My first year as the radio pre- and post-game show host for the Kansas City Royals’ flagship station was a difficult one. I’d never done talk radio before, but now I was hosting a call-in talk show after every Royals game. I’d never followed the Royals closely, but now I needed to be an expert on them. I’d never covered a Major League Baseball team on an everyday basis before, but now I was learning how to do so on the fly.
And, I was dealing with listener criticism for the first time.
I came to Kansas City after four years in Binghamton, New York, where I was the radio voice of minor league baseball’s Binghamton Mets and of Binghamton University’s women’s basketball team. I’m sure there were fans who didn’t like my work, but I never heard from them. There were a couple of message boards and blogs that talked regularly about Binghamton basketball, but they focused on the higher profile men’s team. I wasn’t aware of any active boards or blogs that regularly discussed Binghamton media or the Binghamton Mets. Before Binghamton, I did sports play-by-play and news anchoring and reporting for a radio station group in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While there, one of my co-workers directed me to a message board filled with mostly negative comments about personalities at nearly every radio and television station in the area. There were a handful of mildly critical posts about my news-anchoring skills – I even responded to one of them on the message board, using my real name – but I was more concerned with my play-by-play than I was with my news reporting and anchoring, so I didn’t dwell on those negative comments for very long. My stay in Kalamazoo was preceded by a stint in Yakima, Washington where I was the radio voice of minor league baseball’s Yakima Bears, a short-season team with a 76-game schedule. If there were online forums or blogs devoted to Yakima radio or to the Bears, I wasn’t aware of them.
Kansas City was a completely different animal. For starters, its metro area is about 10 times bigger than Binghamton’s. And the Royals, like every Major League Baseball team, has several message boards and blogs devoted to it. There are also a few blogs and message boards covering Kansas City media. Generally speaking, message board and blog posts range from incredibly positive (I love the trade the Royals just made!) to incredibly critical (I hate the trade the Royals just made!) to incredibly uninformed or delusional (The Royals didn’t trade for Alex Rodriguez? Well, then they obviously don’t want to win!). Sometimes, a post that takes the middle ground on a topic can be hard to find.
I knew nothing about any Royals or Kansas City media message boards or blogs until Greg Schaum, my post-game show co-host my first year, directed my attention to some negative posts about me during the first couple of months of that first season. I was called out for pronouncing the name of the Royals ballpark incorrectly (I was calling it COWF-man Stadium my first few weeks, rather than the correct COUGH-man Stadium), for not being from Kansas City, for not being a Royals fan and for being clueless about baseball. Some posts were less tactful than others, but it was clear at least a handful of people thought the new Royals post-game show host was lousy and not credible.
The negative comments definitely stung, mostly because this was foreign territory for me; I’d never gotten feedback in such a hostile and condescending matter before. The rest of the season, I regularly scoured message boards and blogs for comments about me. Most of the feedback was still negative but, after a while, it no longer stung; by obsessing over what others were saying about me, I minimized its impact on my psyche. I also noticed there were fewer comments about me, negative or otherwise, as the season wore on. I interpreted the decrease of comments as a good sign, a sign that the fans were getting used to me, regardless of their feelings about my work.
As my tenure covering the Royals progressed, I became more knowledgeable and more confident in what I was doing and in my approach to the job, which also helped me deal with negativity directed toward me on the Internet. If I’m being true to myself and to my beliefs, I reasoned, I have nothing to worry about. I also joined Twitter, giving me a forum with which to interact with listeners and to show more of my personality. I think Twitter has helped listeners realize I’m a real person who loves talking baseball, even with those who disagree with me. And, people are less likely to be critical of someone they feel they know in some way – no matter how small – and someone who regularly responds to them, as I do on Twitter.
Occasionally, I still do a Google search for message board comments and blog posts about me. Sometimes, people call into my Royals post-game show to tell me how terrible or stupid I am. I actually like reading and hearing negative things about me from time to time, regardless of how off-base the comments may be, because it keeps me humble. If all I heard were positives, I don’t think I’d be as good of a broadcaster; I definitely wouldn’t be as thick-skinned. Besides, the negative comments and blog posts are often the funniest, especially when the author has no idea what he’s talking about, but thinks he does. Some people in media respond regularly to negative things that are written about them online, but I don’t. Most of the time, I think it would be a waste of time to respond and I think jumping on every negative comment or blog post makes one look paranoid and hypersensitive, two adjectives I never want to be used to describe me. I’ve chosen a field in which I’m a (very) minor public figure and I accept the good and the bad that comes with that. Also, if someone really wants me to respond directly to him, he can always call into my show or message me on Twitter.
More than anything, I appreciate the opportunity to work in a market where at least a handful of people occasionally discuss me and my on-air work in a public forum. I don’t aim to be controversial, nor do I say things on the radio simply for effect. But, I know I can’t please everyone all of the time. And, if people are critical of me, that means they’re listening. It would bother me a lot more if I were ignored.
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