Gatehouse and the Super Bowl

[tapintoamerica]

As someone else alluded, here's the problem with relying on AP copy in this instance: the serious possibility of running the same story your staffers wrote a week or two ago. Another thing: I imagine the beat writers for the disenfranchised papers had been working on and planning Super Bowl stories for weeks. Now what do you do with those stories?

[Alan Greenwood]

These days in our business, this line of thinking is probably considered somewhere between archaic and quaint. But, in addition to all of the absolutely legitimate reasons listed above for sending a guy like Glenn Farley to cover the Super Bowl for Brockton and the others, as a sports editor at a small daily I'd like to offer this:
Folks who cover major league teams for small papers often have to work harder since they also must keep up with whatever local beat or desk work to which they are assigned. Someone like Farley, who is a complete professional, no doubt puts in lots of time, not to mention effort, for which he is not compensated.
So, when such a staffer has an opportunity to cover a Super Bowl, I think sending him there is simply the right thing to do from a human resources perspective. You are telling him that his work is superior and appreciated, and that he has earned the opportunity to cover the Super Bowl.
I only mention Farley because I know his work. If this were a case of a middling (or poor) writer from a small paper being kept home, I wouldn't even make the argument.

[sporting_guista]

These days in our business, this line of thinking is probably considered somewhere between archaic and quaint. But, in addition to all of the absolutely legitimate reasons listed above for sending a guy like Glenn Farley to cover the Super Bowl for Brockton and the others, as a sports editor at a small daily I'd like to offer this:
Folks who cover major league teams for small papers often have to work harder since they also must keep up with whatever local beat or desk work to which they are assigned. Someone like Farley, who is a complete professional, no doubt puts in lots of time, not to mention effort, for which he is not compensated.
So, when such a staffer has an opportunity to cover a Super Bowl, I think sending him there is simply the right thing to do from a human resources perspective. You are telling him that his work is superior and appreciated, and that he has earned the opportunity to cover the Super Bowl.
I only mention Farley because I know his work. If this were a case of a middling (or poor) writer from a small paper being kept home, I wouldn't even make the argument.

'nuff said, well done

[wickedwritah]

As someone else alluded, here's the problem with relying on AP copy in this instance: the serious possibility of running the same story your staffers wrote a week or two ago. Another thing: I imagine the beat writers for the disenfranchised papers had been working on and planning Super Bowl stories for weeks. Now what do you do with those stories?

My moles said they're still doing some sort of Super Bowl special section in each paper.

[Mediator]

I would bet those stories lean heavily on interviewing every Pats fans or Giants fan in the local area.

GET THIS, maybe there's a guy who likes the Pats and his girlfriend likes the Giants! What do they do on game day? Then get a picture of them wearing the jerseys!! Lord, that would be good.

Or a DAD who's a Giants fan and his precocious KID is a Pats fan! Or maybe there's a local bar where a lot of people think one team is going to win.

I love those stories. Good reads.

[bob]

Gatehouse has seen fit to keep its New England beat writers from covering the Patriots in the Super Bowl but has sent a reporter from the Canton (Ohio) Respository to AZ. Must be a Browns angle in there somewhere.
http://www.gatehousenewsservice.com/sports/x1925673925

[wickedwritah]

I hear one of their Pats guys is going out there on his own dime, but he won't be writing a lick.

[hockeybeat]

I hear one of their Pats guys is going out there on his own dime, but he won't be writing a lick.

Good on him, but it's absurd that Gatehouse has its Browns writer there.

What's he going to do? Work on stuff for a book?

[wickedwritah]

I hear one of their Pats guys is going out there on his own dime, but he won't be writing a lick.

Good on him, but it's absurd that Gatehouse has its Browns writer there.

What's he going to do? Work on stuff for a book?

If they weren't willing to pony up to send Pats guys there, I'm going to guess the Browns guy is there on his own time and own dime.

[bob]

The New England guy who's going is Douglas Flynn from Metrowest. I think he might have booked early, thinking there was no way on this green earth that they would not cover such a historic event. Poor guy. If he does write, he's a dope, but I hear he's not a dope.

[wickedwritah]

You are correct on Flynn, who is not a dope.

[sporting_guista]

You are correct on Flynn, who is not a dope.

I wonder if the higher-ups, knowing he's there, would coerce him to write something?? Here's hoping he fights that notion