This deal, actually, is old news.
A few years ago, I put out a short memo to all the team PR people saying that we'd love to receive submitted feature stories from them about their drivers. Like any other news agency in the world, we want to have unique stories that our readers would like to see. The only requirements we had was that the stories be written to AP style (an industry standard) and that they give us the exclusive on the piece for at least 24 hours.
It's important to note that we're talking about feature stories here, not breaking news. Breaking news is just that, something that's happening right now. We were looking for more of what you might see on 20/20, a behind-the-scenes look at what drivers do, versus what's on the nightly news. You routinely see all the big news agencies running the same stories -- i.e. bomb went off in Iraq today, etc… -- but 20/20 or 60 Minutes run stories that only they have, at least in the beginning. Same with us -- a new sponsor is breaking news. We all get it at the same time, for the most part. Feature stories can be run at any time.
Somehow, (I wish to God I had saved the memo) this simple memo was misconstrued as the heavy-handed NHRA wants all stories for us and us alone. Nothing could be further from the truth. We applaud the various websites that provide coverage of our sport. If we didn't want them around, I wouldn't think that the media department would offer them credentials. And trust me, the media room is always full. I only use one seat.
Bobby Bennett of CompPlus.com is a close, personal friend and he does a great job over there. He has a staff of writers doing their own thing and I do mine. Obviously, the lead story position on NHRA.com is a coveted spot. That's why we wanted some exclusivity.
If I wrote a story about Tony Schumacher's Christmas break and made it the lead story, I promise you Bobby wouldn't want to immediately send one of his staffers out to write a similar story. He'd want something totally different.
We have our own guidelines for what ranks as a lead story and work to fill them as we construct our own stories.
If every website had exactly the same news, why would we need more than one website?
The bottom line is this: drag racing coverage of (almost) any kind is good. We encourage it every chance we get, which was what I was trying to do with the original memo I mentioned. To date, only two or three PR people have taken me up on the offer.
The other thing I'd like everyone to keep in mind is that we always respect the wishes of our racers. If Don Prudhomme asks me not to run anything about his new sponsor until it's official, I will always respect that, regardless of the fact everyone pretty much knows who it is at this point.
There are hundreds of things I know that will never see the light of day because they were told to me "off the record." There are pending deals we know about that we will respect the team owner's request to keep quiet about until they tell us otherwise. We don't want to risk screwing up someone's multi-million dollar deal because we just had to be the first people in the world to tell everyone it might happen. That's why we don't have a rumor section. We think they do more harm than good.
I hope this clears everything up. Aren't you glad the season starts soon so we can talk about racing?
Regards,
Rob Geiger
