Citizen Journalism and the U.S. Soccer Media

As readers of Inside Minnesota are fully aware, I was at the heart of reporting the story of the battle for control of Division II soccer that took place this past fall and early winter. Inside Minnesota Soccer was actually reporting on some of these issues for over a year, but stepped up the coverage last spring when the Team Owners Association started to make noise about their unhappiness with the United Soccer League.

IMS and partner site The Kartik Report covered the issue when no one else was. Both Kartik Krishnaiyer from Miami, Florida and I worked hard to dig up information and would almost always collaborate for confirmation of multiple sources and to filter the information we compiled which made the stories reliable and accurate.

Richard Farley, a freelance soccer writer and broadcaster, has done a 3 part audio interview with me, Brian Quarstad, concerning this journey of citizen journalism that took me through twists and turns this past year. Please check out Richard’s site for Part 1 of the podcast called “Citizen Journalism and the U.S. Soccer Media, Part I” and Part II. Check back for Part III.

A huge thanks to Richard for caring not only about the story, but the story within the story.

Here is Richard’s prologue to the story:
This weekend, I had Brian Quarstad back on the show. Brian is the owner of Inside Minnesota Soccer, a web site that came to prominence over the last year for it’s coverage of the saga in the second division of United States soccer that eventually led to a United States Soccer Federation-run league for 2010.

Brian and Kartik Krishnaiyer worked the story for over a year, serving as the chief outlets for reporting news of the Team Owners Association’s desire to leave United Soccer Leagues and form what would become the new North American Soccer League. Along the way, they encountered a troubling paradox in U.S. soccer media: The current landscape needs citizen journalists to fill the voids left by a mainstream sports media that is still warming to soccer, yet those attempting to fill that void still face a credibility gap.

“Blogger” is still a pejorative.

I started covering Brian and Kartik’s reporting over six months ago, and it quickly became apparent to me that they were as much as part of the story as the leagues themselves. Some would disagree with that, seeing the storytellers independent of the story. But in Brian Quarstad telling the story as opposed to authors at ESPN, Yahoo, Goal, Sports Illustrated – or even bloggers like Ives Galarcep – we saw the ability of citizen journalism to do the same work that we’re traditionally seen from better-backed, professional entities.

It is a testament to Brian and Kartik that they continue being the leads for this story even when it transcended into the main stream. Reportedly, when the USSF announced their 2010 division two solution, there were three times as many people on the conference call as had dialed in for the announcement of Bob Bradley as coach of the national team.

How was Brian able to cover this story? He’s one man in Minnesota, but this was a story that stretched from Vancouver to Puerto Rico, Montreal to Brazil (thanks to Traffic Sports’ involvement). What did he go through to do so? How was his work received? What were the obstacles?

Most importantly, what does his role in the story tell us about the place of citizen journalism in our soccer media landscape?

As Brian mentions in the interview, the United States has more soccer blogs than any nation in the world, and for better or worse, they have become part of the core of soccer coverage in the U.S.

To talk about the NASL/USL story, his role in it, and how the story reflects our soccer culture, I welcome Brain Quarstad back to Inside the Six.

Please Go Here for the podcast.