TUPAVIEW: “TUPA-STYLE OF REPORTING”

By Mike Tupa

Oct. 7, 2025

BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT

I wanted to temporarily put on hold my ongoing column series about Rusty Kimura and Rey Urbano in order to talk about my philosophy of sports coverage.

Throughout the years, I have had a handful of people quite upset at me because of my upbeat style of reporting. They felt I should be more negative, more focused on the mistakes or shortcomings of teams and players.

I suppose some think this swims against the tide of popular opinions on what journalists are supposed to be — mostly critical, nit-picky, without regard for people’s feelings, disruptive, thought-provoking.

I can only speak for myself and my philosophy.

I’ve never believed the title of “journalist” or “reporter” or “writer” gives me an inherent right or duty to tear someone down or to blast them for what I perceive as a bad performance. 

To put it simply, the primary duty of a reporter is to tell it like it is. We are supposed to be the modern-day messengers of truth, to shine a light on the facts — as best as we can uncover them — and leave it up to our readers to determine what is really so.

The challenge is, each reporter is working from his or her own sense of perception, feelings and interpretation of the information.

That’s why objectivity is such a crucial virtue for good reporting — in order to establish credibility correspondents have to develop the ability of separating their prejudices and personal philosophies from what they are writing about.

I’ve always believed it’s a sacred trust in attempting to accurately reflect someone’s thoughts — whether or not I agree with them — or to try to present the most pertinent facts of an event, regardless of how painful.

I’ve never believed a media writer or broadcaster possesses the legitimate right to try to demean someone that they don't agree with or to make a saint out of someone they admire. That kind of subjectivity belongs in editorials where readers and listeners understand they are receiving the reporter’s opinion and not a factual-based report.

But let me get back to the point.

We all have to choose the platform from which we report. Truth is like an elephant — it can be seen from many sides, from different angles. The best reporters and writers know how to tie all those things together so that the reader understands what an elephant is in truth.

It’s hard enough to paint an accurate picture of a person or an event without muddying it up with personal bias and agenda.

Here are the planks of the platform from which I have reported on individuals and games.

— Every kid that has gone out for a team and devoted themselves honestly to grueling practices and who has sacrificed time and casual fun in order to represent their school deserves respect.

— No athlete is perfect. No person is perfect. In almost every action, no one purposely makes a mistake. Mistakes — or flaws — do not define what an athlete or a person is. It’s true, mistakes are part of the story of a sports event and need to be reported on in order to try to give an accurate account. But there’s nothing that inherently demands the full emphasis of a story has to be on the mistake or mistakes.

— The purpose of reporting on youth sports is to not intentionally tear down a kid’s confidence or to embarrass them to a mass audience. Report the mistakes or flaws and let the readers decide what is important. But don’t go out of your way to dump extra burning coals of misery on the athlete. 

— The purpose of youth sports is to emphasize confidence, teamwork, devotion, commitment, loyalty, focused work, discipline, leadership, goal-setting and unified purpose.

— I try to write about a kid the way I would want a reporter to write about my kid, both in highlights and struggles — with honesty but empathy.

— I try to look beyond the scoreboard and focus on the positive things the kids did. There’s an old saying that: “You can’t judge a day by the weather,” and I believe in the idea that you can’t judge a player’s performance by the final score.

— I believe success is relevant. I believe the kid that finishes last in a cross country race — as long as he or she truly tries their hardest — is just as important and relevant to the competition as the kid that won it. Yes, the kid that won it deserves great praise and attention. But the other kids also merit the respect of having conquered the course.

— I love writing about victories. Fans love reading about victories. I don’t like writing about losses. Fans read about losses out of necessity and not enthusiasm. I recognize that winning is important — it should always be the main motivation of any athlete. But more important to me is that the athletes gave their all. There are two kinds of winners — the person who finished first and the people who pushed themselves to the limit. I try to recognize both.

— I want to encourage kids to stay with their teams or with their sport, to do their best, to learn vital lessons that will help them be more successful, happy people as adults and to try to enjoy the process regardless of winning or losing.

— I’ve never seen my role as trying to publicly excoriate a coach or an athlete because of a lack of competitive success. Some reporters might feel differently. That’s their choice. In my opinion, being a reporter doesn’t inherently make a person God or gives them a special privilege to reorder people’s lives through the force of subtle or blatant criticism — unless it’s on the opinion page. Our job as reporters, as I see it, is to try to report the pertinent facts and let readers decide for themselves and let those in charge act according to the situation.

In my clumsy way I suppose those things above are the Tupa style of sports reporting.

I’ve learned much about objectivity and the “tough” stories through some rugged career experiences.

In one of my towns, I had to pursue an ongoing story about criminal charges filed against a school official and members of the school board. This was hard, because I personally liked all these people.

But, as the court reporter, I had an obligation to keep the public fairly informed of what was happening. It was an unpopular task. A group of the town’s most prominent leaders sent a jointly-signed letter to the editor — one of the signees being my local religious leader — criticizing our pursuit of this story. But we followed it steadfastly to the legal conclusion.

In another town, a high school football coach wrote a letter to the editor — which we published — highly critical and even offensive to me about how he believed I was prejudiced in favor of reporting on the other high school football team in town. It wasn’t true but instead of becoming bitter and spiteful I tried to change the perception. A few years later when I left this town the same coach wrote a personal letter thanking me for my sports coverage of both schools.

Other similar experiences in both non-sports and sports reporting have provided me with a pretty wide berth of exposure to what it means to be a battle-tested chronicler and writer.

All these things have helped me become what I am becoming. I believe a person should never stop trying to learn and adjust.