AL.com "journalism"

Ran across this today.

Get a release from the SID, throw a one-sentence lede and your byline, and bingo, you have got a story to post.
Thoughts?

The first football team to start Spring practice? UNA gets on the field despite snow threat | AL.com


LIONS START SPRING FOOTBALL DRILLS
FLORENCE -- After postponing the start of its spring football drills for more than a week due to winter weather, the University of North Alabama finally hit the practice field Tuesday for a session that pleased head coach Bobby Wallace.

“It was great to finally get on the field,” Wallace said. “The kids were really anxious to get going and there was great competition at the start, and then 90 minutes of practice.”

The winner of the team’s off-season program was determined by a series of competitions at the start of practice between the two remaining undefeated teams. After a sled push, obstacle course relay and tire pull, the team captained by tight end Grant Lake emerged as the Lions’ off-season champions.

“This type of competition puts a lot of pressure on you, performing in front of the whole team,” Wallace said. “There was great effort and everyone was really into it. It was great way to start.”

Following the competition the Lions went through 90 minutes in helmets and shorts.
“We were introducing drills and formations and getting some conditioning in,” Wallace said. “It was a good day.”


Wallace said the Lions will likely not be able to practice Wednesday due to projected snow but said he hopes they can get in three more days this week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

 

This seems like a companion piece to the SID story thread.
No way that should have a staff writer's byline on it. It's word for word with the press release -- which I think you meant to link to, but instead linked to the Al.com story twice.
Here's the school release: University of North Alabama Football

That's pretty bad, especially for an outfit that has already had one strike against it in the plagiarism column.

 

Can't put your name on that and pretend it's your work. I'd feel guilty doing the usual "Staff report" weakness that many sites use. This is worse. She even tweeted out a link to the story.

 

At least it's localized, unlike tons of national aggregations (NBA) that no one in Alabama cares about, but might get picked up in a google search for page hits. It gets harder and harder to find stories geared to an Alabama audience on that site.

 

PM me if you have any questions. I can tell you how the process works.

 

I'm reading the original article linked to in the comment section and while it isn't word for word, it's still close enough that I'd lob a plagiarism charge at it if anyone with power gave a damn.

 

The only thing different is the first, third and last sentences, which were added in. Everything else is a copy and paste job.

 

I don't see why her bosses would be pissed. You can't have a leader and his toadies foster that culture, then act indignant when someone on the outside calls their bullshit.
At least she spelled her headline correctly.
Mountain Brook's threepeat state title hopes start with relentless brusier Jack Kline

 

Here's the thing. It's not bad information for that audience.

If you spent 15 minutes on it, you could rewrite it and attribute the quotes to a school release.

If you spent maybe an hour, you could run down where the other schools are as far as spring practice goes.

Really, really lazy.

 

Or recap how they did last year. Or anything, really. But if you aren't going to do that, just put staff report. Or are the reporters graded on how many bylines they have?

 

Other than Alabama and Auburn, most of the college stuff they have on al.com comes directly from SIDs. They have a beat writer for UAB but he is extremely lazy/incompetent, so they still get most of the information from the SID. All of the football killing stories came from their sports columnist or news writers. The beat writer ignored the story. They had a really good beat person for South Alabama but got rid of him. I guess he was getting in the way of getting the information from the SID.

 

Some (all?) have post quotas, I believe.