Deseret News, SIDs and ethics

I've freelanced for them and was treated OK, but this seems to be a new low. The Utah Valley University SID wrote this women's soccer gamer for the Deseret News. No mention of that fact in the article. It's amazing the paper couldn't find a non-UVU employee to cover the game.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705393434/UVU-womens-soccer-Wolverines-crowned-Great-West-Champions.html

 

I was going to say it was inexcusable that they didn't explain the conflict of interest for the "stringer" but that it was understandable that he covered it for the paper since the Great West soccer championship is probably held in Newark, NJ....but holy crap, it was a home game?! That's almost incomprehensibly bad and lazy.

 

The GWC, the conference that takes anyone and everyone

 

It's not unusual for SIDs to basically write gamers for newspapers, but you don't put their bylines on them.

 

Ace is right. Happens in lower-tier pro sports too. Usually they submit and the desk rewrites. Always without a byline.
I'm much more surprised this paper devoted that much space to a women's college soccer match. That equals the sum of coverage I've seen at my papers.

 

Ace typed it before I could. Very common to rewrite a press release. Very uncommon to give the SID a byline.

 

The DN is basically a really big church newsletter. Not surprised.

 

SOP here, too, when we don't get an advancer on Nearby State games from the wire, as well as any events at the NA casino. Flaks don't get bylines, though.

 

When I was SID-ing, the local paper ran my game stories just as I wrote 'em (I was pretty fair in how I wrote), and I certainly didn't expect -- or even want -- a byline. I did get a byline once, however, on an NCAA regional golf advance section. I did most of the work in writing team capsules and gathering photos of every player coming to the tourney, but still, that byline surprised me.

However, when I was freelancing high school football for the same paper, I did get a byline.

 

Full disclosure, I read the comments on this thread before reading the article, expecting to be smacked in the face by blatant homerism. Nothing in the story even remotely approaches the homer line, let alone crosses it. If this was word for word what the SID filed, I wish all SIDs wrote so crisply and cleanly.

That being said, don't give him a byline, for God's sake. We know everyone's strapped by manpower, but don't draw attention to it by giving the SID a byline. "For the Deseret News" or "Special to the Deseret News" would have sufficed.

 

I thought you were joking...holy hell, the Great West conference has teams in Chicago, New Jersey and the Dakotas? And people think Mizzou playing Georgia will be a travel nightmare for Olympic sports?

 

Don't forget the trips to Edinburg for basketball.