Press excels at promoting prep sports

Two weeks ago, we expressed outrage in this space over the Illinois High School Association's heavy-handed attempt to impose control over press coverage of the state football tournaments.

At the time, the IHSA, in an 11th-hour attempt at intimidation over a photo reprint dispute, had blocked photographers from several newspapers, including ours, from field access at the football championships.

Since then, the organization has gone to court to sue three newspapers and the Illinois Press Association over the industry's long-held practice of selling reprints of the pictures it takes.

There's no denying that newspapers sell reprints of their photos. Partly, that's because parents or friends of the athletes ask if there's any way they can get them. Partly, it's in keeping with the community aspect of what we do.

And partly, we agree, it's because the reprints provide a revenue stream -- a minuscule one, but a revenue stream all the same.

In reality, those extra photos on news Web sites generate interest in the sports but don't begin to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Daily Herald invests in the sports journalists, editors, photographers and correspondents who document our local teams. They don't even begin to pay for the tens of thousands of dollars the newspaper invests in mileage expenses and equipment costs to cover high school sports.

What the IHSA seems to keep forgetting is that the press is not the enemy.

Our coverage, and the coverage of other newspapers, promotes high school sports in a big way, an important way. In an unmatched way. Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- compares in promoting high school sports to the coverage from the local newspaper.

And it's been that way for decades.

For decades.

Not just since recently, when some ambitious entrepreneurs decided there was a way they could make some money off prep sports.

But for decades. And for always.

There is a lot to like about the IHSA with its incredible Web site, its growth and handling of its state tournaments and its emphasis on academics and fairness over wins and losses. Clearly, its staff has a lot to handle with all the sports and ventures that clamor for its attention.

That said, not allowing secondary use of photos on news media Web sites and denying access goes against its stated beliefs of promoting the high school experience.

The IHSA's mission statement, as outlined in its constitution, is "to provide leadership for the development, supervision and promotion of interscholastic competition and other activities in which its member schools engage."

For decades, newspapers have been part of the same mission, though perhaps it has not been fully recognized by the IHSA. What a shame it is that two institutions that should be partners instead for now are adversaries.