Beat writers on the road

It's on tchapatoulis street right across from Lucy's Retired Surfer bar. If you've stayed in the convention center area, you're close. Once, when I couldn't get the Arts last year, I stayed at the the SpringHill convention center and walked to Lucy's.

It's also an easy walk from there to the Quarter (I go to Cafe du Monde for beignets at least once a trip). And to the Harrah's, which is important. If you're brave and fit, You can probably walk to the Superdome/Arena from there, but I usually cab that.

Best thing about the Arts is you can always always get it for $130.

 

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I didn't have time to read all 5 pages of comments. One thing I don't get, in this age of massive cutbacks, is why newspapers in cities not involved in the Super Bowl, or World Series, etc., continue sending so many reporters to the big events.

Both Denver dailies sent multiple reporters/columnists to the Super Bowl. I can see sending your top columnist, just to give Denver readers an area voice on the game, but do readers really give a rip if the game story or sidebars were written by AP, picked up by a Pittsburgh paper, or written by a local writer? My guess is absolutely not.

Wouldn't it make more sense to save the money and pick up stories from the Pittsburgh, Arizona or Tampa papers throughout the week and the night of the game? I'm sure we'll get to that point eventually. I'm just surprised we're not there already.

 

Scribbler and SomeGuy...thanks for the info on the Renaissance Arts...tell me this, too. let's say I am walking out the front of the Marriott Convention Center...do i go to the right or left to head in the direction of the RA? just wondering about a general direction.

and on BH33's wonderment about newspapers with non-SB participants sending so many reps, I have pondered that, too. at least in this day of cutbacks, eco meltdown, etc..send one guy--beat writer--and have him take care of it. that's enough when everybody is crimping on the funds.

 

I want to see how many papers send a writer to the Pro Bowl. I never understood that one on any level.

 

Using the stories from the host city's paper is extraordinarily beneficial to the readers. I can understand, for obvious reasons, why stories from the Post-Gazette or the Republic wouldn't appear in most papers, especially if the paper doesn't have room to run at least one story from each.

The local metro has to cover all angles from a truly outsider's point of view, which is beneficial to, say, NFL fans in Seattle, Washington, Detroit and Kansas City who don't have a strong rooting interest in either team.

 

One of the papers I used to work for used to put out two huge NFL sections each Monday. One would be for the local team and the other would be all of the rest of the games. One of the editors there came up with the idea of using no AP copy whatsoever, only using the "exotics" as they came over the wire.

The result was one of the best sections ever. You'd pick up the paper and read the stories the beat writers wrote. Most of the stories were heavily edited since we'd only run 12 inches or so, but it was still so much better than wire copy that it wasn't even funny.

 

I agree with NFL cities covering the SB, but it's the level of coverage that needs to be re-examinedin this climate. Do you really need 3-4 writers there if you don't have a team there? That's the point. I think 1-2, supplemented by the best available wire coverage, should suffice. There is a diminishing returns issue when you start adding writers. Having a local guy there pays huge dividends. Two means more. But what do those third and fourth guys add to what you are doing in relation to how much they cost you to send them?

 

Perhaps I'm tainted by being in the business, but as a reader, that would be so worth looking forward to.

 

It was an amazing section. I don't know if they still do it that way. Hell, I don't know if they still even do an extra section for the other games, but the desk did an amazing job putting it together. I'm sure it was a lot more work since the exotics move a lot later than the AP wire.