News-Record.com

The NCAA evicted a Louisville Courier-Journal reporter from the Super Regional won by the University of Louisville Cardinals this week. The alleged miscreant was doing his job, which was to write a live blog.
It appears, however, that the NCAA has specifically enumerated live blogging as forbidden fruit of the tree of access. At least this week.
Funny.
Come to think of it, Chuck Klosterman of ESPN.com did a live blog from the basketball Final Four in April and nobody raised a stink.
Our own Jim Young did some live blogging from the NCAA East regionals in the Swamps of Jersey the previous week.
Do we turn ourselves in now and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court in Indianapolis?
The Courier-Journal is wrapping itself in the First Amendment, and while that sounds good, it's legally questionable. The NCAA is not a state actor. If it were, it would have the legal authority to compel people to testify during rules-violations investigations. But there is an issue of precedent and slippery-slope thinking. What if others -- MLB, the NFL, etc. -- follow this precedent?
** Can radio stations no longer do live updates from games in progress?
** If a player suffers a serious injury during a game, are we forbidden from writing a live, in-game update on his condition?
** Let's say the Red Sox, armed with a magic number of 1, are playing in the eighth inning when word arrives that their nearest competitor in the standings has lost. The race is over. The magic number has been achieved. While playing a game, the Sox have become champs. Is the Boston Globe forbidden from mentioning this?
The logic on this NCAA ban is way off. It presumes that live blogging infringes on rights owned by TV broadcasters and/or live GameTracker-like Web sites. False.
"If I send somebody to blog on something, I don't want play-by-play," News & Record sports editor Joe Sirera just said over my left shoulder. "I want to know what the injury is if somebody gets hurt. I want to know why a coaching strategy is working or not."