No gamer on front page?

daemon,

There were four pages inside! What more possibly could have been squeezed in on deadline?

People sure do care about design. I know I get calls if one school gets a bigger photo or better play or is higher on a page than another.

 

My thoughts exactly. I truly liked the cover, but I really had a hard time figuring which one (if any) was the gamer.

 

Newspapers should NOT cover games like SportsCenter.

Think about it.

What does SC do?

They mention who played . . . they mention a storyline going in . . . they show highlights from the first quarter . . . second quarter . . . third quarter . . . fourth quarter . . . and then the LAST thing they do is to show the winning TD and the final score.

And that's the exact opposite of how newspaper people are told to present a story.

 

Right, and one of the problems in our industry is our kow-towing to the vocal minority (the people who pick up the phone and call).

It makes absolutely no sense to waste a page like the Sun-Sentinel did. It's tabloid-style, and the reason tabloids are tabloid-style is because of cover sales. But the person who reads the section in question has already bought the newspaper. He has already weeded through the publication, and reached the sports section -- you don't need to convince him to read what's inside. He's already actively searching for content and information.

Taking up 85 percent of the page in question are a picture of a game the reader has likely already seen, and a headline telling the reader something he likely already knows (the Dolphins lost). It makes no sense.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the Detroit News had no gamer on the season opener with Seattle. Three columns on the front and a bunch of sidebars inside.

 

Worrying about "wasting" space on photos when there is four more pages of coverage inside doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, either.

 

Not photos. Photo.

 

What gets more hits online? Stories or photos?

 

There were a total of two photos on the front page. Maybe the big one was too big and the small one was too small. Whatever.

But two photos is all you are EVER going to get on your page. I have been doing this for 23 years, and I have NEVER had more than two photos of the local NFL team on my front the day after they played.

So photo-wise, there is nothing "missing" from the front. Nothing wasted.

The only editorial type "missing" from the front is the gamer, which gets prominent display on Page 3. And instead of the gamer on 1C you have a synopsis in display type and reefers to all the inside coverage.

There was nothing "left out" of the section to account for the different page 1 display. There was only a slight change in the packaging. Nobody got cheated. Not the writers. Not the photographers.

 

Not worried about reporters or photogs getting cheated. Only the reader.

Why make them flip a page to start reading?

It's a pain in the ass to read a broad-sheet while doing anything other than sitting in a chair or taking a shit. People don't buy papers because they look pretty. They buy them for the content. So why bury your content inside?

 

Think about what you're advocating. Going by your logic, all newspapers should immediately adopt no-jump policies.

In the instance of the thread, the traditional gamer is superfluous. And gamers can be written in an analytical manner --- recap the contributions of your team's top player or players, talk about where the game was won or lost ... but for crying out loud, don't waste 20 column inches telling readers things they already know about last night's game.

Gamers for NFL and major colleges? Sure ... send 'em over AP. In town, they aren't needed.