New Cincy coach criticizes Enquirer, others, for not staffing Big East media day

So how would a good writer handle Big East media day?

It was a one-day deal with all the players and coaches available for a couple hours or so, right?

 

Well, if the Big East is similar to the league I cover you can get a lot more than the typical cliches from the podium. But you can't get the good stuff if you're not there.

And to the poster who suggested a good stringer can sometimes get better stuff than a staffer, well, then that staffer shouldn't be covering the team.

Christ. During these dark days as teams do more and more to limit our access how can anyone here not be pissed that a paper would make such a choice?

I'd be livid if my paper told me I could not attend the pre-season meetings.

 

"We're going to make it clear that if you want to review the movie, you've got to go see it. If you're going to be a credible source of information, you need to be around those that are in the know."

Great. Does that mean he's going to let reporters in to watch practice every day so, you know, they get to see the whole movie? Perhaps this isn't a problem at Cincy, but in the four years I covered Michigan, well, your odds of winning the lottery are better than watching a practice.

 

This is a very good point and I sincerely hope the Enquirer's beat writer brings this up when Kelly tries to close practice. "Well, coach, how can I review the movie if I haven't seen it? You said it right here, on July 22..."

 

I always love how so many of you take papers to task for not spending money for questionable needs (such as media days), which is easy to say because it's not coming out of YOUR pocket.

Budgets are extremely tight across the industry these days, and more and more it's coming down to scenarios like, if you take this trip for media days, you're going to lose a road trip during the season. So what do you do? You can sit there and pout and whine and gripe all day about stupid bean counters and idiot management, but the days of anything close to carte blanche for sports expenses are long past.

I've always found it humorous how a beat writer insists on traveling hundreds of miles and spending hotel nights on the road at media days to get the same blase information he or she can be getting in their own backyard.

This Kelly guy sounds like a jerk, dropping a dime on the Cincy paper for all to hear. I can only assume he is accessible 24/7 by cellphone all year long, right? It works both ways. These are naive coaches who come from schools where they think papers are subject to their whims. Wait until the Enquirer or Post digs out an investigative piece that makes Kelly or his program look bad, and then we'll see what the coach thinks about media presence.

 

Re: New Cincy coach criticizes Enquirer, others, for not staffing Big East media

Great point about watching practice. Anybody know what Cincy's policy is regarding that?

The Enquirer decided, why spend the $$$ going to Rhode Island to talk to a team from our own backyard? Seems reasonable to me.


EDIT: clutchcargo beat me to it. Agree with every word.

 

Joe and clutch ... I kind of feel that way when I'm thinking of story ideas to come out of media days. Why just write a piece on the home team when I could just get that information at home? But media days are a great place to compile a lot of information, quotes, etc, for a preview section in one place at one time, rather than spending 40 hours on the phone trying to track down coaches.

It's also a prime spot to work on a trend piece on the conference you cover, seeing as you have everybody in one place.

And the golf outings are fun (wating for write-brained to chime in about them being unethical ...). If you're smart, you'll try to talk to the conference office ahead of time and request a certain playing partner. A week after starting my current job, I had to go to football media days with very little knowledge of the sources on my beat, etc. So the conference set me up with the coach of the school I cover, and that five-hour round proved instrumental in us just getting to know each other without the digital recorder around. Same thing happened last year at a basketball media day outing ... after playing golf with said coach, all year long, he's been great in getting me a player's cell number whenever I need it. It's about building trust and credibility, and some people won't look beyond the fact that there's "no breaking news" at these things. It's much more than that.

 

Agree totally. Shut up and coach. You want media coverage? Win so damn much that the readers march on the paper when it's not there. Otherwise, might I offer you a frosty mug of shut the fuck up?

It's like these teams that get pissed when another team "dances on their logo" after a win. Here's how you stop that ... win the fucking game.

I get that marketing a team is a part of the job for any head coach. Getting people to care is important. But this program has to be in great shape if this guy can waste his time planning media day ambushes on some poor bastard stringer.

 

The other part of the story is that media days are in our town this year. So we can still fake the tour and accompanying series.

But that was just dumb luck. If media days were out of state, we probably wouldn't be going to them OR doing a tour.

 

He's not even going to notice.
He's a football coach.

 

Re: New Cincy coach criticizes Enquirer, others, for not staffing Big East media

I agree with Coach Kelly, the beat writer should be there, especially with a new coach. To me it's important to build a relationship with a coach and you want to do whatever you can to get the coach somewhat comfortable with you. Sure some coaches see media as a bother, but there are other coaches that will welcome talking to you and maybe tell you more information than you would get from a coach you don't have a relationship with.

Also this team was 8-5 last year and went to a bowl game. The only teams they lost to were ranked teams so the beat writer should have fought to go to the media day (and only he can say if he did or not) and told them to make cuts elsewhere.

 

Here's something else you can do with media days... if your paper is high on college football coverage, chances are the readers would want to know what the rest of the conference looks like. Blair Kerkhoff in the Kansas City Star (and no, I'm not Blair) is an example of how to do it the right way... he writes previews of what other Big 12 schools besides Kansas and Missouri will have returning.

Go to the media day, interview Brian, and while you're at it come back with more stuff on the other teams. Write more than just one or two stories. Justify your presence being there to the big bosses. If you can spell out to corporate that you're going to write multiple stories off this one event, they might be willing to spend a bit.

Then again, it's Gannett. Maybe if the press conference took place on a Cincinnati street corner they might staff it. That way they can wait for a car accident or a mugging to hit as well and get two for the price of one.