Who covers the Olympics?

Perusing the wires I have seen stuff from San Jose, NYT, Philly, Chicago and Miami. The Philly Inquirer stuff has been very good so far. Our mid-major metro used to send a writer and a columnist every time, but haven't in at least 6 years.

 

I know Mark Zeigler of U-T San Diego is there covering it, and that's not exactly a ski town.

 

Wonder how long USOC can maintain this policy. The national websites don't flood the Olympics because NBC has exclusive video rights. With newspapers cutting back, wouldn't the USOC be better off inviting people to apply for credentials rather than turning them away (if they are)?

 

All that, and I understand you have to apply a couple of years before the games? What, they want to make sure they have enough hotel rooms? [/bluefont]

 

Yeah, I wouldn't really know, but my bet would be that it isn't as tough to get a credential as it used to be. It is still covered worldwide, but this threads shows the number of outlets going these days has diminished quite a bit. My guess would be there are at least 50 or 60 U.S. papers who used to send at least one person who just won't pay for it anymore.

 

The Star Tribune has at least two writers and a photographer. Could be a third writer there, but I'm not 100 percent sure on that.

 

Once upon a time, all of the big Florida papers would send at least one writer to the Winter Games. (It was important to stay in the mix for Summer Games credentials.) As near as I can tell, only the Miami Herald has sent anyone to Sochi (Michelle Kaufman and Linda Robertson). Not sure if they're part of a unified McClatchy effort, but they're reporting with Herald bylines.

Fort Lauderdale and Orlando seem to be relying on the Tribune Co.'s "Olympic bureau" for coverage -- it's not immediately clear if those two papers sent anyone to be part of the corporate collaboration. Ditto for Palm Beach, which seems dependent on Cox's coverage. St. Petersburg, Tampa and Jacksonville are going with wires. That's pretty much it for Florida's big papers.

 

Is that a USOC policy or IOC?

 

Orange County Register has two writers and a photographer in Sochi.

 

Olympic credentials must be applied for three years before actual Games. IOC and host organizing committee handle credentials.

 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a reporter there. And the Wall Street Journal sent a sports reporter.

 

So even if you have someone qualify for something, you're shit out of luck with that policy. Well, it looks like only the megapapers can afford the cash and manpower to send anyone anyway. And even that seems to have decreased in the past decade.

I do understand the logic behind not sending anyone. Same as not sending anyone to anything --- Super Bowl, Final Four, Masters, etc. You can get more than enough content via AP or other wire services. And if you really want a localized angle, you can do it via Skype, Twitter or get a stringer. I understand that.

It does seem, however, that newspapers outside of the US make a bigger deal of the Olympics. It's one of the marquee things for many of them. Too many US newspapers seem to prefer sending a person to Florida for a month of exhibition games.

From an individual's standpoint, I'm with PaperDoll. When I started in media more than 20 years ago, my goal (like a lot of people, I suppose) was to cover big events, Olympics as well as others. That seemed realistic enough back in those days. For newspapers today, it doesn't seem that way. Probably a better choice is to do TV or work as an event organizer with the league, teams, etc.

One of the sad realities of the current situation is it seems all papers (and local stations) care about is the high schools and/or local college or pro teams (if your market happens to have one). If I had seen the future 20 years ago, my life and career would probably have taken a different path. I suspect I'm not the only one who feels that way.