Jackson Clarion-Ledger stops covering Jackson State

I'll post the link again because people seem to be missing it. From the executive editor: CL Statement on JSU coverage decision

 

Either you misworded this, or ohmigod. Getting anywhere close to 60,000 butts in the seats for this level of college football is remarkable.

 

They might fill it up when they play Alcorn, but otherwise I have a hard time believing they draw even half that. And a lot of the crowd leaves after the bands perform at halftime.

EDIT: According to this, they drew 8,500 for a home game against Texas Southern in late September:

TXSO at JSU Stats - JSUTigers.com - The Official Website of Jackson State University Athletics

They drew 15,000 against Grambling in their last home game:

Grambling State vs. Jackson State - Game Summary - October 3, 2015 - ESPN

 

All HBCUs are the worst.

It is just varying degrees of worstest to ohmigod You couldn't pay me enough money to deal with these morons.

People come for the bands and they have a ton of support amongst the alumni and in the black community but the schools seem almost physically incapable of getting their shit together.

 

There are a handful of SWAC opponents that bring crowds and fill up the stadium -- ANY stadium.
Southern is one. Grambling is another. Those schools, especially when they play Alcorn or Jackson State (relatively short drives to both) will sell out. The Alcorn-JSU game will put around 50,000 people into Jackson's stadium if both teams are good, and the Bayou Classic will do the same in the Superdome. Maybe some of the other rivalry games are the same way.
The rest are too far-flung to have true rivalries, the fan bases are too small to travel in great numbers, and if you get even 10,000 for a game you've done very well for yourself. If you have Southern or Grambling on the schedule, you probably make a profit for the season.
Alcorn State has a perfect FCS stadium. Only about 25 years old, seats around 22,000, and a pretty simple setup. The last time they sold the place out for an off-brand game was probably when Steve McNair was there.

 

JSU plays in what still is Mississippi's largest stadium, Mississippi Veterans Memorial. The old stadium once hosted big games for Ole Miss, State and USM, but with the Big Three having modernized their stadiums, this practice has ended. Also, the state high school title games left town too, alternating between Starkvegas and Oxford. There was crazy talk of JSU building a 50,000 seat dome and the med school tearing it down.

 

I think the idea was that they would have a big enough stadium to host one or two Classics a year (fans who don't travel to road or even home games will go to a Classic), plus a bowl game, and possibly again attract Ole Miss or Mississippi State to play a neutral-site game there occasionally. But no HBCU — or for that matter, any FCS program or even the overwhelming majority of G5 programs — will consistently fill a 50,000-seat stadium or even get close.

 

I'm not so sure Memorial Stadium is still the largest in Mississippi. It used to be at 64,000 capacity, but that was before they took out the bleachers in the south end zone, and Ole Miss and MSU expanded their stadiums to 60,580 and 61,337 respectively. But I can recall when Jackson State used to draw 50,000-plus pretty regularly, before their football program became a clown show.

 

C-L looks like a bunch of whiny babies here. Can't get your cliches or coach-speak from JSU?

Then just write gamers. Go to the games, sit in the stands... and just write, without any JSU quotes and get quotes/sounds from the other team.

Done.

As media, we have to be "above" how we're treated. Public perception is that we're a bunch of agenda-baiting idiots who already know the story before they show up. Enough about me, but, seriously folks...

I covered hockey in my previous life as a sports anchor. Of course, the head coach and I had an issue when, before they held the final practice before flying out to a national championship weekend, I showed up the end of the practice instead of the beginning. This was because the SID gave me the wrong time and said the coach would be available after practice. I show up at the end and the HC blows a gasket at me -- odd as we had a strong working relationship for 4 years to that point.

During the entire weekend of the Frozen Four, the HC would not answer or even acknowledge any questions from me in the press conference -- he even said "have your other guy ask it, not you" in front of the statewide and national media. I had to have my weekend guy ask the questions when he was at the podium.

I never talked about it that week, never alluded to it when I was on the air, didn't even mention it to the bosses. This was not an issue that the viewers/readers should have had to deal with -- and I feel the same way about the C-L and JSU.

If someone ducks you or treats you horribly, it doesn't mean you don't cover them. It does mean, maybe, you don't crack open your budget to travel when they're on the road unless it's an absolute "can't miss" event.

 

You make a good point, and in most instances you'd probably be right. But because of the racial angle, the Ledger felt like it needed to be out front with what was going on, so they're not painted as the villains. JSU fans have always felt like the fifth wheel in the C-L's coverage because they are a predominantly-black university. While it's gotten better in recent years, those fans still have a chip on their shoulder where the paper is concerned, and if JSU coverage suddenly takes a dramatic drop, they're going to want to know why.

 

My God, this. One HBCU I dealt with in a past life barely has a functioning website, once hired a football coach without telling anyone and had a cheerleading coach double as SID.

 

It's just me but, again, I tend to trust the journalists more than I trust the bumbling university officials and an interim coach. I'm guessing this decision comes after a long line of total nonsense.