NFL PLAYERS STRIKE: DAY 9 : THE LINES ARE DRAWN : Nation’s Sports Editors Plan to Cover Sunday’s NFL Games From Both Sides

In recent telephone conversations with sports editors across the United States, one thing emerged clearly.

Pro football fans who haven’t yet figured out what to do with their Sundays because of the National Football League player strike ought to move to Great Falls, Mont.

Great Falls, you’ll see if you examine a national map, is about as far from an NFL city in the lower 48 as you can get. But according to sports editor George Geise of the Great Falls Tribune, folks there are as enthusiastic about pro football as folks anywhere else.

“The football hangouts here are P.J.’s Lounge and the Merry-Go-Round, and they’re packed on Monday nights,” he said.

“But the difference is, there are other things to do here on Sundays. We’ve got incredible trout fishing right now on the Missouri River about 20 miles south of town. The partridge and pheasant seasons started two weeks ago, and duck season starts this weekend.”

Drifting down the Missouri River this week might sound pretty good to harried sports editors in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles, instead of journeying into uncharted picket lines, editing labor relations stories and pondering the ethics of reporters--at least, those who belong to unions--crossing NFL picket lines.

“This is one of the most bizarre weekends in NFL history coming up,” said David Tucker, sports editor of United Press International in New York. “Newspapers, NFL players and owners--we’re all going into unknown waters.”

Should a newspaper reporter who belongs to a union cross the NFL Players Assn. picket line to cover a non-union game?

Said Vic Ziegel, executive sports editor of the New York Daily News: “We’re a guild (union) paper, and my senior football writer, Bryon Burwell, told me: ‘ . . . so I just want you to know I will be covering the games, but under protest,’ but he smiled when he said it.

“We had a meeting on the subject, and our football writers agreed we’re all covering the news and, as such, they didn’t feel they had a problem.”

At the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, also a guild paper, pro football writers sounded out the striking players, according to sports editor Rick Arthur.

“Our beat writers, Jack Disney (who covers the Raiders) and John Czarnecki (Rams), are members of the Graphic Communications Union, and they informally sounded out the striking players about how they felt about them crossing picket lines,” Arthur said.

“The feedback was that the players understood that they had to cover the games. A related concern was whether or not beat writers would damage their relationships with any players by crossing the lines.”

Are the NFL’s non-union games, beginning this weekend, really going to be games? You bet your sweet Sony they are, according to the New York Daily News’ Ziegel.

“Hey, if these games count in the standings (and they do) . . . oh brother, we’re there,” he said. “The crowds may be terrible and the games may be awful, but the games count. We cover harness racing at Roosevelt Raceway every night, and they get 2,800 people. And God knows how much space we give to exhibition hockey games.”

Gene Quinn, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, put it this way: “We’ll try to make the best chicken-salad sandwich we can, even though we know we’re not dealing with USDA prime chicken.”

All sports editors are asking themselves the same question about the non-union games: Does anyone care?

“It’s a tough call,” said Dave Smith, executive sports editor of the Dallas Morning News. “My problem is gauging the interest level on these games. People here may not be willing to pay the $23 the Cowboys are charging, but they may follow them very closely on TV. I want to see the TV numbers (ratings) after this weekend.”

Most sports editors reported that their mail runs heavily in support of the owners.

“On Monday alone, I had 21 pieces of mail on the subject and two sided with the players,” said the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Dwyre.

Said Smith: “In seven years in Dallas, I’ve gotten more mail on this subject than any other. I’m talking about hundreds of letters, and about 90% of them side with the owners.”

George Solomon, assistant managing editor for sports at the Washington Post, said, however, that his mail was split, half favoring the players, half the owners.

All were asked if in the event of a long strike, the NFL would recede gradually to the back of their sports sections.

“I can see it getting to that point,” said the L.A. Times’ Dwyre. “If the strike goes on for a long time, I can see two- and three-paragraph stories (on negotiations) at the back of the section. I don’t think sports page readers are going to want to read a lot of labor-relations stories.”

Dwyre also said that a long strike would free some space in his section for other sports, other features.

“Normally, we have 60 columns of space in our Monday section, and I’d say the NFL has been getting about 75% of that, in stories and pictures,” he said. “That’s about a thousand inches. If the strike goes more than a couple of weeks, I see that total coming down to about 400 inches on pro football in the Monday paper.

“So, we’ll have more space for other things. We’ll have a chance to do some things with the World Series and college football that pro football has prevented us from doing in the past.”

The Chicago Tribune’s Quinn has ordered his writers and editors to watch their language.

“I have never seen such a cavalier use of the word scab as I have in newspapers over the past week,” he said. “I’ve told our editors I want to see it in our section only in a quote from someone who has cause to use it. It should never be common usage in any newspaper.

“ Scab is an extremely pejorative term, and when a reporter uses it in a story, he’s lost his objectivity.”

Dwyre distributed a memo Tuesday, instructing reporters to avoid using the term in news stories and in all cases except quotes and possible column situations.

Quinn wonders if newspapers this week don’t find themselves in a fix they helped create.

“One of my criticisms of American society is that too much is made of sports by all media, including newspapers,” he said.

“The media helped make the NFL. Newspapers are part of the tradition of the NFL. . . . Football writers elect players to the NFL Hall of Fame. So I can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re in large part responsible for making a mountain out of a molehill. We’re no different than European sports sections that go crazy over World Cup soccer and the Tour de France. We do the same over the NFL.”

Quinn sees a big winner in all this: major league baseball.

“This is baseball’s golden opportunity, to become America’s showcased sport,” he said.

“In a few weeks, if the strike is still on and the novelty of the replacement teams has worn off, the World Series will get an awful lot of attention.”

Some other NFL strike comments by sports editors contacted by The Times:

Rick Arthur, Los Angeles Herald Examiner: “We’ll evaluate how we’ll cover it day by day. We’ll staff the first weekend’s games, then take a long look at it. It’s possible we’ll go to wire (news service) stories after that.

“If we decide there’s a low level of interest in the (non-union) games, we may decide there are better things for our pro football writers to be doing, “

Darrell Christian, Associated Press: “We’ve told our people who’ll be at the stadiums this weekend to be on their toes, to be looking for things they wouldn’t normally be looking for, like looking at picket lines, fan reaction. . . . We’re going to report on the games but that might not be the most important thing we do.”

“We’ll be looking at the quality of the games as much as the numbers in the stat sheets.”

Vince Doria, assistant managing editor, sports, Boston Globe: “My feeling is that despite the quality of these games, since they count in the standings, we’re obligated to cover them.

“The Patriots are playing the Browns here Sunday, and we’ll have people outside the stadium. We’ll have stories on what’s happening outside and inside the stadium.

“We do have a union here, the Boston Globe Employees Assn., and a couple of guys have told me it’s a bit of a problem for them, to cross a picket line, but no one has told me they won’t cross one.

“My feeling is, we’re not paying to get into these games, we’re reporting on what may be terrible games and we may report that no one showed up. We’re journalists and we’re compelled to report on what happens.

“I can see the NFL coming off Page 1 at our paper. Significant numbers of Pats’ ticket-holders are turning in their tickets, but the Pats won’t tell us how many. I want to see what the TV numbers are like.

“Will McDonough, who writes for us and does commentary for CBS, told me he has a gut feeling these (non-union) games may be a one-week situation, that the owners will dump them if the response is weak.

“We’re operating under the assumption this thing won’t last very long. . . . I don’t think the free agency issue is compelling enough to keep the players out a long time.”

Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times: “I suspect the curiosity level will be very high for this weekend’s games. . . . We’ll cover the Rams and Raiders with a game story writer and a columnist. At a regular NFL game, we’d use a game story, a columnist and a sidebar (related feature) writer.

“We’d also normally have a separate story on every NFL game, but this weekend we’ll have (just) one roundup.”

Bill Knight, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “We’ll probably have two city-side reporters outside the Kingdome Sunday, looking at the picket line, and we’ll have some kind of fan survey inside the stadium.

“Our readers, I think, are anti-both. We did a fan survey at the last regular game, and the fans were very critical of the players, but they didn’t have much sympathy for the owners, either.

“We think the novelty of the strikebreaking teams will wear off very quickly, and we’ll be down to one writer and one sidebar writer for the home games. Normally, we’ll have four or five writers. However, if the crowds get down to, say, 20,000, that’s still more than the Mariners or the Sonics get.”

Gene Quinn, Chicago Tribune: “It would be silly for us to present these games as if they were normal NFL games. On the other hand, we can’t ignore them, either. We’ll run a full report on who won and lost, the stats, the standings and a scaled-down version of our capsule comments column.

“This thing is like everyone’s biological clock is out of kilter--there’re no rules as to how we’re supposed to do this.

“As a professional editor, my personal feeling is that the two sides can bludgeon each other to the end of time, for all I care. My concern is being very careful about how we handle this, to present a perspective for our readers of both sides. . . . So that’s why we’ll have photographers on the 50-yard line and on the picket line, and writers in the press box and in the parking lot.

“(It bothers me that) media critics and a lot of fans think the NFL is a huge publicity machine, grinding out grist for the newspapers. I can see where that perception comes from, that there’s a symbiotic relationship between sports sections and the events they cover . . . that the NFL leads us along.

“I know that not to be the case, but the perception comes ringing home every time there’s a work stoppage.

“Attendance at these games will tell us a lot. If a baseball team here is in last place and no one’s at the games, it comes off Page 1 and goes to Page 5. The NFL is no different. And if there’s no legitimate news story on the strike or the games, it’s obviously not a Page 1 story.”

Arnie Robbins, executive sports editor, Minneapolis Star and Tribune: “The fact that the Twins are in the playoffs makes life a lot easier for me right now.

“A week from Sunday, we’ll have Game 4 of the playoffs, on a day the Vikings would have been playing the Bears here.

“We’re a strong union paper, but as far as our writers crossing the picket line, that hasn’t been an issue at all.

“We’ll cover the non-union games, but we won’t give anything like the space we would to regular NFL games.”

George Solomon, Washington Post: “We’re going to have free-lancers and regular Post stringers (writers hired from other areas) in most NFL cities sending us memos Sunday, and someone on our desk will put together stories for Monday on events inside and outside the stadiums.

“We will always have someone outside the stadium, no matter how long the strike lasts. You have to be prepared for that.

“We’re a guild paper, but the picket lines are not a problem for any of our people--or if they are, no one has addressed it to me.”

Dave Smith, Dallas Morning News: “We’ll put together a major piece Sunday on reaction from around the country. We’ll have stringers from other cities feed us material.

“If the strike is a long one, we might cut back on NFL coverage by about half. But again, that’s hard to say now, because it’s hard to gauge the interest level of the strike games.

“I think we’ve already reached the point where our readers are tired of reading labor-relations stories. Readership (on the subject) has really fallen off, I think.”

David Tucker, United Press International: “The marching orders we’ve given to our beat writers are to keep two things in mind: Go heavy on the news value of the games, but don’t exclude what happens on the field.

“We want stories that will tell us what the crowds are doing inside and outside the stadiums, how receptive the crowds are to the games, and to be cautious about announced attendance figures. We want all our people to ask for turnstile counts.

“This first weekend, we think the fans will be the bigger part of the story. When we’re done Sunday, we’ll probably have done as much volume as we would have for a regular NFL Sunday, but the emphasis will be dramatically different.

“One thing to keep in mind if this is a long strike: They play football in other places, like Canada, that we call second- or third-rate football. But Canadians seem to like it. I suspect these games this weekend will be sloppy, but later on, who knows? Fans won’t have anything to compare it to. Memories get short. Maybe if the games are competitive, the fans will respond.”

Joe Vecchione, New York Times: “We’re covering the games. If they’re terrible games, it’s still news. We’ll cover both the Giants and Jets as we normally would, and we’ll do roundups on the other games, but we’ll be covering what’s happening outside the stadiums, too.

“We’re a guild paper and the guild supports the strike, but we’re going to cover the news.”

Vic Ziegel, New York Daily News: “We probably won’t fill the same amount of space for pro football games we normally would, but we’ll have related stories, like stories about the (striking) Jets and Giants players at home, watching the scab games. Normally, we’d have those writers at the stadium.”