Jackson Clarion-Ledger stops covering Jackson State

We've covered this before. It's a side issue.

To suspend coverage is to penalize the readers. And, worse, the athletes, who are doing nothing wrong.

 

This would appear to be a "last straw" kind of event in the life of this beat, it just reared its head on this matter. Since I tend to side with journalists and against universities with heads up their rear ends, I'll trust there's reason to go public.

Moments like these remind me that universities really struggle to get easy things right. You take your three best quotes, coach them up a little, give them to the media, and away we go.

 

I liked that post just because it was so damn cool.

 

For what it's worth, how much coverage should the Jackson State beat really warrant anyway? Two stories a week, maybe three?

I'm thinking a feature and/or a notes package, and a weekly gamer. Can't imagine needing to cover them with a full time writer for 40+ hours. Just kill the fuckin' beat and say the reason why is because nobody gives a shit.

 

There are newspapers that treat D-II programs like a full beat. (And whether any of us disagree with that practice is beside the point.)

Ignoring an in-town FCS program will be noticed.

 

I'm sure it would be noticed. But my question is, do the readers really give a shit? I don't think they're beating the doors down of the Clarion-Ledger for Jackson State coverage. Of course, I could be wrong.

 

Here's another way to look at it, if we're talking print.

Ignoring the program would be a whole lot safer in 1985 than it is in 2015.

 

Here's the issue...it's not an editorial. Anyone else find it bizarre that it has the beat writer's byline on it as opposed to the sports editor, paper editor or editorial board? Weird way of handling it.

 

I assume the goal is to get the school to change its policy and allow more access to athletes. So the readers and athletes would theoretically be better served by coverage going forward.

 

It's a bluff by the paper and comes down to whether JSU folds. If JSU calls the bluff, I imagine the paper will return to covering the team (without any sort of public statement/editorial/story).

 

Until the situation regarding media access can be rectified with the JSU athletic department, the Jackson State athletics reporter position will remain vacant.

Anyone who knows Gannett knows what a complete joke this statement is. A simple hiccup would lead to a position remaining vacant.

 

The problem with canning the JSU beat is the racial angle. If the C-L decided to get rid of its JSU coverage permanently, even if it was in response to the school's head-scratching policies on making players and assistant coaches available, they would face a lot of heat in the black community. There would be the hissing cries of "the C-L is racist..." and the paper would eventually have to roll over. This would likely happen even if the beat writer was covering other Mississippi SWAC schools, such as Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State, which is the most dysfunctional university on the planet. True story: Valley's stadium was condemned in 2010 and they had to play in a high school stadium.

MSVU stadium deemed unsafe, plays at HS field

Jackson State barely fills up its huge stadium (60,000 seats) these days and made a stunningly bad coaching hire, Harold Jackson, who was by all accounts a nice guy who was out of his depth. The athletic department is run by an interim AD, who replaced the interim AD and who replaced another interim AD. It used to be that the other SWAC schools were far more dysfunctional, but JSU is quickly degrading as the school's leadership seems to flail around without any sort of a plan.

Once, JSU officials had a far-fetched idea to build a domed stadium that thankfully has never left the drawing board.

JSU should be happy for any coverage it gets, since they're not drawing page views and attention like the state's two SEC programs and Southern Miss always do.

The problem I have with the C-L's moves on this issue is making it public. Keep your dirty laundry behind closed doors. By going public and writing something about it, you've likely burned whatever bridge existed between the athletics program and the paper. I'm just not sure they exhausted every option.