike to worry about every move they make both on and off the field.

  That isn't a totally bad thing; we teach that actions on and off the field can be -- and often are -- monitored by old and new media alike to say nothing of people with picture phones and Facebook pages.

   Where in the past this type of celebrity fascination was limited to a handful of top prospects each year slated to go in the upper echelons of the NFL draft, the obsession by the media toward any player with even a remote chance of being selected has carried over to hundreds of players. The trouble is many of these players who,even if they are selected, aren't likely to stick with a club and make it in the pros.

   Yet, the players hear the stories, read the internet hype and start to believe that if a well coiffed analyst or any of his clones even mention them on the air, they think they are headed for stardom. Depending upon the makeup of the athletes with whom we train, they become guarded, introspective and in some cases "stand-offish." The trend is obvious.

  It is even more laughable when talking heads give grades to respective teams on their seven selections as if they have a crystal ball as to how they will fare in the NFL. How often are these "experts" held accountable when a team they give a A-minus to has a bunch of busts who never contribute several years down the road? Or when they say a team had a "steal" in the latter part of the sixth round on a player from some small school in the south who doesn't survive two rounds of mini camp. Well, that's life in 21st century media.

  The first NFL draft I covered 30 years ago as a sportswriter in Chicago occurred over a span of a couple of hours at a downtown hotel. About a dozen reporters were there, we covered the story, got our quotes and went on to something else. Not much hype, not much hyperbole (the Bears did draft future Hall-of-Famer Dan Hampton, but the story barely nudged the Cubs & Sox off the evening sportscast or front pages that day).

  Little attention was given to how much a 10th rounder (they had more rounds back then) could bench press or how a fourth round dropped seven spots because their scores on the Wonderlich IQ test.

  Makes you long for the simpler days.
  

  
 

        

 People who have been watching the latest soap opera involving Tiger Woods are coming to the conclusion -- justified perhaps -- that high profile public figures who agree to some type of speaker or media training sound robotic, stiff and insincere.

  They see politicians from South Carolina or Nevada read well-rehearsed statements and figure they were programmed without any feeling of remorse or sincerity.

  As media trainers for the past 24 years, we aren't johnny-come-latelies to the profession like many who have either lost their jobs in the traditional media or want to go out on their own--they set up a website and hope that clients come calling. We have seen the best -- and worst -- of our profession handle clients in everything from damage control to how to learn to "tweet." Unfortunately there are an increasing number of people calling themselves "experts" in training based on the fact they were either a former multi-award winning TV producer or former media liasion who think they know how to prepare people for 21st century media. They have little or no background in actual reporting, haven't seen the inside of a locker room and cannot relate to athletes in their late teens or 20s.

  For many, just the words "media training" symbolize spin or insincerity. They see Tiger Woods make a statement -- then answer questions with pre-packaged answers -- and believe any type of training is not worth the investment of time or money.

  Situations like a Woods, Mark McGwire or John Daly should be considered the exceptions rather than the rule. Pre-packaged sound bites, socko salesmanship that sounds more like selling a laundry detergent than true feelings is the corporate PR approach and just doesn't work any more.  Nor does condensing your real thoughts into a 140-character "tweet" to an inflated list of followers.

   We recently conducted sessions at the Final Four in Indianapolis in cooperation with a long-time client, the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Our message in working with both up-and-coming young coaches and veterans alike in the art of the interview was to be the best of yourself; develop answers that you want not just the reporter to know but fans, fellow coaches and employers to understand and appreciate.

  Two pieces of advice:  If you have a tough issue or crisis, get in front of it, explain what you can and then move on to how you are correcting it. Think optimistically; rather than dwell on a 6-21 season, explain how that is a learning process for your young team for the following season.

  In a world of the Internet, You Tube and picture phones, communications training is a must for all colleges, universities and professional teams. Not the kind given to Woods   
 

        

If there is one thing the media likes to talk about, it is the media.

 It is with that in mind that one of the key elements of the instant analysis of Tiger Wood's much hyped apology news conference Friday morning that was overlooked was his attack on the media.

  Woods' well-crafted statement did all the right things about his personal mea culpa; his focus on his foundation and how his relationship with his wife is private and should remain so. But the guess is -- based on our working with athletes and teams for 20 years in this area -- that he insisted to those who prepped him that he wanted to aggressively attack what he perceived as media inaccuracies throughout this melodrama.

  We have always cautioned against going after the media. The reason is two fold: one, they always get the last word and two, more often than not that becomes the focus of an interview or statement. Lumping tabloids and the paparazzi into the mainstream media may sound good at first. It plays well with focus groups and a skeptical public who may love tabloid TV but dislikes their methods.

  But, it is also fodder for reporters to go back on the attack on a superstar who has never sought or enjoyed a close relationship with the media. Woods always has thought he didn't need the media -- his spectacular achievements on the golf course coupled with millions of dollars of endorsements made him immune from press criticism. But it was those favorable articles about Woods early in his career that helped translate him from a great golfer who wins big on the tour to a cultural icon who reaped significantly more financial rewards through his commercials and endorsements.

   Attacking the media, refusing to allow them to ask even screened or pre-written questions will not endear him to the reporters he will eventually have to face once he returns to the PGA tour. Kobe Bryant, always a source we use in our sessions as a good example of dealing with the media, was able to tap into that reservoir during his problems several years ago. Today it is generally forgotten by reporters. It is that source of good will Woods could have begun to cultivate beginning with Friday's news conference.

   

        

Hawaii Coach Greg McMackin, Gilbert Arenas, and even President Obama have learned it the hard way.

 Saying "just kidding" isn't going to cut it with the media and the public.

  In the world of texting, emailing, picture phones etc we teach to our professional and college athlete clients you are always on the record. Especially when you think you are speaking in jest.

  President Obama last fall was being prepped for a cable interview when he was asked about Kanye West's comments that Beyonce should have won a music award. Unaware that the tape was rolling and his microphone was "hot", he said West was a "jackass." He later tried to backtrack, saying he thought it was off the record and was kidding.

  At a WAC media event, McMackin saw there were no cameras around and made a joke about Notre Dame football players. Trouble was, print reporters had their mini audio tape recorders and caught the comments, eventually landing them on the internet. The coach attempted to backpedal, saying he, too, was only "kidding." The comments live in You Tube infamy after his 30 day suspension by the school.


  Arenas' gun troubles this past week and suspension announced Wednesday have been compounded by his complaint to reporters he was just "kidding" about previous statements he made about that and gambling. His defense has fallen on deaf ears.

   Athletes, coaches and administrators leave themselves vulnerable when they fail to understand their audience and make some comments they perceive as sarcastic, humorous or satirical. While the people who actually hear AND see the remarks being made, they often lose that shield when they are printed in blogs, stories or text messages.

   Our advice as a company which works extensively with corporate and athletic organizations is a simple one: if you don't want to see it on the Internet, in a newspaper or magazine; hear it on the radio or TV, DON'T SAY IT...or e-mail it, or text it.  It's an expensive gamble that has the odds staked squarely against you.

        

As a former member of the Baseball Writers of America and a former voter for the Cy Young Award, I used to resist the efforts by members of the electronic media to have the opportunity to vote for post-season awards and the Hall of Fame.

 I had joined with my counterparts, many of whom were considerably older and more seasoned than myself, in the theory that print reporters had more expertise, covered more games and had more knowledge of the game and were therefore better suited to vote.

  But having been out of the business for more than a decade and having trained hundreds of baseball players through our communications program with The Speaking Specialists, I think it is time for a change.

  The days when print reporters ruled the press box are over. First, there is the economic issue. Newspapers are struggling to stay alive in the battle against the internet and the recession. Secondly, many of the veterans who had seen baseball for decades are retiring and being replaced by younger reporters who often have to cover multiple beats for leaner newspapers. Finally, the credentials of other reports including radio, television, internet and new media sites have caught up with many of their print brethren.

   Much of this came to light in an extremely close balloting for National League Cy Young this year. I have no quarrel with the outcome, other than two voters leaving Chris Carpenter off their ballot completely. Their rationales sounded okay but one can only wonder if personal agendas affected their thinking.

   It is time for Major League Baseball to rethink the voting procedures by having a panel of play-by-play broadcasters, websites and legitimate bloggers be added to the mix. I still believe the print reporters who cover the teams on a regular basis should be in the majority as far as the voting is concerned -- they see more of the games than most other reporters. But so do those who are in the broadcast booth and cover the teams individually for MLB.com. My only worry about those folks is that people who are hired by the teams may have more of an agenda to vote for their own players than print reporters. That should be solved by making the voting private; we aren't asked to publish our votes for president, Congress or city council; why should they have to for post-season awards. Anonymity would go a long way to prevent home team bias.

  We will be conducting sessions at the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis next month for front office staffs and scores of reporters will be there from new and old media alike. May be it is time for a change in the way post-season award voting is done from now on.

        

As former talk show hosts, we used to have an inside word for many of the callers who would wait for long stretches of time to get on the air and offer their rants on a particular sport or athlete.

  The lunatic fringe.

  We knew studies showed that of every 100 listeners to a sports radio show, only 1 percent actually bothered to call into that show.

  Today we have the blogosphere where anyone with an internet connection can go beyond the call into the local radio station and become a self-proclaimed expert on anything from college to professional sports. That would be innocent enough if it wasn't for the mainstream media elevating these bloggers into the stratosphere.

   Witness ESPN's newest creation, Sports Nation anchored by Colin Cowherd in the middle of the afternoon. It would seem to be something you would have seen as a skit from Saturday NIght Live or the Onion if it wasn't on the self-proclaimed world-wide leader in sports. The show, responding to a trend across cable TV, is symbolic of the trend of giving bloggers, twitters, emailers and anyone with an internet connection not only a forum but legitimacy. ESPN even uses a service that ranks what stories are dominating the blogosphere, a silly notion that equates somebody living in his basement(ala the Raul Ibanez rant) the same weight as a more respected site like The Huffington Post or even ESPN.com. Rating the buzz from the blogosphere and saying it is a vital stat is like lumping in the New York Times, Washington Post with the National Enquirer and Star and saying they represent all newspapers.

   It is true newspapers are going away gradually, a sad fact for the state of journalism in the USA. But like the callers into our talk shows, Paul from Pittsburgh, Carlo from Columbus and Larry from Long Beach, bloggers are given a lofty status of accuracy, respectability and accuracy for just voicing an opinion, passing on a rumor or injecting their own fantasies into a subject.

   Interactivity is a great thing, particularly in the world of sports. But when journalistic integrity is watered down to the point where legitimate reporters, editors and on-air personalities take the words from the blogosphere and treat it like 24 karat gold, it is time to take a step back and re-evaluate. What does it matter what are the top 10 stories each day from all blogs; what kind of sources do they use? Are they based on fact or fiction? Are facts just hurdles getting in the way of a good rant or chat?

  As ESPN and other outlets drift toward paying homage to these rants, the resulting affect is that coaches, administrators and athletes think the blogosphere is the new mainstream media. We teach  in our sessions for pros and colleges to be careful about what you say to any interviewer but to be particularly cautious of dealing with those with little or no journalistic background. It is often a tough lesson.

   Like the Simpsons' episode where Sideshow Bob goes on a big screen TV to say he wants to eliminate all televisions in Springfield, we are aware that by blogging on the subject we are using the very tool we are holding under a microscope. If the media really wants to go the easy route and use blogs, tweets etc for the basis of their stories and shows, at least go back to Journalism 101. Check out the credentials, legitimacy and factual content before passing it off as a legitimate source.

        

 You probably have not heard of Jerod Morris. But you probably have heard of Raul Ibanez. You may not recognize a site called Midwest Sports Fans . But you do recognize the Philadelphia Inquirer.

  This latest episode of how the new media and old media are coming together offers a critical lesson we teach in our internet/communications sessions to professional athletes, like the NFL teams with whom we worked this summer, and college athletes with whom we will begin our annual tour of in a couple of weeks.

  Quick background: Morris wrote on his blog recently that Ibanez, who is having an all-star season with the Philadelphia Phillies after a relatively low profile with other teams, has to be considered as a possible user of steroids. Ibanez strongly reacted to the blog, challenging the writer to prove his suspicions and generally ripping most bloggers in the process.   Ibanez told the Inquirer, "I'll put that up against the jobs of anyone who writes this stuff.  Make them accountable.   There should be more credibility than some ... blogger typing in his mother's basement."

   Ten years ago this wouldn't have happened; some one writing in a blog probably would have been laughed off by a player, but in today's media world things have changed dramatically. It wasn't as much as Morris' blog has widespread coverage; rather it was the fact the Inquirer felt compelled to address the issue and Ibanez' subsequent comments. John Gonzalez, Inquirer sports columnist, went on ESPN to explain in today's media landscape writers and editors have to respond to such issues regardless of where they may start. A similar situation exists on talk radio; a caller with little journalistic credibility can trigger a day's gabfest by simply offering an opinion or claiming he or she overheard some rumor about a player or school. An editor driving to work hears this exchange, tells his beat reporter to find out about it, and suddenly it enters the bloodstream of mainstream media.

   Ibanez reaction was both justified and over the top; justified if a newspaper reporter asks him about his views; over the top if he was just mad at bloggers who hint he may not be clean.

   Our sessions emphasize to athletes and coaches alike that the real audience isn't the reporter or blogger who writes the story and asks the question; it is the vast audience who reads the stories or listens or watches the broadcast reports. It is a tough lesson to learn, especially when you feel unfairly victimized by innuendo or rumor.

  The other solution would be to have the mainstream media "consider the source" and not take these blogs and talk shows so seriously. But in age of dwindling circulation, shrinking ad revenues and in some cases, bankruptcy, the so-called "old media" must consider the internet postings competition. When more and more people or getting their information -- accurate or not -- from blogs and posts than the papers that arrive at their doorsteps -- it is an inevitable fact of 21st century journalism that the lines between what's real and what isn't are slowly fading away.

   It is thus up to the athletes and coaches to be taught how best to handle these situations and understand the ever-changing landscape of sports media.

        

 Predicatably pundits have begun their roasting of NBA MVP LBJ (c'mon, there are too many acronyms in sports, let's keep calling him LeBron James) after this past weekend's inevitable loss to the Orlando Magic for the right to get to the league finals.

  James walked off the court, shaking his head but not his hand towards the victorious Magic, prompting criticism he should have showed more sportsmanship after his team's upset series loss to Orlando.

  What was worse for James than the failed handshake was his decision to blow off the post-game interview session, allowing the media to pile on the usual voluble James for his disappearing act after the playoffs.

   While we don't condone the lack of sportsmanship; hey, this isn't hockey and the teams don't line up to congratulate each other after the series ends. But James should have known better than to allow the media and the blogosphere an opportunity to rip him for 48 hours before he agreed to speak to reporters.

   In our training sessions for both the NBA, colleges and Olympians, we emphasize the need to get your side of things out in public even when things didn't go your way. It's easy to talk to reporters when you win -- a more serious challenge is when you lose. Had James spent even a couple of minutes in the post-game interview room -- even if he didn't take any questions and just made a statement -- he would have fed the media beast and prevented the video loop of him walking off the court in disgust. We often show a tape of one of our former clients, Mitch Williams, sitting down and answering every question after he surrendered the World Series winning home run to Joe Carter back in the 90s. As tough as it was for Williams, he got great press for not ducking out or hiding in the training room after what was a much more difficult situation than James faced in Orlando.

  Obviously PR and media staffs urge coaches and athletes to follow the path to the interview room; we re-enforce this as former reporters by reminding them that most media just want to get their sound bites and quotes and file their stories. The vast majority of reporters don't have agendas and are just looking to complete their tasks. By not providing the media with any counter to what they saw, the negative reports began immediately and are likely to continue for weeks.

  James had been a solid role model for our trainings on college campuses for how to handle tough questions; now he slides over to the side of what not to do when you lose.