Big news in Michigan

Ah, got it. I was tying it into a previous post about that kind of news reporting.

And what you say is pretty true. And it has frustrated me plenty of times. I'll write a 15-source explanatory Sunday package, and get like two emails. But if my (college) team loses on Saturday, I'll get 150 emails, even if my story is mundane.

 

Yeah, Glen, I think I was actually responding to Waylon and typed your name by mistake. Sorry.

Waylon, it's a balancing act between "what readers care about" and "what they need to know," to be sure. But I think sometimes we forget the former, too.

As far as when people stop paying attention to high school sports, I think alumni and even parents of alumni continue to care at least some amount.

Sorry, I've been woefully involved in a threadjack here.

 

Glad I'm not the only one thinking this. I might have done this a time or two when I had a feature-type angle (usually for a sport other than football; I try to save those for second-day stories during football season), but I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis.
And while you can get some writing done at halftime, I don't think a lot of coaches would be thrilled if you tried to shag quotes right then.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get cracking on my Super Bowl gamer.

 

No worries, my friend.

It's definitely frustrating the way this business goes sometimes. In the past, I've written in-depth, long-term projects that took months and months of research and get little to no response.

Then I'd write a quick gamer in 15 minutes because of a tight deadline a day later and get 20 e-mails about how much people appreciated the article.

Sigh.

 

It's funny because while both places are great places to live, the differences are night and day. Ann Arbor is a very liberal, probably the most liberal town in Michigan. It's got this old rich neighborhood with an old rich downtown, lots of hippies, lots of students lots of old people driving Volkswagen's Hondas and going hiking on the weekends. Very diverse, very open, lots of sushi. Starbucks on every corner. Well not really.

Then there's Grand Rapids the Christian-Reform center of Michigan. It is all surrounded by new suburbs of republican people that go to church every Sunday and did not vote for Barack Obama. Nice downtown, but you aren't going to see anyone playing hackey sack, skateboarding, or protesting against PETA. Lots of Jesus loving going on, better football. The whole downtown is owned by a few rich families and it is basically RED territory.

Okay, I think I've done the best job I can stereotyping those places. Glad I could help.

 

Grand Rapids is indeed a very uptight place.

 

Fixed

 

Kent County (where GR is located) actually went for Obama this year. It was a very slim margin, about 1500 votes.

 

back to the thread jack

What I meant by writing in advance wasn't sitting down and banging out the whole thing days in advance.
What I mean was, let's say a record was on the line, so a graf or two about the record, then another graf on the national mark.
If the game had something noteworthy about it, like the travel, then that gets a graf. Then another graf about the conference or playoff race.
Then another graf about when both teams play next.

What you get is a series of unconnected paragraphs that you can build around as a framework, use as needed, or simply not use.
But generally speaking, it will be a couple hundred words and if you are filing 400 words or so, you already got half of it done.

Some places would call that good work. Writing a tight deadline story that is well researched. It makes for a tighter, cleaner story. And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

 

That explanation makes sense. I know some guys that do something similar.

 

My mantra has always been that enterprise in sports is built on the foundation of solid, basic reporting of who won, by what and how. You can never lose sight that those are the fundamental elements of good sports coverage. If you churn out five great enterprise pieces a week but on Friday night you can't provide all the scores, most of the boxscores and solid gamers on the biggest games, you know what your section is?

A failure.

I've seen the opposite be true too. Some papers are only interested in telling you who won. But I'd rather be in their position. That's fixable.

 

Seems like the G.R. Press could get hit pretty hard by these buyouts. They have A LOT of people there who have been there for years and years. I've never seen a paper with so little turnover. The big editor has been there longer than I can remember...as well as several others.