WVSSAC and W.Va. media hope to crack down on fake media attending games

Sep. 16—Last Wednesday in Parkersburg, the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission met with the media committee, comprised of members of West Virginia media, to discuss issues related to the ability of the media to cover high school athletics.

I attended the meeting as a member of the media committee. While my experience was dwarfed by fellow media members like Doug Huff of the West Virginia Sports Writers Association and Mark Martin of WCHS, I got to listen and learn and occasionally give my thoughts on the matters discussed.

Here are the big things we talked about in the meeting, and how it'll help improve coverage of high school sports in West Virginia.

Verifying attending media at events

Recently, a problem arose where there were too many people on the sidelines of games claiming to be media. Many are legitimate, but others are not. The goal of this discussion was to determine how to allow only the legitimate media and not the illegitimate media.

This mostly happens at big events, like championships for football and basketball, which already have a large number of media attending.

We determined the culprit to be a lack of vetting requests for media passes. Sure, requests for passes weren't guaranteed, but passes could still be given out to illegitimate media or transferred to non-media to give them sideline access to games.

A lot of these illegitimate media at events pose as photographers or videographers. It's made obvious by their cheering for teams and lack of understanding where they're allowed to be on the field or court, a problem especially noticeable at basketball games.

The solution? Work with Huff and the WVSWA to vet media who request a pass. The WVSWA will provide a list of its membership to the WVSSAC, which will reference the list to determine who to give media passes to.

With the list in hand, the WVSSAC can provide passes that are good for the whole year, including championship events.

The WVSWA has its own way of vetting members, so it can't just be anyone to pay the membership fee and be added to that list. Should there be any late additions to the membership list, the WVSWA will update the WVSSAC.

And to prevent passes from being transferred to other people, names will be included on the passes, and photo identification will be required.

TV and radio stations will provide their own list of event workers to the WVSSAC for championship events. Photographers who aren't members of the WVSSAC will have to provide a copy of their West Virginia business license to get passes for championship events.

Schools will only be given one media pass as opposed to two as in previous years. The reasoning is that one photographer is really necessary for year books, so it doesn't make sense to provide two for the schools.

Updated WVSSAC website

The recently WVSSAC updated its website to be easier to navigate and look nicer than previously. It accomplished both, and all the information from the previous website can be found on the new one.

Schedules and rosters

When visiting the WVSSAC website, media can find rosters and schedules for all sports of every member school in West Virginia. Unfortunately, not every roster is up to date.

Some rosters don't provide numbers for players in sports where players are identified by their jersey number. Other rosters haven't even been updated recently, with one media member at the meeting saying he found rosters from 2019 still on the website as the most recent roster.

The WVSSAC will make it a point to coaches and athletic directors to keep rosters updated for the website. The WVSSAC isn't sure how it will enforce this, however, without overstepping.

The WVSSAC will also look into archiving past rosters on the website for media to reference.

State championship events

For the Super Six football championships, the WVSSAC will hold press conferences for media to ask coaches questions after each state championship game. The losing team will be presented first, followed by the winning team.

For the state soccer championships, the WVSSAC will set up a tent at the field for the A and AA games for media to use. Media members at the meeting mentioned how, in previous years, they had limited visibility from the press box already at the field used.

For the state basketball championship, media will vote upon a most outstanding player for both boys and girls of each of the four classifications. This is not sponsored by the WVSSAC, but will be given during the awards presentation ceremony.

My thoughts

I'll admit, I wasn't there last year to witness the illegitimate media problem discussed, but I can see why it is a problem. And I've already seen how not having updated rosters can be a pain. I'd rather not have to go to the public address announcer before every game and take a picture of the roster on my phone.

I think the solutions created will, for the most part, take care of the problems. The vetting process will help immeasurably. I don't know for sure if we'll see the problem with updated rosters be completely corrected, but I can see how we'll get more accurate rosters on the website.

From what I understand, these changes will go into effect this school year. Hopefully, media coverage of big games will be better for readers like you to enjoy.

Reach Colin C. Rhodes at 304-367-2548