If you’ve never read Moneyball, do it. Even if you’re not a baseball fan — if you’re reading it correctly, it’s more of a business book than a baseball book.
The book in a rough summary: The Oakland A’s are a low-budget Major League Baseball team trying to compete with teams that have much, much higher payrolls. To make up the difference, the A’s general manager has to find the undervalued traits in players, enabling him to buy low-cost players who actually outproduce the high-cost players on the richer teams.
He relies on statistical analysis to find these overlooked players, with on-base percentage the biggest overlooked factor. By targeting players who fit his criteria, which often went directly against how baseball teams have been run for years, he’s able to stay competitive with his wealthy competitors despite an enormous economic disadvantage.
Sound familar to journalists? It should. We’re the Yankees.
So what’s the undervalued trait that bloggers — the A’s — have leveraged to sometimes put themselves at the level of professional journalists?
Passion.
Every blogger has it, and it shows. They enthusiastically spend much of their time reading about their subject. They spend their free time interacting with others who share their passion. They bathe in information that matters to them.
A large percentage of journalists, meanwhile, hate their jobs. Those who don’t probably only hate half of their jobs. Even the I-was-born-for-this reporters out there get plenty of assignments they’d love to push aside.
In this category, bloggers have elbowed their way into a tremendous advantage. I’ve learned far more about my Philadelphia Phillies by reading The Good Phight and Phuture Phillies than I ever could from reading the sports pages of any Pennsylvania newspaper. Frankly, it’s not even close. Phuture Phillies in particular goes into a depth no newspaper could accomplish, and there’s a large community of grateful Phans who follow it. I’m one of them — I have no need to ever read a story about the Phillies in my own newspaper when I have those blogs in my Google Reader. The whole premise that newspapers need to be saved falls apart when these blogs are whooping up on newspapers the way they are.
Journalists, meanwhile, are taught to suffocate our passion. It creates lifeless writing, and sometimes lazy reporting. The best journalists can’t be suffocated, or were lucky to be put in a position where their passion is just too strong.
Journalists shouldn’t be passionate about Hillary Clinton or the Philadelphia Phillies — but they should be passionate about politics or sports. I can think of a number of reporters who fit this description.
Now, here’s the interesting post script when it comes to Moneyball: Since the book came out, even the high-budget teams are mimicking its tactics. Most teams are using sophisticated statistical analysis, and most have accepted the gospel of on-base percentage.
So it’s time for journalists to behave like those other MLB teams and catch up to the bloggers on passion. Institute a “20 percent time” philosophy in newsrooms to get more interesting stories in the paper. If necessary, restructure beats so reporters have an interest in what they’re writing about. Ask job applicants what they’d most like to write about, and make a serious effort to connect the two once they’re hired.
Are there other “Moneyball factors” I’m missing?