NY Times "Feel Good" Jets Coverage

A couple things:

1. Either Boom's lede is mistyped and spnited didn't copy it over right, because they're different. The way spnited posted at least makes logical sense. The way Boom typed it doesn't.

2. It might be a Tuesday story, but it also means to compare/contrast the Jets and Giants in a way that makes the Jets seem vastly superior despite inferior talent. The Pennington/Manning juxtaposition clearly shows it; if Pennington's healthy, which he is, I'd take him in a heartbeat over Manning, who never met a balloon floaty pass he didn't like.

3. I like the style of the piece. It's clean, direct and understandable. It slips in and out of its thesis - however questionable - pretty easily.

4. But the thesis begs this question: Why a single source? I appreciate that pressers are stories unto themselves, but this story really does push beyond that, and ends up reading like Crouse's opinion cloaked in objectivity. Mangini's quote don't even match up with this thesis. It seems to run at a right angle of what the presser was really about, and that's not necessarily good.

 

I'm giggling at an Alma post containing "floaty."

 

Alma all points well taken. The contrast of Pennington and Manning is interesting but the football point is lost. The real story is that they Jets have taylored their offense to Pennington's capibilities. Pennington's smarts allow the Jets now to run very sophiscated sets that hide the fact that they do not have one great running back or big possesion receiver.

To understand better my point you really have to look at the Jet beat coverage for full season.
Its geared way to much towards casual fan.

 

Dooley I 'd much rather here your thoughts on story than Alma's usage. You have a good ear for this type of stuff.

 

Seems to be a whole lot about football in that story after the second graf. I believe the lead (lede for you old-timers) is what is called a hook. Looks like it worked.

 

it's just a bad lead

 

It's perfectly fine for a Tuesday follow up.

 

I interviewed there when Amdur was sports editor. The way he put it is, "We have to compete on the tabloids' playground." Now, do you do that by trying to be exactly like them? I don't think so. I think even if the NYT tried to do that and succeeded, the slobbering, belching, farting, talk-radio-listening sports fan is still going to perceive the NYT's coverage as less red-meat than the competition.

I don't think the coverage is geared to mentally unbalanced people who live and die with sports teams, it is geared to people who enjoy sports but who stopped putting posters of famous athletes on their bedroom walls by the time they reached puberty. It is geared to people who have a relatively wide world view -- they wouldn't be reading a newspaper like the NYT otherwise -- and so you give them a fairly comprehensive coverage of the sports world, but you don't go completely psychotic over the inner workings.

Serving their readers? Yes, I think so. I think the Times understands their paper isn't for everyone. I think they serve the audience they choose to serve.

 

Frank that's an awful narrow view that you have and really unfair to many that read the Times sports pages.

It's also not what I see from some of the other sports that the Times covers. Take basball for example -I think they provide the most in depth coverage of any newspaper in NY.

Buster Olney when he was the beat writer for the Yankees certainly did not cater to the casual fan.

Some of stuff that Karen is doing is better suited for the Sunday Styles section.

 

Well, Boom, I think their target audience is people who can spell.

 

That's unfortunate, since it would eliminate 80% of the general population, and half of their own writers.

 

Good one Frank - When in doubt pick on Boom's spelling. How original.

I think I have raised a pretty fair point that has started a pretty good discussion, yet you want to derail it by trying to insult me.

Why not stick to topic? You might learn something about your readers.