By Donald R. Winslow
(August 11, 2006) – It looks like at least one of the NFL’s head coaches and his team’s public relations staff have decided they’re going to try to take control of one of the aspects of the media they currently find distasteful, specifically: news photography.
As if the NFL owners’ hush-hush sneak vote earlier this year to ban local television affiliates from the sidelines of all NFL games wasn’t enough, now the Minnesota Vikings head coach – Brad Childress – has told the news media that still and video photography is to “halt immediately” if one of his players is injured during practice.
To make sure no one misunderstands their intent, the Vikings public relations office has warned media that violating the policy will result in “consequences.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Judd Zulgad reported in his paper yesterday that a KSTP-TV photojournalist was focused on Vikings safety Tank Williams during practice last weekend when Williams fell to the ground, screaming, with a broken left kneecap. But the pictures never aired on KSTP-TV, supposedly because of the new Vikings media rules instigated by Childress.
According to Zulgad the Vikings’ new rule says:
“Coach Childress requests the following of photographers: When a player incurs an injury on the practice field, still and video photography of the player is to halt immediately following the occurrence; cameras are asked not to film the player being treated by the medical staff on the field.”
The Star Tribune says that Childress came up with the policy when he was a coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, and it’s a rule that’s also used by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
Zulgad says there was a “lengthy post-practice conversation” between a Vikings official who knew that KSTP had captured the Williams injury and KSTP, and that the team’s message to the station was clear: “Air the video and there will be consequences.”
But KSTP wasn’t the only station who was covering practice with a television camera. Zulgad says KMSP-TV9, a Fox affiliate, also captured Williams when he was injured and while he was on the ground and they did air the footage – in direct violation of the Vikings’ new policy.
KSTP's news director, Chris Berg, told News Photographer magazine, "Here's what our staff has been told: If anything happens at a practice or workout that is open to the public, we will air the video. If we are at a workout or practice that requires a credential to get in, we will comply with the rules set out by the Vikings."
The Minnesota Vikings haven’t exactly had a great relationship with the media in recent years, a situation made worse in October 2005 when an alleged sex party took place on Lake Minnetonka aboard two cruise boats rented by as many as 17 Vikings players, including some of the team’s big-name stars. The sex party included “adult entertainers” who were flown in from other states, according to the investigation.
A lewd tale unfolded of how the team’s annual “rookie party” got out of hand and it came to be known in the press in the days that followed as the “Love Boat Scandal.” When the investigation was over, four Vikings players faced criminal charges, the episode greatly embarrassed the team’s new owner, Zygi Wilf, and it brought then-coach Mike Tice under scrutiny for his leadership abilities.
The “Love Boat Scandal” was the hot topic of discussion for many weeks in print, on television, and on radio call-in shows. The tale of drunkenness and sexual misbehavior by high-profile Minnesota players was clearly out of the realm of the team’s public relations staff’s ability to do anything about, other than to hope the story would just eventually go away. It didn’t. The investigation, criminal charges, and public relations fallout carried on for nearly ten months. Many NFL sports writers concluded that the internal turmoil ended the Vikings’ chances for a successful playoff season and slaughtered the Vikings’ morale. And Vikings’ management and coaches were not at all pleased with the constant press coverage and the accompanying examinations that the scandal brought upon the team.
The “Love Boat Scandal” was described by Sports Illustrated columnist Mike Silver at the time as “the latest in a litany of trouble for the Vikings” and the tawdry episode arrived fresh on the heels of a very rocky off-season for the team, one that was fully chronicled on the front pages of Minnesota’s newspapers and during nightly TV Sports broadcasts. The Vikings’ public relations headaches included, Silver wrote, stories such as “prospective owner Reggie Fowler’s faulty resume, coach Mike Tice’s ticket-scalping mess, (player) Onterrio Smith’s brouhaha over the Whizzinator [a banned device used to circumvent drug use during urine testing] and the trade of All-Pro troublemaker Randy Moss.”
Now after all of those public relations disasters, this season the Vikings want to take control over what photojournalists can and cannot photograph during practice sessions, with the added threat of “consequences” hanging over the heads of news directors, sports editors, and station managers who’ve already had their station’s photojournalists tossed from the sidelines for the upcoming season. The new game sidelines ban has forced them to take an NFL or network pool feed in order to prepare nightly sports reports and highlight shows; this leaves team practice as one of the very few opportunities they have left to get unique footage and stand-up interviews they need to create their own content for broadcast.
Given these circumstances, are Minneapolis television stations likely to break the new rule and show an injured Vikings player, and by doing so risk getting banned from practice too?
The Vikings’ “injury photography ban” can be seen as the just next step in a progressive trend to control what television and still photographers are allowed to witness and report. Because NFL football is a private enterprise, broadcasters and newspapers have no First Amendment claims to sideline access or for a guaranteed presence at team practice like they do for city council meetings, or court proceedings, or state or federal government actions.
Given this protection of private enterprise, in March the National Football League’s 32 team owners at their Spring meeting Orlando, FL, voted unanimously to pass the “NFL Broadcast Cooperation Resolution,” which banned affiliate television photojournalists from shooting from the sidelines during game play. Television photojournalists from local stations in the NFL teams’ area are no longer allowed to shoot from the sidelines during the game, preventing them from capturing game action images to show on news, sports, and highlight shows.
NFL spokesperson Steve Alic told News Photographer magazine afterwards, “The impetus for this was the unauthorized use of game footage that the NFL has seen most recently posted on a television station’s Web site. Use of game footage on Web sites is unauthorized. It’s been a big problem, especially recently. So the resolution’s goal is to curtail unauthorized use of game footage.”
An NFL spokesperson said that team owners were “within their rights” to control what the news media has access to during games, and as for team practice sessions there are no NFL rules or policies that mandate that practice be open to the media at all. Some NFL teams allow a media presence for only a few minutes at the beginning of practice, like coverage of a rock concert’s opening minutes. And some teams have closed practice to the media completely.
As far as the NFL is concerned, it appears, a rule such as the one by the Vikings prohibiting the photographic coverage of an injured player during practice is well within the authority of the team to implement and enforce. It remains to be seen what the Vikings will do, if anything, if footage or still photographs of another injured player are broadcast or published.
