My new role at PHNX Sports: Cardinals beat writer and columnist/features writer

Over the past month, and ever since the PHNX Coyotes show recorded its final podcast, hundreds of people have reached out to me via text, social media, email or phone to offer both condolences on the end of my NHL reporting career, and well wishes for whatever comes next.

I am finally ready to tell you what’s coming next, but before I do that, I want to thank PHNX Sports GM Saul Bookman and PHNX Sports Vice President of Content Greg Esposito for the rare opportunity they gave me last month. I have written a few stories, I covered a Suns playoff game, I attended a couple of the Cardinals’ organized team activities (OTAs) and I have appeared on a couple of PHNX Hockey shows, but for the majority of May, my bosses gave me what amounted to a sabbatical.

I have worked for some great outlets and I have worked for some not-so-great ones over the course of my 29-year journalism career, but I have never worked for bosses who told me, “Take your time,” and as former Cardinals strength and conditioning coach John Lott used to preach, “Get your mind right.” It was an extraordinary step and it underscores this company’s commitment to taking care of its people.

The pause from the daily grind gave me time to wrap my head around the loss of the beat I had covered in one form or another for 24 years. It gave me time to digest the fact that I’ll be starting from scratch in my new role. It gave me time to ponder what that role should look like, time to meet with my new beat mates, time to develop a game plan, and time to develop written and video content ideas. It gave me time to rekindle relationships that I had built years ago while covering the Suns for 10 years, covering Arizona State athletics for 18 years, covering the Cardinals for eight, and chipping in on Diamondbacks coverage from time to time. 

In my new role, I will serve as both the Cardinals beat writer and as a columnist/features writer for other beats in the Valley, including the Suns, Diamondbacks and ASU athletics.

During the NFL season and for major NFL events or stories, I will spend most of my time as the Cardinals beat writer, bringing much-needed written content to a beat where Bo Brack, Johnny Venerable and Damon Fairall have already cultivated a large following via the informative, opinionated and hilarious PHNX Cardinals show.

During the season, I will appear on the Cardinals show in segments to preview games, provide postgame analysis and discuss major stories and news. I will also travel to Cardinals road games, lending an important boots-on-the-ground perspective this season in Buffalo, San Francisco, Green Bay, Miami, Seattle, Minnesota, Carolina and Los Angeles.

The NFL is a different animal than the NHL. There is less media access, partly because of the glut of media who want time with the league’s executives, managers, coaches and players; partly because the cultures of the respective sports are vastly different in how they view media. The NFL’s culture makes it more difficult to build the sorts of relationships that the NHL embraces. 

I will still make every attempt to break Cardinals news when I can, but the NFL is structured in a way where agents and executives generally give the big scoops to national writers and media-rights holders. Instead, I will try to provide you with in-depth features and analysis; stories that can often be augmented through external sources. 

When the Cardinals’ season is not in session, and when there are not major events such as the draft or the combine, I will spend a good portion of my time cultivating stories on the other beats, whether they come in feature or column form. I even hope to keep my hand in hockey coverage (more on that later).

Over the past several years, I have noticed a tension between the old guard of journalism and the new guard. The new guard thinks the old guard is stuck in its outdated ways; unable to adapt to (and ultimately survive in) a changing sports journalism landscape. The old guard thinks the new guard is inexperienced and too often untrained in the standards of journalism; too emotionally invested in the teams it covers. 

They’re both right. A lot of my former colleagues have been unwilling to adopt some of the new practices that make our product successful from a financial standpoint. Podcasts should be more than just two talking heads and occasional guests. They should be entertaining. Video content should be more than just news conference recordings and postgame interviews. It’s OK to show a little personality. It’s OK to stray into irreverent topics like the recent culinary discussion between Bo, Johnny and Damon. We’re not covering government corruption or the education of our kids here. We’re talking about sports. It’s supposed to be fun and I think there is even a place for coverage to stray into fandom. PHNX has proven that there is an audience for it. 

At their essence, sports are performance art. They drive our imagination, expand what we think is possible and stir our emotions. It’s OK to embrace all of that. 

At the same time, fandom has to be balanced with objectivity. I don’t believe in openly rooting for the teams I cover so you won’t see that from me on the Cardinals beat. Even if I believe I can still be objective, some readers, viewers and sources may not believe it, and that doubt matters, especially when a story breaks that demands hard news coverage. There are also important standards of journalism that have been lost with the new age of sports media; practices that matter. Anything I say or write will be grounded in good reporting. I won’t throw out opinions based on something I read or something I feel. Those opinions will be based on research or interviews with key sources. 

As an example, I am not a draft prospect analyst and I never will be. Too many journalists think that because they watch tape and talk to coaches or scouts, they can also evaluate players. Don’t be fooled. They can’t. Only people who are deeply trained in scouting and player evaluation — people who attend oodles of games and workouts — are qualified to be player analysts. The rest are just pretending to be something they are not. That’s a bad precedent for a journalist.

The same goes for game or play breakdowns. If you don’t know all the assignments and intricacies of teams’ schemes, you shouldn’t be breaking down plays because you’re probably going to be wrong a lot of the time.

Instead of offering my opinions on a player or a play, I will turn to the experts who are qualified to speak on those topics. I’ll also be careful with the use of analytics because they are far more suspect in football than they are in baseball, where the metrics can often be reduced to pitcher vs. batter instead of the interactions of 22 players on the field at the same time; some of whose assignments we don’t even know.

More than anything, I think the shift in the sports media landscape has taught me the importance of being accessible to our readers and viewers; the importance of building a community. There is too much of an ivory-tower mentality with the old guard of journalism. A wise former editor once told me that journalists are public servants. That’s the attitude I try to bring into my coverage.

I began this shift while I wrote for The Athletic, I embraced it on Substack when my site grew to 1,400 paying subscribers within a year, and PHNX allowed me to take it to another level alongside Leah Merrall and Steve Peters on the PHNX Coyotes podcast. 

I’ll be active in the Cardinals Discord channel, answering your questions and getting to know all of you. I will attend PHNX Cardinals events, including our upcoming trip to Miami which I hope you’ll also consider attending. I’ll institute monthly mailbags. I’ll be open to your feedback and ideas, but I won’t be fake nice to sell subscriptions. I’ll be authentic. If you piss me off by being rude, or if you offer an ill-informed take, I’ll call you on it. On the flip side, if you have a great idea or take, I’ll give you props.

I want to caution everyone that this will be a slow process. I’m not coming into the Cardinals beat with the breadth of institutional knowledge and sources that I had on the Coyotes/NHL beat. I have to build that over time so I’m coming in softly. I’ll have to earn the executives’, agents’, managers’, coaches’ and players’ trust. I’ll have to earn your trust.

But what I hope to do is help you get to know the executives, managers, coaches and players better. I want to connect you more deeply to the team and its personalities. A good beat writer is a good storyteller. A good beat writer takes you inside a player’s home or inside a coach’s mind.  A good beat writer doesn’t settle for the quotes available to everyone in the news conferences and scrum settings. By and large, the people whom I have covered across all beats are good and interesting people. Their stories are worth exploring in depth.

I also want to be responsive to you. I want to hear from you on a daily basis. What do you want from my Cardinals beat coverage? What types of stories do you want to see me explore? What aren’t we giving you that you need? What stupid thing do I do repeatedly that drives you crazy? I can’t promise all requests will be granted, or that I’ll always agree with your perspective. I’ve been doing this a long time. I understand the constraints and requirements of being a beat writer as well as anyone. But I’ll always listen, and I’ll always keep an open dialogue so long as those conversations are respectful.

I’m looking forward to getting to know the PHNX Cardinals audience. I’m looking forward to getting to know PHNX’s wider audience when I stray outside the Cardinals beat. I’m looking forward to this new challenge. I’m looking forward to serving you.

Top photo: A interview with Larry Fitzgerald at Cardinals training camp in Flagstaff in 2012.

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Email Craig at craig@gophnx.com