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I’ve been entrenched in Bengals camp the past six days (or is it seven or eight days? It is not easy to keep track of anything when you’re in this isolation booth), and I’ve spent some of my time watching the Hard Knocks crew put together the TV program you’ll watch on HBO later this month.

Coming into camp, I had an impression: a bunch of overzealot cameramen and producers and sound guys and boom operators who were going to run roughshod over everybody in an attempt to get the juiciest soundbite or the coolest-looking video. Like pests. How could they not, I thought? If you’ve watched the show in the past, the cameras seem to be everywhere, in the meeting rooms, in players’ dorm rooms, in everybody’s face, gathering every little piece of information. How could the crew and its cameras not be maddening for everybody – the players, the coaches and the rest of the media? How could they not be locusts?

Instead, you don’t really notice them – which is a pleasant surprise. Yeah, when Bengals strong safety Chinedum Ndukwe hurt his hand Wednesday morning and saw a camera zoom in nearly as close as the trainer examining his fingers, he seemed a little startled by that. But overall, the crew has been very respectful and unobtrusive. In fact, a couple times a few scribes were interviewing players, and Hard Knocks just sneaked up behind us and quietly listened in with their tall boom mikes over our heads. We didn’t know they were there until a few questions into the process.

So far, it seems to be a good experience for everybody involved.

That said, I don’t know how in the hell the Hard Knocks will put together a riveting program based on the practices I’ve seen. I guess, they’ll throw in some stirring music, and, let’s face it, a few slow-motion shots can make anything seem more exciting. As practices go, though, it’s awfully monotonous. Apparently, Hard Knocks gathers 200 hours of footage to make a single one-hour show. I’m actually really interested to see how this is done, because this side of the sausage-making is less than thrilling.

On the plus side, one of the boom operators that I see every day is sporting a mustache similar to this*. So, we’ve got that going for us.

*How this guy blows his nose or eats ice cream is beyond me.

There’s been talk recently on some journalism web sites I frequent about how college athletic departments are hiring sports writers to write for their official sites. A new dearth of guys have been hired – DePaul taking in a former Chicago Trib staffer and the University of Virginia grabbing a guy from the Richmond Times-Dispatch are two recent examples – and at least one major conference has done the same (I’ve also written a few articles this summer for the Atlantic 10′s Web site).

I, of course, began writing part-time for the University of Cincinnati’s Web site in August 2008, Xavier gets some help from a local Cincinnati writer and Miami (Ohio) will join the parade this year as well.

It’s becoming … well … it’s becoming normal. And it seems like attitudes in the industry have changed.

Four years ago, when I worked at the Cincinnati Post, I never would have imagined myself working for UC*. Frankly, I thought, it wouldn’t have reflected well on me as an objective journalist.

*Although I don’t receive a paycheck from the school. My money comes from IMG,** a company which works with UC in house on marketing and other behind-the-scenes goals.

**To me, this is an important distinction, although whenever I mention it to anybody else, the response I typically receive in return is a rolling of the eyes and a “Yeah, whatever dude.”

Hell, I can remember talking to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports a few years ago inside the Reds clubhouse, saying, “Is it weird that you’re not working for a newspaper anymore and that you’re just online? Aren’t you worried about your job security?” He assured me that he wasn’t and that it was the best career move he made. Now, he’s one of the top baseball writers around. And my newspaper died.

Before, if you wrote for Rivals.com or Scout.com or the school’s Web site, you were a homer*** and deserving of scorn. Now, those jobs are gold.

***Look at definition No. 4

A good friend of mine, Larry Williams, who seemed to have a pretty good job covering Clemson athletics for the Charleston, S.C., paper left the print world and began working for Clemson’s Rivals.com site last year. He makes more money, and honestly, he has more job stability. He seems to be really happy these days.

Now, if you’re working for one of these sites, you’re not spit upon by print guys. Now, print guys are the ones who covet those opportunities.

Which leads me to this: how are these sites – any site for which a sports journalist writes – going to make money? Obviously, college administrators are trying to build their sites as legit news producers, because of the objective journalists who now work for them. That leads to more credibility for the site. That leads to more page hits from fans. That leads to more ad revenue. That leads us to the promised land.

So far, it’s unclear whether this is a winning combination.

I know. however, the Cincinnati Bengals have benefited from forward thinking like this. About a decade ago, they hired Geoff Hobson, formerly of the Cincinnati Enquirer, to produce news for their site. He does a wonderful job at Bengals.com, and he can be as objective as he needs to be. He’s legit, the site is legit, and now that the Dayton Daily News, Columbus Dispatch and Clear Channel Communications won’t be covering the team on a regular basis – leaving only the Enquirer and Hobson – Bengals.com will only grow in importance.

It’s not weird or homerific to work for an online only site, even if it is for Bengals.com or gobearcats.com. I get that now. These are the places to go. But is it the solution? Can these sites – or more importantly, can I – be making money in this racket 50 years from now in this system?

What about a newspaper’s Web site? Or anybody other than ESPN? Can sports journalism be produced for the WWW and make money? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps a new approach is needed. ESPN is trying it by localizing its web content in Chicago, LA, New York and Dallas. Some see this as the apocalypse, because it’s seen as bad news for newspapers. I don’t. I see it as growth in a business that many think are dying (I prefer the word ‘evolving’). If ESPNCincinnati.com came calling, I’d be picking up the phone before it finished its first ring. ESPN, for all its faults, is trying something new. The network deserves credit for that.

And so is CBSSports.com****

****Now, finally, we’ve come to the point of the post. Only 750 words into this monstrosity.

About a month ago, I was contacted by the managing editor of CBSSports.com to talk about this new idea. Basically, CBS was going to embed an NFL beat reporter in each NFL city (by the time the ME talked to me, he already had most of his writers in place). Really localize the product, the managing editor said, while coming up with an innovative way to cover the league

He wanted to know if I was interested in some work. I was.

It’s an interesting concept. Basically, the reporter is a cross between a blogger and a Tweeter, though the ME said the job is actually neither of those things. So, I’m at a practice, giving the masses what CBS is calling Rapid Reports. Basically, 25-30 times a day, I’m observing what’s happening on the field or whatever is around me that piques my interest, I’m typing into the Blackberry they’ve sent me, and I’m sending this Rapid Report into CBS, so CBS then can post my 50-word thoughts all over the web site. It goes onto the Bengals team page on CBS. It goes on to the individual player’s page. It goes to wherever fantasy football participants check.

I’m intrigued by the concept. Yeah, it’s not sports writing the way I’m used to it, but that’s OK (after all, one our most favorite gags after covering a game is to say, “Yeah, it’d be a helluva job if we didn’t have to write.”). But an opportunity is lurking about, and I thought, in my situation, I’d be foolish to turn it down. Although I’m a newspaper guy, I’ve given up hope for writing for another newspaper. The chance to write, though, for a legitimate national Web site might be the next best thing.

It’s not a full-time job, though it could eventually turn into one. But it’s a new idea. It’s something different. It’s exciting. It’s a little bit of good news in an industry that’s specialized recently in nothing but bad. It’s a start.

Geez, it only took six months for the NFL Players Association to run this story. That might be a new record for me.