AJC and Hartford Courant not covering Super Bowl

Someone PMd me and told me he was there... According to Google News, he hasn't written since Monday, so I don't know...

 

The Philadelphia papers did not have anyone covering Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game . . . in Hershey, Pa.

The concept of papers (without any local teams at the event) covering an event hundreds (or thousands) of miles away is actually pretty recent.

The Super Bowl, in particular, has always been a weeklong cocktail party. A journalist with imagination and willing to work hard may turn in a couple of unique pieces. But for 99 percent of the stories filed, it's pack journalism at its worst.

If your paper is not going to honestly break any news there --- and odds are 999:1 it will --- then there is no reason to send anyone.

 

Can only speak as a customer, but deadline shouldn't be an issue. Until recently, they've been able to get box scores in for west coast NBA and NHL games. They go plenty late to get the Super Bowl in.

And to tag on to playthrough's comment: both Atlanta's sports radio stations will be on radio row, while the AJC stays home.

 

To be fair to the cranky old editor, back then the Super Bowl wasn't the megaevent it is now. Back then, it wasn't even officially called the Super Bowl. Its name was the NFL-AFL World Championship Game.

It was a matchup most people thought would be a snoozer of a blowout because the NFL was considered light years ahead of the AFL. The Kansas City Chiefs? They weren't considered to be capable of holding the Packers jocks.

So I can understand why an editor would consider Super Bowl I not worthy of coverage back then. But Super Bowl XLIII? That's definitely worth covering. Whether a shop has the resources to send someone (or someones) is another matter entirely.

 

Deadline should never be an issue for a Super Bowl.

 

You know, this may be the thread that finally nails home that I'm not a journalist, that I wasn't born to do this, that I don't have it in my bones and blood. Because I have less than no problem with this decision, and I'm not shocked by it at all.

 

Well, you seem to be in the minority on this one...

Every paper is trying to save money. Every paper is cutting back travel. But for the Atlanta paper not to cover the Super Bowl boggles the mind.

 

Mizzzou, very, very tight times in the Atl. I think that it could've been done, especially since Tampa is well within driving distance.

 

I agree with playthrough, and believe if you have an NFL team in your city you should have a writer or columnist at the game even if only for 2-3 days instead of a week.

Cut corners, find another columnist to split a room, don't blow the expense account. But go to the game.

When the economy recovers and writers or editors expect to bounce back, they will be in for a rude awakening after the management says, "Well, we don't need to go at all. We used copy from the sister paper and no one complained. You guys stay here and cover the JUCO tournament that weekend."

 

Seems odd to me.
But a college friend recently moved to Atlanta for work. We both worked at the student paper together and used to gasp at the collective heft of the AJC back in the early 90s.
First thing he does is subscribes to the AJC when he gets to Atlanta.
He was shocked by how far the AJC has fallen and thought that the pre-print sections had been left out.