The politics of sports

Is the Frontiersman a liberal rag? Or is it just full of conservative propaganda?

Are we Colony lovers? Or is the Frontiersman only true to Wasilla?

In the office today the newest addition to our newsroom asked our managing editor how the general public classifies this paper politically.

The reality is each person has their own label for this newspaper. But that's just like any news source. In that respect, the Frontiersman is no different from the Anchorage Daily News or the Washington Post. Half of the Valley feels like we cater to the bleeding heart liberals, while the other half thinks we only open the door to the heartless Republicans.

But that's just politics. And that will never change. Readers will always accuse a paper of leaning toward the right or the left.

Unfortunately, this does not end with politics. It also has too much to do with local sports.

If I had a nickel for every time someone accused me of favoring Palmer, Wasilla, Colony or Houston, I certainly would not be working at the Frontiersman. I would be busy watching the Chicago Cubs from my box seats at Wrigley Field or vacationing somewhere in the Caribbean. But that is all part of the politics of local sports. Something that I am well aware of, and have learned to deal with. And most of the time it doesn't even bother me. It's actually quite funny, most of the time.

One day I will be accused of never covering a particular school, and the next day a different person will say I cover that same school too much. A Palmer High School booster club member graciously called me Mr. Colony while I was taking photographs of a Palmer game. And I'm a Palmer graduate! And just days later a Colony parent called to ask me to stop covering so many Palmer sports, and start covering Colony.

In my first year at the Frontiersman, a parent asked for the reason why I cover Wasilla so much. Was it because I had a child at WHS? I was only 24 at the time. If I was 24 with a child at WHS, I would have been one busy 8-year-old.

Last week, a reader went as far as calculating the total square inches of photographs of each local basketball team that appeared in the Frontiersman during our coverage of the region hoops tournaments. I wish I had that much spare time.

Of course I am not the first sportswriter to be introduced to the politics of local sports. Like political labels, the accusations of favoritism is common at any newspaper. I have seen my colleagues from different news organizations handle these issues in a variety of ways. Some research their story count for each school to prove their point. Others simply stop covering a particular program after receiving these complaints from parents.

Me, I just keep doing what I have been doing - covering Valley sports with no intentional bias.

I do admit that I do have one bias though - the Cubs.

So if you want any St. Louis Cardinals information in this paper, you can forget about that now.

Jeremiah Bartz (a.k.a. Mr. Colony, a.k.a. Mr. Houston, a.k.a. Mr. Palmer and a.k.a. Mr. Wasilla) is the Frontiersman sports editor.