[NU Sports] CFB Postseason...Survey Says... (fwd)

Wed Jan 14 10:32:31 CST 2009

Roy makes a good point.  The Harrisburg, PA paper has a separate sports section heavy on high school sports that allows one to grab that and ignore the inconsequential stores that appear above the fold in the front page.  If Russia invaded China that might make page A-12.

John DeGroat
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Roy Lamberton" <rstetson at capps-assoc.com>
> Ben,
> 
> You probably noticed that sports coverage is starting to drift down to the
> prep and youth travel levels because those people will buy a newspaper to
> read about their kid and his or her teammates.
> 
> At the World Series, we have newspaper reporters or stringers from every
> team's home town, and in some cases broadcast teams on both the web and over
> the air back home. I have noticed that more and more papers are contracting
> with our local guys or if they are Gannett, picking up the stories from our
> local papers.
> 
> What is important here is local info. People don't care about the college up
> the street, they're interested in how their local HS or travel team did
> yesterday.
> 
> Add that most College teams (including NU) now close practices to media 3
> days a week, and you can see why we don't have a story-a-day. Even the
> Daily, where the local interest includes the Wildcats, doesn't have a
> football story every day during the season. The ability to cover the team
> just isn't there.
> 
> I once helped build an award winning radio news department at a public
> station down in Texas. Our mantra in the newsroom was that every national
> story should have a local component. The show we created at 5 PM was the
> daily newspaper in town, and the first producer went on the be the editor of
> the local newspaper.
> 
> One more anecdote; Prior to last year, the Delaware American Legion Baseball
> teams could rarely get their scores in the paper. After talking with the
> local sports editor about the league, and finding out what they needed to
> "drag and drop" scores into the paper, we wound up getting coverage of our
> games, and their lead HS reporter at our final two days of the state tourney
> with pictures in the sports section. 
> 
> The key was the local component. Gannett is cutting payrolls, but not at
> their weekly papers because they are read, and are a good mailing conduit
> for color flyers. The big papers, with the big name reporters who have to
> cover the professional teams are finding that there just isn't as much
> support for those pro teams if they don't win every day and unless they take
> that antagonistic stance about the team, nobody buys the paper to read their
> stuff (see Moronetty)
> 
> On the other hand, last year, I did live updates on the Legion site for the
> final 2 games. We had over 1,000 hits from parents who couldn't make the
> games but "watched" on the internet. Streaming video is next on the agenda
> there.
> 
> So, if I'm training Journalists, I'm going to try to convince them that
> their real future is in the weekly papers and local internet. Even the
> Jaybird realized that.
> 
> rsl
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate & Unix Guru.
> Computer Applications & Support Associates
> -------------------- Also ----------------------
> Publisher: Purple Reign (Scout.com/Fox Sports)
> Commissioner Delaware American Legion Baseball
> Retired Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician [R]
> Northwestern University - Sp 1974 - 
> Chi Phi: Pi74, KD68
> ==========  Go Cats -  Beat 'em All  ===========
> A Few Basic Truths:
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>   Wealth transfer makes everyone poor
> Its all been tried, so why do we keep trying?
> ================================================
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
> Behalf Of Ben Adler
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 8:48 PM
> To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] CFB Postseason...Survey Says... (fwd)
> 
> You know, believe it or not, I was hoping to keep this discussion OUT of
> politics...
> 
> As for some of the other issues being raised, the attention span point is a
> pretty fair one.  But I do still think there are enough people who care
> enough about various subjects to read (or listen to) in-depth stories. 
> Meanwhile, Mike and John make good points about how we often don't research
> our subjects enough before writing our stories.  Of course, making blanket
> statements here is dangerous, but you can usually tell when a reporter has
> done his/her research and when they haven't.
> 
> Medill does have some non-journalism class requirements, but they're not all
> that significant: only one economics class, for example.  That's an area I
> wish I had learned more about in college.  Of course, my parents still think
> all I got at Medill was a "trade school" education.
> 
> But what makes this "economics/market of journalism" discussion relevant to
> this list?  How about the ever-shrinking Northwestern sports coverage in the
> Trib, Sun-Times and elsewhere?
> 
> Just a handful of years ago, NU football had stories in the Trib and ST
> almost daily during the season.  Now they get 1-2 a week, plus a blurb or
> two if we're lucky.  And the reporters have higher priorities elsewhere, so
> they don't have time to build sources or learn the team.  Their stories get
> more and more superficial every year.
> 
> That's how this affects us.  And that's why we should care.
> 
> -- Ben
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Dennis W. Brandt <tbng at comcast.net>
> To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:14:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] CFB Postseason...Survey Says... (fwd)
> 
> <Here's the bottom line: There will always be a market for solid, hard,
> investigative news - the kind currently offered by the NYT, WashPost, WSJ,
> NPR, etc. <The question is, how will we want to consume it?
> 
> Would that the NYT, NPR, etc. actually did investigative news instead of
> pumping out liberal propaganda.  No one has noted that is part of the reason
> for many newspapers' failures.  Too many are simply dishonest and slanted.
> Sometimes I think I'm reading Civil War-era newspapers when they  didn't
> apologize for supporting one party or the other.
> 
> One other reason:  The world is losing its attention span.  Fewer and fewer
> want to take the time to read in-depth reports.  Allow me one other
> observation:  I don't believe there are many journalists who are all that
> knowledgeable. 
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