Live blogging is far from the center of the business blogging world, but it’s an emerging trend among traditional media — who are looking for ways to join the conversation.

(photo via stock.xchng)

Sadly, it appears the NCAA believes that live blogging falls within its “no live representations of NCAA games” guidelines, and asked a report for the Louisville Courier-Journal to leave an NCAA baseball game:

A sportswriter for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. had his press pass revoked and was ordered to leave a press box during a NCAA baseball tournament Sunday because he was providing online updates, the paper reported today. Brian Bennett allegedly violated a NCAA policy prohibiting such updates from its championship games, the paper said.

“Gene McArtor, a representative of the NCAA baseball committee, approached [Bennett] at the University of Louisville’s Jim Patterson Stadium in the bottom of the fifth inning in the U of L-Oklahoma State game,” the paper reported, adding that McArtor informed Bennett that blogging from such a championship event “is against NCAA policies. We’re revoking the credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.”

Courier-Journal executive editor Bennie L. Ivory claimed the NCAA action was inappropriate and said the newspaper would likely respond.

“It’s clearly a First Amendment issue,” Ivory said in the paper. “This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers. It’s what we did during the Orange Bowl. It’s what we did during the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s what we do.”

While the NCAA has broadcast rights to protect, restricting live blogging seems more than a little odd; are they going to start seizing cell phones to prevent reporters/spectators from reporting halftime scores or sending cell-phone pictures of a game?

A trend? Hardly.

It’s a mistake — the real-life portrayal of which would look like the NCAA spitting into the wind. Trying to stem the tide of instant communication is a losing battle, and the message to newspapers is an interesting one:

“We’re happy to have you report on our tournaments, provided you do so using a media channel that’s fading fast instead of something new.” Wonder how that’s going to play?

Keep engaging, Tom Chandler.

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