The Sports Editor - Episode 1

I know all of us can think of a former boss or coworker of ours that would take to this venue like a duck to water or Travis Henry to illegitimate children and COCAINE.

I know I can. WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It's not.
Your understanding needs help.

 

You're still wrong.

 

And you're still a fool who works there.

For the next episode, maybe they'll have something on the sports editor's head exploding when they get beat by ESPN on the latest Jaguars story.

 

I don't work there. But I read almost every sports section in Florida on-line or in print, and if you think they're the worst, you're flat-out wrong. You must not have picked up Tampa, Miami, Tallahassee, Daytona or Orlando recently.

 

OK, I'd put the T-U up against the following 75-plus papers in the state:

Florida Today, Lakeland Ledger, Daytona Beach, Treasure Coast Newspapers, even Fort Myers, which can be pretty good at times.

After that, it's the big boys and I'd say there are a plenty of papers in the 140-150 range like the T-U that fall short of:

Palm Beach Post
St. Pete Times
Sun-Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Miami Herald
Tampa Trib

I've seen the T-U plenty over the years. I thought the section really turned the corner when the Super Bowl was in Jax. Some great special sections and coverage. It's not always splash, but it's a clean section and caters to its readers in a very large area. Could they use more space? Definitely, who couldn't? Could they do some more in-depth, enterprise stuff? Sure, again, who couldn't?

In this business though, once you're labeled a sub-par sports section, a lot of people take it for the truth.

Again, I'm not saying the T-U is great (and no, I've never worked there and nor will I ever) ... I'm just saying.

 

Where do you get your circulation figures?

ABC (Sunday circulation, as of 3-31-08)

St. Pete: 432,779
Orlando: 332,030
Miami: 311,245
Sun-Sen: 303,399
Tampa: 283,784
Jax: 201,352
West Palm: 195,608

http://abcas3.accessabc.com/ecirc/newssearchus.asp

 

and why don't you stop being an asshole and get off the poor guy's case.

 

Hondo -

Numbers you have are Sunday figures. I'm going by daily. TU is 144,391 M-F

 

I seem to recall a similar thing on the Washington Post a while back, but that was real, not scripted, and it was still interesting. I don't think you need to play to the hokey factor to make it entertaining. People who are clicking on that sort of thing are not doing it to be entertained, they are doing it because they want to know what a sports editor does IMO.

 

Hondo: I was with you mostly, but including Miami and Orlando (still) in that list, you kind of lost me again.

Herald's not what it used to be. It's still a pretty good paper.

And by the way, I'm saying nothing about the quality of the T-U; I'm just disagreeing with a "bad" list that includes those two papers.

 

It was cheesy, but I enjoyed it. I could see how they were going for the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" angle with the ending. I liked the plot twist, and it was funny how the FSU fan kept talking about the bias and wouldn't let up.