Should this be interpreted as a red flag ...

That has never been interpreted to apply to this kind of thing in the history of sports. You might not agree with the practice -- but this is not a reason.

 

Hard to argue with this.

 

No, JME, respectfully, it's pretty easy to argue with this.

Times are tough in the newspaper business. There's a lot of bottom line pressure, travel costs are rising, etc.

It's easy to smugly say, "Hey, you want to do it right, travel with the team."

Well, some places can't afford that. So they do the best they can with what they've got.

And if that means using your beat writer to fashion something unique off a game as opposed to running an AP story that can be found in dozens of places around the Internet, then you do it.

Saying "that's just not done" is short-sighted as hell.

 

Yes, returning ... the dropping of local college coverage makes no sense. That's not a resource issue, or shouldn't be.

 

True, true. I understand your point. It just seems to me that if a paper isn't going to make the expenditures to give firsthand coverage, they shouldn't try to fill in the blanks. If you just run the AP, there is no gray area where someone could think you are pretending to be there or where something from the game is mis-interpreted by the guy doing the phoner.

 

A red flag?
About the size of Rhode Island, yeah, but the biz seems to be headed in that direction -- give 'em less and make 'em think it's more.
Why not come up with a plan if the hapless, sad exercise of writing off TV is the best that can be done (really, better than AP?).
How about a byline, but no dateline? Something like:

Written Off TV

The Hillbillies lost to the Crusaders Tuesday night 28-0 in a Can 'O Worms Conference game, but WORM play-by-play broadcaster Biff Nerdly said the game looked a lot closer than the score indicated.
yadda yadda

 

And my point is that you SHOULD try to fill in the blanks. I'm not a big all-or-nothing guy. Times are tough; you improvise.

 

Dumb question, but: By "in your town" do you mean the teams are literally in your town? Or do you mean they're a half-hour, an hour away? And by pros and colleges, do you mean major league and Division I or something lower?
Since your paper is 40K, I'm assuming you're in a small city or a suburb in a big market. It's not unusual for small suburban papers to limit coverage of or blow off the big city teams because they can get that stuff from the wire or maybe another paper in the chain (like the Gannett papers in Jersey). But if you're blowing off the college or minor-league teams in your town, I would think that's a mistake.

 

Ditto on all the comments about this being a huge red flag. Like they said in the earlier thread, readers are a lot more interested in the local pro and college teams than preps.

 

Dropping travel is one thing. Dropping all coverage is another thing entirely. But upper management is a squeaky wheel type, confusing volume of arguments with fidelity, and they're so desperate to stem the tide of slipping circulation that they're willing to bet the farm CAN ANYONE ON THE CUBS OR METS KINDLY LEARN TO PITCH on hyperlocal coverage because they see 40 soccer moms at a U-8 match and think "bonanza".

 

The reason "it just isn't done," is that it just isn't. And the reason you don't hear much about broadcast stations trying to enforce the exclusivity clause on newspapers writing gamers off the air, is that nobody tries to do it very often.

I HAVE heard of radio stations in midsize markets sending cease-and-desist letters to the Local Shitrag when they write college game stories off the radio feed. The reason WDIP Radio pays to broadcast the games of Midsize State is to have some sort of exclusivity in their market audience.

And, you can bet, if this starts happening with "major-league" teams with any regularity, more of these letters will get sent. Major-league franchises, and major-college athletic departments, PAY people to keep track of rights infringement and things like that.

Bottom line: You want to cover the team, cover the team. Or else use AP. Or else, if the Big Boys Upstaris really think it's that great of an idea, fill your pages with grade-school kickball and junior varsity volleyball.