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Covering itself properly
In an ideal business environment, there'd be a constant sense of give and take, of new ideas exposed and acted on, and of general collaboration.

Of course, real world office politics, differences in intelligence levels and just plain human frailty all conspire to render such a workplace wonderland quite unfeasible.
That plain reality of life probably does more to explain Major League Soccer's attempts at media relations than anything else: businesses don't do "creative" particularly well, and media relations is part art, part craft.

When they do leave creative to the craftsmen, they often hire cheaply, quickly and without sufficient investigation, getting people who are happy, and competent, but lacking any real broader vision or skill.

Why is this important? Simple: we're living in age of self-definition when it comes to media coverage. The standards that newspapers were held to for generations have been eliminated like so many newsroom jobs. Consequently, traditional media are doing a horrible job of the kind of "nut and bolts" intricate coverage required in any news niche — particularly true in sports and entertainment.

It's even worse in the case of secondary sports like soccer, still angling for acceptance with many North Americans. Instead of having one of two dedicated specialists to cover teams, reporters who would dig and break stories daily, most newspapers give glancing coverage at best to the sport. Some occasionally cover it with rotations of their exceedingly small sports staff, or with freelancers. Some TV outlets don't even bother.

Meanwhile, outside of the odd comprehensive blogger or goal.com, the general public -- thousands of whom follow soccer closely -- is left with the ongoing frustration of feeling like they never quite know what's going on.

MLS has made some strides towards remedying this, first with regular news contributions from staff writers to each of the teams' websites. But these have often reflected a minimalist, "let's only tell them what we need to" approach.

Some fan-run sites such as RedNation or similar bloggers have tried to take up the mantle, but are undercapitalized as businesses and, in most cases, staffed by eager-but-inexperienced writers with very little of the knowledge of the craft of journalism required to be consistently intriguing and to offer broad-scope beat coverage. Even the biggest soccer blogger in the U.S., Ives Galarcep, does not support himself financially with his blog.

Consequently, MLS coverage pails compared to that of the sport overseas, though even there, journalism layoffs in the private sector are contributing to serious declines in standards.

The solution -- assuming MLS even recognizes the need for improvement — is a recommitment by the league and its teams to better communications. First, they need to pay more attention in hiring, going after reporters who know the angles the public wants to see and giving them the leeway to produce MLS stories without jumping through yards of red tape or censorship. They need to understand the craft of storytelling themselves before deciding who would be a good fit.

Second, they need to dramatically expand on their use of video, not simply via the pay services and clips on the league's own site, but by aggressively pursuing relationships with news sites and newspaper websites that will repost it for free, and ensure the legal clearances to do so are in place long before it's an issue, then sending video out. The worst thing proactive communicators can do is to not be proactive, and that's what waiting for the media to come to you is.

Third, they need to realize that, often, they are not supplementing the media or aiding the media -- they ARE the media. TFC has been a leader in this regard with respect to live streaming broadcasts and taking part in community television and events. Now if it could only show the league the rest of the picture by ensuring all of those ventures feature solid reporting, and that there are daily stories on its website that pull back the veil on the team.